It's been a whirlwind week and last night we decided that we are going to Cornwall for some rest and relaxation (much needed,especially, by Jim). From the pictures, Cornwall looks like an English Cape Cod...and even though the weather is supposed to go from beautiful to very cold this weekend we will still be glad to have a mini vacation.
In other news, I still don't have a job. I interviewed for a one week position at the place where I would like to have a full time job, but didn't get the position because of my minimal Mac skills and lack of knowledge about a graphics design program. I'm still hopeful that maybe they'll want me for another, permanent position that's more my field.
My computer is also suffering seriously after I dumped a vase of water (and flowers)on it. I now know how to remove a keyboard from laptop...maybe I'll put that on my resume.
We will take lots of pictures and report back on our Cornwall experiences. We'll be staying in a place called Mousehole (pronounced Mowzhal) in a B&B that used to be a Flowershed in someone's yard (now it's a B&B in someone's yard). Should be interesting.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Thursday, March 08, 2007
London with Mom and Dad
This morning, Mom and Dad left after an action packed almost week in London. We had so much fun, but they wore us out!
Mom and Dad got to our house last Friday at around 9:30am. Despite the fact that they were exhausted, we powered through and headed to Borough Market, where Jim met us for lunch. After eating our way through the market, we strolled over to Tower Bridge and then made our way to the Tower of London. Below are Mom, Dad, and Jim standing in front of the Thames and then at the Tower of London, where we had a tour with one of the Beefeaters (yawn) and then climbed to the top of the White Tower, where Henry the VII's armor was displayed. We were fascinated by the large size of his armor--he was HUGE! I feel sorry for the horse he rode. We also were amused by the historic cup attached to the crotch area of his suit of armor, which was very prominant and protected his family jewels.
The next day, we headed to Frommagerie (I probably didn't spell that right), a great wine and cheese store which also has breakfast. Unfortunately, next to us was a man named Trevor, who was alternately trying to grope a young lady to his left and talk to my parents about politics and books and everything else that he was a know it all about. Jim and I, not being as charmed by the English personality and also not wanting to get into a discussion about our president and terrorism and religion, just focused on our eggs and cheese. Mom was incredibly restrained, and Dad was very friendly and managed to talk to Trevor all by himself for the entire time we were at breakfast. After breakfast, we ran into Trevor again on the street and he finally gave us a useful piece of information, which was that there was going to be a total eclipse of the moon on Saturday night and that the moon would turn red (all true, up and down our street were people gaping at the moon and total eclipse parties in upper balconies). After that, we dodged Trevor (who just kept popping up everywhere) and ducked into the tube station to head to Kew Gardens. But, just for entertainment purposes, here is a picture of Trevor talking to us about the eclipse:
Kew Gardens is about to burst open with flowers. We caught the very beginning of the budding, which is marked by a carpet of crocus on the lawn of the Gardens as we walked in. The Palm house was so humid and warm that we couldn't last long, but we enjoyed strolling around the gardens outside and if I still don't have a job in a month (likely), I might go back and see them again when things are in full bloom.
Jim, Mom, and Dad in Kew Gardens:
Jim poses with a dragon:
Mom in front of the daffodils:
Dad matched the blue flowers:
Jim in front of a tree filled with orchids:
After Kew Gardens, Mom and Dad got a good taste of what the tube can be like, as we waited for almost an hour for our tube to arrive and then had to switch lines because a train had broken down on ours. The experience was so horrible that Jim got sick and couldn't join us for dinner.
On Sunday, Chef Jim whipped up some delicious French Toast in honor of Mom's birthday. Dan and Meg joined us and we had a champagne brunch!
