Andorra Ski Trip

Hey guys! So you´ll never guess what I did this past weekend... I went skiing in Andorra in the Pyrenees Mountains! Skiing! I know what you´re thinking, and you´re right, I definitely don´t know how to ski, but after two days on the slopes I feel like I learned a lot!

In case you don´t know (I didn´t), Andorra is a tiny country in between France and Spain and it is all mountains. I think from the top of any mountain in Andorra you can see both of the other two countries and someone said that all of Andorra is about twice the size of Washington D.C. We got a great deal on our ski trip and we paid a flat fee for two nights in a hotel, two days on the slopes, breakfasts and dinner. Not bad!

22 people signed up for the trip from my program, and it was all organized by students so it was interesting to get everyone the information about timing and such. It worked out really well though and the guys who organized it did a really good job.

We left Barcelona at about 8:00 Friday night and rode on a coach bus for 3 1/2 hours until we got to the hotel. Our hotel wasn´t a lodge or anything by any means, but it was just right for a bunch of students. I stayed with three other people in the only 4 person room, so that was pretty neat because we almost had two rooms.

After hanging out pretty late that night, we all got up early the next morning to leave for the ski lodge at 9:00am. I have absolutely no ski-type clothes up here but I did buy running leggings to wear under jeans for warmth. I actually didn´t have a coat except for my green peacoat, which I didn´t want to ruin, so luckily one of the girls borrowed an extra coat from her host family.

It turns out that there is no way I needed a coat of any type because of how warm it was during the day. I ended up skiing in just a sweatshirt with mittens and a scarf. And yes, I actually went skiing!

Free ski lessons was included with our package deal, but I thought it would be more fun to try and figure it out for myself. Also, there were quite a few people on our trip who are really good skiiers from Colorado so they definitely gave me some tips. After a few scary runs down the bunny hill, pizza-ing all the way, I actually moved to an intermediate hill! Oh boy.

I´m not going to lie, it was super scary at first and I had no control over my turning to try to weave as much as I should have. But it was a learning process, right? I started to figure it out with the help of my two friends who were extremely patient with me. There really are a lot of great people on my program and everyone was really good about looking out for one another. I spent most of the day with Steve and Zach, who were actually snowboarding, so it was interesting to figure things out about skis with them.

Also, we definitely had some problems with the ski lifts! At one point, I accidently stuck out one of my poles as we were getting off and completely tripped Steve. I felt so bad! At the same time though, it was quite hilarious! Another time I caught my right ski on one of their boards and twisted my ankle so bad that the ski popped off and the ski lift guy had to put it on the next lift. Oops.

I only fell once though that first day! Granted, I was being overly cautious, but whatever... still counts! Seriously, this was one of the most fun things I´ve ever done. Although it definitely took the ability to laugh at myself! One time I couldn´t figure out how to walk uphill to the top of a slope and two of the guys literally pulled me up... I could not stop laughing!

We were done for the day at about 5:00, which is right before the sun sets anyways. We all hung out that night and had some adventures but we were pretty pumped to get back out there the next morning. Speaking of the next morning, if I didn´t fall much the first day I definitely made up for it on Sunday...

One of my friends who is actually quite good at snowboarding convinced a bunch of us to go all the way up to the top of the mountain because the sights were amazing. Now, I say convinced because the only way to get down from the top of the mountain is an expert level slope which I and maybe two other people were definitely not ready for. In any case, he convinced me that the photographic opportunity would be worth it and that the hill wasn´t that bad.

Well, he was right about one thing, the scenery was amazing. We went to the top and could see nothing but other snow covered mountains for miles... it was incredible. I actually didn´t have my camera because I was afraid of ruining it on the slopes, but I borrowed my friends and took a bunch of photos that I´ll get from him sometime soon.

Going down was interesting, to say the least! The slopes were all pretty icy and I had issues staying up and maintaining a slow speed. One of the other girls and I were having the most difficulty and for awhile two of the guys stayed to help us out. We felt awful though, so we sent them on ahead and struggled through it on our own. And boy do I mean struggled.

I used more muscles in one day than I have in a very long time, especially my arm muscles to constantly pull myself up when I fell every few minutes. I´m going to call it a character-building activity because I was so close to tears at how difficult it was to get down without flying off the edge or something like that. I´m glad I did it though, and Jess (the other girl) and I worked it out together and eventually got into a rhythm to ski down the mountain. Not even pizza-ing!

I was so thoroughly exausted after all that though that I almost collapsed at a little diner half way down. We all ate to take a break and then continued down the mountain on an easier slope. When I get those pictures from Steve I will post one of the hill I went down.. it was crazy!

You should all be proud of me! ;)

Anyways we finished up skiing / snowboarding by 4 or 5 again and got on the bus to go home to Barcelona. We did stop to get dinner and go shopping before leaving Andorra though because apparently things are really cheap there. I didn´t notice a real difference, and I only bought some food.

The day wasn´t over yet... the Packer game, which was sometime in the afternoon back in Wisconsin began at 12:45am here. There are quite a few other die-hard Packer fans and people who wanted to see the Packers win, so a bunch of us went to another sports bar to watch the game. I didn´t get home until 5:00am...

No me gusta.

If you wached the game though, you know it was a good one and that the Packers lost in overtime, which killed me since I had stayed up so late to watch. Oh well. We gave it a good run.

I got up for class this morning at 8:00, went, and then went back home to take a siesta in my little sofa chair. This whole weekend at then the game left me completely and utterly exhausted. I could barely function, but I´m feeling much better now.

I´m going to take it easy this weekend and maybe go to an outlet store outside of Barcelona to hit up the last weekend of holiday sales here. I´m also going to start planning more trips, and I think I´m going to stay in Europe for about 5 days after my program ends to go to Athens with a few friends.

I also want to make it to France, Ireland (for St. Patty´s day) and maybe Rome. We´ll see which ones have deals that match my class schedules. All my classes begin next week! Oh boy.

And I know classes back home have begun again too, and I´m starting to miss Wisconsin and Minnesota a little bit. The cold weather in the mountains and watching the game reminded me of home and how different things are from there. So it was my first twinge of homesickness, but not too bad considering I´ve been here for three weeks already. Oh, if anyone is interested it setting up a time to skype me, let me know! It´s easier if we set something up in advance.

Well, thanks for reading, and let me know how you are doing! It´s nice to know what´s going on back home too!

Carli

---

---