We had an enthusiastic driver (British) who picked us up at the airport and told us all the thing we needed to know about skiing in France. He made sure we knew how to say "my French is very bad" in French and encouraged us to try as hard as we could in order to gain the friendliness of the country French who we would be talking to. So we did and I have to say that all the negative things that people say about the French are just not true (in our experience, at least). We spoke our terrible pidgeon French and they were very nice to us (with the exception of a couple of people who mocked our pronunciation). And it was FUN to try to remember our high school French. I'm kind of inspired to take some French classes now (I know, I know, I need to learn Spanish...)
We got to the chalet before Carolina, Dave, Santiago, and Dylan, so we hung around outside taking some pictures. Here's the view from the yard and we had a similar view from our bedroom window:
Inside the chalet was like a wood cabin and outside it looked country and rustic. Everyone was complaining about how little snow there was (global warming), but it snowed heavily up in the mountains and there was enough snow for some vicious snowball fights and sledding.
2 year old Santi watched and learned while Jim, Dave and Dylan pelted each other with snowballs. Mostly he just wanted to take his gloves off and was more interested in using the broom to sweep Dylan and dancing to The Magic Numbers, and not going to bed under any circumstance:
Dylan, age 8, is a skilled and dedicated snowballer. He also excels in skiing without poles and French X-box (Star Wars in particular):
Dave and Santi "sledged" down the hill in a forward position, while Dylan and Jim got fancy. Caroline watched from above.
I looked the ultimate in cool in my ski pants. Additionally, they appeared to make me look very short, which is a funny concept and not something that I have ever experienced:
Say what you want about my lack of ski style,but those pants are incredibly waterproof and warm...two qualities which were important since I spent most of my time on the slopes in this position:
We were able to walk to the ski lifts and ride straight up to the mountain from the chalet. We took the old ski lifts, which were rickety egg-shaped pods that were not entirely water or snow proof. After a couple of runs on the bunny hill, we skied mostly on Blues and the Blues in France are unlike any other Blues I have ever skied (and since I have only ever skied once before this, that's not saying much, BUT it was confirmed by someone else that the blue runs in France are harder than any other blue runs in the rest of Europe). I was, to be frank, terrified at some points. But there was no way back but down, so I made my crashing way down the mountain. The picture above was one of my more graceful falls, where I simply flew out of control off the side of the run and into a huge pile of snow. I also lost control and went down the mountain backwards, on my stomach, doing the splits, and most amusing for everyone involved but me, one my face. The most painful fall was when I crashed backwards on an icey run. I still feel that fall. There were times during our ski trip that I resembled a crying, snotty abominable snow man. Fortunately, things went much better on our third day and I even went down a Red, which wasn't exactly planned, but was necessary since, again, it was the only way down.
Unlike me, Jim is a really good skier. He has great control and speed and grace and only fell about four times the whole weekend. And he even agreed, reluctantly, to ski with me again the day after my massive down the mountain melt-down. Because of my panicking, we almost missed the last lift down from the resort. On Sunday,we worked out a system where he could fly down the mountain at his own speed and then would stand at the bottom and cheer me on as I made my wedged, slow turning way down. I was really impressed by Jim. Here he is in all his ski glory on one of the lifts:
And, in front of some of the mountains. I still can't believe we were skiing in the French Alps. the view, as we were going up the mountains on the ski lifts and when we got to the top were amazing. These pictures don't do it justice:
I was really good at "the wedge" and used a lot of energy trying to keep from flying off the side of the mountain and to complete my turns. It has been two days since we went skiing and I still can't get up and down the stairs or walk in non-Frankenstein style. Of course, Jim is hardly sore at all.
Fortunately, there were a lot of places to stop and take a break and we learned that taking some food and drink breaks was the way to make it through the day. Unfortunately both our goggles were stolen at this place and Jim forgot to try to speak French, so they were a little rude to us. But they redeemed themselves because one of the people who worked there took our picture. Happy times! This place is also where we had our first bathroom experience in France, where both men and women share the same bathroom, with male and female stalls designated. Somehow I didn't really mind that there was a man in the stall next to me.
Hopefully we'll ski again next year!
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