Then we instant messaged with Kate and got all the details about the gifts she received at her lingerie party:
Monday was the most action packed day of all (I think). We started the day off at the Tate Britain and then took a boat from Tate to Tate (Modern) down the Thames. It was a great way to see part of Central London. At the Tate Modern, there are very tall slides set up (an exhibit of some sort, I think). Dad and I slid down from the third floor and then from the fifth floor (pictures coming soon). We also enjoyed the art, although Mom was scandalized by how expensive the gift shops were and also by the fact that she didn't get to see the top two floors because we had to rush off to Covent Gardens. At Covent Gardens we refreshed ourselves with coffee and then shopped until we almost dropped. Dad headed back home to have dinner with Jim while Mom and I went to the Royal Opera House for the ballet. We saw Apollo and the world premier of Children of Adam, which was very sexual and sad. The third act was another more traditional dance and they were all really wonderful. Even though we were in the nosebleed section, we had a great view of the stage.
On Tuesday, we visited Jim in Canary Wharf and got to stand in the lobby of where here works, after having to go through several levels of security. He has great views of the city. After lunch, we headed to Greenwich, our old hood, where we walked along the Thames, visited the Maritime museum, and then trudged up the hill in Greenwich Park and stood on the Prime Meridian.
And finally, yesterday, Mom and Dad ended their trip with a 10 mile walk in the country along with the American Women's Club ladies. It was a beautiful day and they were great sports and didn't complain at all (see previous blog about the Winchester Walk complainers). Here they are in action and then at the pub where we stopped for lunch:
Sadly, today, Mom and Dad had to go home and relieve Aunt Sue of pet duty, so after a hearty breakfast at the Dawson House Hotel, I waved goodbye to them as they drove off in their mini cab and trudged home...alone again. :-(
Mom and Dad got to our house last Friday at around 9:30am. Despite the fact that they were exhausted, we powered through and headed to Borough Market, where Jim met us for lunch. After eating our way through the market, we strolled over to Tower Bridge and then made our way to the Tower of London. Below are Mom, Dad, and Jim standing in front of the Thames and then at the Tower of London, where we had a tour with one of the Beefeaters (yawn) and then climbed to the top of the White Tower, where Henry the VII's armor was displayed. We were fascinated by the large size of his armor--he was HUGE! I feel sorry for the horse he rode. We also were amused by the historic cup attached to the crotch area of his suit of armor, which was very prominant and protected his family jewels.
The next day, we headed to Frommagerie (I probably didn't spell that right), a great wine and cheese store which also has breakfast. Unfortunately, next to us was a man named Trevor, who was alternately trying to grope a young lady to his left and talk to my parents about politics and books and everything else that he was a know it all about. Jim and I, not being as charmed by the English personality and also not wanting to get into a discussion about our president and terrorism and religion, just focused on our eggs and cheese. Mom was incredibly restrained, and Dad was very friendly and managed to talk to Trevor all by himself for the entire time we were at breakfast. After breakfast, we ran into Trevor again on the street and he finally gave us a useful piece of information, which was that there was going to be a total eclipse of the moon on Saturday night and that the moon would turn red (all true, up and down our street were people gaping at the moon and total eclipse parties in upper balconies). After that, we dodged Trevor (who just kept popping up everywhere) and ducked into the tube station to head to Kew Gardens. But, just for entertainment purposes, here is a picture of Trevor talking to us about the eclipse:
Kew Gardens is about to burst open with flowers. We caught the very beginning of the budding, which is marked by a carpet of crocus on the lawn of the Gardens as we walked in. The Palm house was so humid and warm that we couldn't last long, but we enjoyed strolling around the gardens outside and if I still don't have a job in a month (likely), I might go back and see them again when things are in full bloom.
Jim, Mom, and Dad in Kew Gardens:
Jim poses with a dragon:
Mom in front of the daffodils:
Dad matched the blue flowers:
Jim in front of a tree filled with orchids:
After Kew Gardens, Mom and Dad got a good taste of what the tube can be like, as we waited for almost an hour for our tube to arrive and then had to switch lines because a train had broken down on ours. The experience was so horrible that Jim got sick and couldn't join us for dinner.
On Sunday, Chef Jim whipped up some delicious French Toast in honor of Mom's birthday. Dan and Meg joined us and we had a champagne brunch!
