This always happens to me. During the week when I am busy, I see and think of lots of things I think you would all really enjoy hearing about. Then as soon as I take the time to sit down and write about them I can't remember what they were and I am left asking myself about what I should write.
That being said, I did go skiing this past Thursday which was a very new experience for me. The university has a ski school and for the cost of 30euros you are able to take as many ski lessons as you want. You also get cut rates on lift passes, rentals, and they organize charter buses to the mountains on certain days.
Since I have never been skiing before I took full advantage of the lessons and took the bus up on Thursday afternoon after my class. It was a beautiful day, the sun was shining, I was even too hot with all the layers I was wearing. I'm not complaining though, some of my friends went up on the weekend previous and had to cut their trips short because of freezing body parts. I can't compare the resort to skiing on the island since I've never been but it was pretty cool, were were surrounded by other mountains on all sides. I didn't take any pictures as I was concentrating on not falling while learning to walk in ski boots, but in the future I plan to take some. If you want to check out what it looks like in real time here is a link to the 7 laux webcams.
As opposed to home, skiing is incredibly close. It took us about 40 minutes to get to the ski hill. Out of curiosity I looked up how many other ski resorts were in the surrounding area and there is a HUGE number, check out this website for a visual representation. There has to be at least 20 within an hour drive, though I image I will be sticking to the three that offer the discounted lift passes. Which brings me to the second difference, the cost. For transport to and from the mountains, 1/2 day lift pass and ski rentals I paid $45, which seems like a pretty good deal to me.
As far as the actual skiing is concerned it also went really well. My instructors were quite funny and very encouraging. I got to play the role of translator as my entire class of first time skiers who didn't really speak French very well. Since the instructors didn't really speak English the instructions weren't being understood very well. For a few minutes they were yelling "flechi tes genoux" repeatedly at different people as we worked on skiing, eventually it occurred to me that other people might not know what that meant (they weren't following instructions) so I decided to yell out "bend your knees", that worked much better. After this all three of the teachers got really excited, and peppered me with questions about how to give ski specific instructions ( favourites were 'do that again' and 'thighs' and 'bend your knees') They were also interested as to how I was able to speak French and I proudly replied that I am Canadian. I found out one of the guys had been to Quebec when he was my age (he's about 40 now I would guess) and he had a really great time, they were all quite a fun bunch.
I also got to explain the 'tire fesse' (translates literally to bum pull) to a german student who didn't really speak french.. For all of you who don't know what a tire fesse its a kind of ski lift, there is a long pole attached to a rotating cable. At the end of each pole, a disk is attached. As the poles come around you grab them, put the pole between your legs and kind of rest your bum on the disk, hence tire fesse. They also had chair lifts, but since I was only on the bunny hill, a chair lift would have been completely impractical and unnecessary.
As far as my actual advances in the world of sking I am much better than I was originally. I learnt how to walk in ski boots downhill and also up stairs (it's quite difficult). I had to do sort of a walk of shame at the beginning. Once you get to the hill you have to walk about 1km through the resort to where you get the ski passes, they have a skiable walkway, so everyone puts on their skis/snowboards and off they go. I was in the unique position of having no idea how to put my skis on, so I was definitely not going to attempt skiing to the main area. I felt pretty rookie walking along watching everyone ski past me. I must have also looked quite funny walking down the hilly parts in the ski boots (it was really more like a barely controlled skate downhill).
Once we had the lift passes, we took the lift up to the middle area where there was a valley type area were they had a beginner area. By the end of the day I was able to turn quite well and barely fell at all. I was actually surprised by how little I fell (probably only about 10 times over 3.5 hours). I was kind of expecting it to be like skating, and was pleasantly surprised when I left without bruised knees and buttocks. Here's to hoping my progress continues at this rate.
As a charity update I have now made $2.52, so excellent progress is being made. Thanks to everyone who's reading my blog for your loyalty!
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