Faire du ski

After all my travel woes and a nice relaxing train trip to Grenoble I arrived at Les Deux Alpes for a week of skiing. I opted to join a group trip with outgoingski which included everything – meals, ski pass, ski’s lessons and accommodation – it was a great deal – thanks Craig! I was in a shared dorm with another Australian and 2 girls from UK. Admittedly we were crammed into a tiny room but the view from the window the next morning when I woke up was amazing.
I was in the beginner class obviously and we had lessons at 9am for the first 2 days so it was an early wake up to get fitted with boots and borrow some ski gear from the resort before heading out to the slopes. I was a day behind everyone as I arrived late but managed to catch up after the first few falls! Ended up getting a private lesson at the end as everyone was tired from their après-ski events the night before and bailed early. It helped that I knew a bit of French too!
After a well deserved lunch and nap (skiing is hard work!) we hit the slopes again to get in a bit of practice. This was to become a bit of a routine which was nice after doing so much travelling! Improved my confidence on Tuesday although I got a bit cocky and went up one of the button lifts, freaked out at the top because it was too steep and ended up walking part of the way down while little kids wizzed past me!
We had the Wednesday off, so a massive Tuesday night was had by all. We went on a pub crawl that night with lots of free shots, foam, crazy dancing, too much noise in the dorms and the hangover to go with it all! Managed to get onto the slopes for a little while on Wednesday with a lot of effort, my legs needed the day off too!
On Thursday, our lessons changed to the afternoon so had a nice late start on the slopes. The weather was awful so had to buy some goggles, it was snowing and windy and blizzard. Trust this to be the day that we headed up to the big slopes – scary much! Had a good time on the green runs and learnt how to catch a chair lift successfully after a few goes! The snow was gorgeous and fluffy and deep and I felt so much more confident than when I was on the nursery slopes which were so icy and really scary if you fell over because you would just keep going! I absolutely loved skiing, such an awesome feeling and will definitely keep it up!
On Friday – my last day skiing- the other Australian girl offered to take me up in the morning to do some green runs with her. The weather was really really bad; they closed down the gondolas so we had to catch one of the bigger ones up to the top. When we eventually got up the mountain, it was even worse up there, the snow was being wiped up like sand and flicking into you. Managed to do a few runs before we gave up and went to have a drink and lunch at the bar on top of the slopes – much nicer! Luckily I had to rush downt he mountain to get to my last lesson – which I missed coz I was too late. But shortly after I got down they closed all the lifts up and down the mountain which would have meant I would have had to ski down the mountain most likely on my bum!
We had a few farewell drinks on the Friday night and were up bright and early on Saturday to leave. Ofcourse it was a gorgeous day for skiing, but was nice to travel down the mountain in the daylight – it was beautiful.
I loved skiing and now I can say I learnt to ski in the Alpes – how awesome is my life!