Then we instant messaged with Kate and got all the details about the gifts she received at her lingerie party:
Monday was the most action packed day of all (I think). We started the day off at the Tate Britain and then took a boat from Tate to Tate (Modern) down the Thames. It was a great way to see part of Central London. At the Tate Modern, there are very tall slides set up (an exhibit of some sort, I think). Dad and I slid down from the third floor and then from the fifth floor (pictures coming soon). We also enjoyed the art, although Mom was scandalized by how expensive the gift shops were and also by the fact that she didn't get to see the top two floors because we had to rush off to Covent Gardens. At Covent Gardens we refreshed ourselves with coffee and then shopped until we almost dropped. Dad headed back home to have dinner with Jim while Mom and I went to the Royal Opera House for the ballet. We saw Apollo and the world premier of Children of Adam, which was very sexual and sad. The third act was another more traditional dance and they were all really wonderful. Even though we were in the nosebleed section, we had a great view of the stage.
On Tuesday, we visited Jim in Canary Wharf and got to stand in the lobby of where here works, after having to go through several levels of security. He has great views of the city. After lunch, we headed to Greenwich, our old hood, where we walked along the Thames, visited the Maritime museum, and then trudged up the hill in Greenwich Park and stood on the Prime Meridian.
And finally, yesterday, Mom and Dad ended their trip with a 10 mile walk in the country along with the American Women's Club ladies. It was a beautiful day and they were great sports and didn't complain at all (see previous blog about the Winchester Walk complainers). Here they are in action and then at the pub where we stopped for lunch:
Sadly, today, Mom and Dad had to go home and relieve Aunt Sue of pet duty, so after a hearty breakfast at the Dawson House Hotel, I waved goodbye to them as they drove off in their mini cab and trudged home...alone again. :-(
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
A Country Hike with a Twist--Whiskey! (for some)
On Sunday, after bailing once on the hike we were supposed to do on Saturday, we finally got it together and went to do the Winchester hike that I will either help lead or will lead next week (with Mom and Dad in attendance! Hooray!) Dan came along for the ten mile hike, which made it fun in a different way than usual (because it's always fun).
Things started off normally enough. We all met at the train station, got our tickets, and had to sprint to catch our train. Before sprinting, Jim and Dan got some healthy McDonalds food and some typical British beef stuffed pie thing. From the beginning, they were taking this hike VERY seriously, as evidenced by the expressions on their faces in this picture.
After avoiding the Time Out Walking group who coincidentally happened to be doing the same country walk as we were (but much more efficiently, it turns out), we got a little side tracked by this sculpture outside of Winchester Cathedral. If you text message certain words to it, it changes color. We did this both at the beginning of our walk AND at the end (sigh).
Winchester, like a lot of England, used to be occupied by the Romans and one of the major features of this walk were the watermeadows, the man made river Itchen, and the weirs that the Romans used to control the flow of the water. Once we finally got past the sculpture, we experienced idyllic scenes like this:
These sheep/rams (there was much discussion about what they actually were and Jim, despite the whiskey that he and Dan had been 'tasting' wouldn't agree with my plan for him to walk into the flock and find out. I think they were sheep. With horns.) were peacefully hanging out in what is known as "the plague pit." Yep, you guessed it: that's where they tossed the plague victims.
This peaceful scene is also where all the whining and complaining about hills and hurting legs started. We were only about three miles into the hike at this point, so you can imagine how the rest of it went.
I'm not sure what it was that sparked the robot, but there you go. This was when the "how far to the pub" whining started and the first time I thought I might just ditch the guys and make my own way back.
Lucky for them, I thought they were annoying, but still endearing, even when they went running off into this field to take this picture (of a swan, in case you can't tell):
These two swans hissed at us while we were feeding them our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (I don't know why I bother making them because they always end up going to ducks and swans) and then followed us down the canal until we got to the pub.
Inside the pub, there was a picture of one of my ancesctors! (note:I got a new hairdo which will be featured in future blogs. It's shorter and slightly black...hopefully it will get a little less black with lots of shampoo!)
By this time, the whiskey was about half gone and several pints had been consumed by my companions. And this was the result:
I forced our departure before dessert, which I heard about for the rest of the walk. It's not easy having to be the tough one!
Far too early in the walk, Dan got the empty flask blues and decided that he wanted to sit and contemplate a beautiful field. Meanwhile, I contemplated leaving Dan and JIm again.
After we gazed at the field for a few minutes, someone had the brilliant idea to leave apples on the side of the trail so that passing horses (with riders) would stop and eat them. Not surprisingly, this plan really didn't work out that well. Thankfully, we came upon some horses who were all to happy to be fed. Then we tried to get a cow to eat an apple (again, not surprisingly, this didn't work, although one cow got interested in us. Dan was offended by how it didn't even NOTICE the apple we had thrown over the fence.)
Not long after this, Dan finally figured out how to use his GPS system and he and Jim spent some time running erratically in all directions to see if it would tell them they were going the wrong way (it did.) We eventually made it back into the outskirts of town.
We attempted to feed the ducks some smoked almonds, but they had a hard time with them, so it was back to peanut butter and jelly and we ate the almonds ourselves.
To top it all off, Jim and Dan completely disrespected the memory of Jane Austen by striking silly poses in front of the house in which she died. They were more respectful inside the cathedral where she is buried.
At the end of our walk we sent a bunch more text messages to the sculpture and yelled across the courtyard to each other about it and then trudged up the hill to the train station (certain members of our group complaining all the way about the hill)and made our weary way back to London. We had the muddiest feet on the tube, by far:
My tone might be exasperated, but it was a lot of fun.
Things started off normally enough. We all met at the train station, got our tickets, and had to sprint to catch our train. Before sprinting, Jim and Dan got some healthy McDonalds food and some typical British beef stuffed pie thing. From the beginning, they were taking this hike VERY seriously, as evidenced by the expressions on their faces in this picture.
After avoiding the Time Out Walking group who coincidentally happened to be doing the same country walk as we were (but much more efficiently, it turns out), we got a little side tracked by this sculpture outside of Winchester Cathedral. If you text message certain words to it, it changes color. We did this both at the beginning of our walk AND at the end (sigh).
Winchester, like a lot of England, used to be occupied by the Romans and one of the major features of this walk were the watermeadows, the man made river Itchen, and the weirs that the Romans used to control the flow of the water. Once we finally got past the sculpture, we experienced idyllic scenes like this:
These sheep/rams (there was much discussion about what they actually were and Jim, despite the whiskey that he and Dan had been 'tasting' wouldn't agree with my plan for him to walk into the flock and find out. I think they were sheep. With horns.) were peacefully hanging out in what is known as "the plague pit." Yep, you guessed it: that's where they tossed the plague victims.
This peaceful scene is also where all the whining and complaining about hills and hurting legs started. We were only about three miles into the hike at this point, so you can imagine how the rest of it went.I'm not sure what it was that sparked the robot, but there you go. This was when the "how far to the pub" whining started and the first time I thought I might just ditch the guys and make my own way back.
Lucky for them, I thought they were annoying, but still endearing, even when they went running off into this field to take this picture (of a swan, in case you can't tell):
These two swans hissed at us while we were feeding them our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (I don't know why I bother making them because they always end up going to ducks and swans) and then followed us down the canal until we got to the pub.
Inside the pub, there was a picture of one of my ancesctors! (note:I got a new hairdo which will be featured in future blogs. It's shorter and slightly black...hopefully it will get a little less black with lots of shampoo!)
By this time, the whiskey was about half gone and several pints had been consumed by my companions. And this was the result:
I forced our departure before dessert, which I heard about for the rest of the walk. It's not easy having to be the tough one!
Far too early in the walk, Dan got the empty flask blues and decided that he wanted to sit and contemplate a beautiful field. Meanwhile, I contemplated leaving Dan and JIm again.
After we gazed at the field for a few minutes, someone had the brilliant idea to leave apples on the side of the trail so that passing horses (with riders) would stop and eat them. Not surprisingly, this plan really didn't work out that well. Thankfully, we came upon some horses who were all to happy to be fed. Then we tried to get a cow to eat an apple (again, not surprisingly, this didn't work, although one cow got interested in us. Dan was offended by how it didn't even NOTICE the apple we had thrown over the fence.)
Not long after this, Dan finally figured out how to use his GPS system and he and Jim spent some time running erratically in all directions to see if it would tell them they were going the wrong way (it did.) We eventually made it back into the outskirts of town.
We attempted to feed the ducks some smoked almonds, but they had a hard time with them, so it was back to peanut butter and jelly and we ate the almonds ourselves.
To top it all off, Jim and Dan completely disrespected the memory of Jane Austen by striking silly poses in front of the house in which she died. They were more respectful inside the cathedral where she is buried.
At the end of our walk we sent a bunch more text messages to the sculpture and yelled across the courtyard to each other about it and then trudged up the hill to the train station (certain members of our group complaining all the way about the hill)and made our weary way back to London. We had the muddiest feet on the tube, by far:
My tone might be exasperated, but it was a lot of fun.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Mardi Gras in London
Last night all the party people put on their party pants (and boas and glitter make up and sparkles and scary afro wigs) and came over to our flat to celebrate Mardi Gras a few days early. Most of us were decked out in Camden Market's finest--a great place to shop for festive outfits! Dan and Jim sported similar shirts from the same shop and I was dressed as my future self at 85 and going to a fancy hat luncheon with my cronies--blue eye shadow and all. Collectively, there were many feathers, glitter,wings, sequins, stripes, wigs, and a patch. What a fun bunch!
Together again! Tulaners unite in London. Karen and Joel were in town visiting just in time for our party!
Once again I had to defend my honor and remind Dan that it was only HIM who pulled the olive oil stunt senior year of college. Weirdo.
Wanting to stand out in his similar but different costume, JIm asked Dan to pierce his ear with a golden hoop.
Sparkles, sophistication, and....um...something:
And this is Donald when he's looking "normal."
Tony and Sophie came all the way from Wales for our party!
Meg and Dan demonstrated the ancient Mardi Gras Mating/Sword Fight Dance:
And there were further sword demonstrations. Here Dan shows us how improve blood flow and facial expressions through sword movements.
And how to knock someone out without getting out of your Ikea chair.Sophie was very understanding.
There is always time for deep thought during a Mardi Gras Party.
But like scissors beat paper, chocolate trumps deep thought in Jim's world. Thanks to Jack and Mindy for providing delicious Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, which went perfectly with our Mardi Gras cupcakes (I tried to make a king cake, but that didn't work out so well...)
All good things must come to an end and eventually we were left to clean up. Jim was particularly excited about this task. Since it was late and everybody ate his Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, I let him off the hook.
Happy Mardi Gras! Next party: Champagne Brunch! (We got THREE bottles of champagne from our festive friends!)
Monday, February 05, 2007
Found: Okra
It was looking pretty dire for my gumbo, which I have prepared for our Saturday Night Mardi Gras in London bash. Gumbo means "Okra Stew" (or something like that...it's African. My point is that okra plays a key role in gumbo!)and when, after checking in three major supermarkets, I wasn't able to find any, I tried to think of what else I could toss in that wouldn't take away from the authenticity of the dish. And then, in a beam of sunshine, I saw okra outside of a convenience store in a mini-market. Divine intervention! And the gumbo was saved.
Tomorrow: adventures in King Cake making. Major challenge: a very small oven and limited counter space. Good thing most of our party has never had King Cake before, so they won't have anything to compare mine to!
Tomorrow: adventures in King Cake making. Major challenge: a very small oven and limited counter space. Good thing most of our party has never had King Cake before, so they won't have anything to compare mine to!
Skiing in Grand Massif France--C'est Tres Bon!
Our ski trip was incredible despite the fact that we had to get up at 3:30 am to get to the airport in time (in time, in Avant world means 2 hours early. The airport wasn't even OPEN at that point, but they still let us in). We did NOT ski in Switzerland, but we did fly into it and this is what we saw from our plane window:
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!
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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