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Published: February 9th 2007
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All smiles
On the way up, I could not wait to get on the snow. Living in one of Europe's best ski towns and not trying skiing would be a cardinal sin. I therefore ran across the road to the Salomon ski shop and worked out a nice deal with a gentleman by the name of George which included a four hour ski lesson and all the equipment at a very good price. Nice. Walk the 40m to the gondola lift station in those ridiculous ski boots that make you look like you are walking on the moon. Stood in the long line and spoke for a long time with a fantastic guy from Ireland, reached the front of the cue and realized that I did not have my card on me(never carry it on me in BG) and that I was short 15 levs. Patsy just whipped out a 20, said no worries and would not even take the 5 levs change. I offered to pay him back after the skiing and he refused. I plan to meet up with him when I go and take a look around Sofia sometime this month.
Jumped on the gondola with the team and away I went. Lifted high above the Pirin mountains giving way to spectacular views
Princess Maria
My awesome instructor Maria in red. She was is as funny as they come. of the Rhodolpe and Rila mountains as well as the town of Bansko.
Jumped off the gondola and clipped my boots in and I was away!! I have always wanted to ski and at the ripe age of 24 I got to give it a bash. My instructor was this really great bulgarian girl called Maria, such a tom boy. Loves skiing, hiking and fishing. Such a cool person. It was very tricky at first just staying still on the snow and not sliding down was tricky as was turning around and getting up after having fallen down. We did the snow plough(pointing your tips of your skis together to cause more friction) drills and all that stuff but I was always itching just to go and do it. So I did and on the 5km run down from the gondola into Bansko I was parallel skiing and parallel turning, not quite parallel stopping though. It was amazing, I loved it. I was getting some great speed down the slopes, I think I might have been overly confident due to the fact that I had not yet had a bad wipe out. When I got to Bansko I promptly took
Bansko from afar
Such magnificent views from the gondola. my skis off and jumped on the gondola and did it all again. Loved it, going skiing again this weekend.
On a side note, I had the most ridiculous driving experience of my life this morning. We had a couple of clients that we took out to some of the developments. But you see Vesso (the crazy bulgarian guy) smashed up our 4x4 car so we only have this terrible mercedes 2 wheel drive van thing which is useless to drive around these bomb shelled roads. So it rained all of last night and when we got to the turn off for Crystal development before my eyes lay a quagmire of mud and crap. So what do I do? Turn around or just gun it? Well of course I gunned it and had the craziest drive of my life. I mean these roads are awful, there are no words to describe the state of these so called roads. My car was spinning in the mud, the under chassis was smashing into boulders and at times I had to turn the steering wheel a full 180 just to keep the car going straight. Well about a km along the road
Standing in line to see the show tonight and theres a light on....
The guy next to me on the ski back home lost control and came crashing into the back of me and took my legs out. We were inter tangled for a good few minutes! plumes of white smoke started erupting out of the front, oh boy and here I am shouting at the top of my lungs "FUCK, what the hell!!" and these poor clients in the back were looking a bit shell shocked themselves. Well I eventually managed to turn the car around and get it pointing in the right direction and we headed back over the same muddy, icey, bouldery, big ditches everywhere road from hell. What a ride, a narrative to tell the kids for sure.
Oh and on another side note, Stu and I went to this construction site yesterday to look at a development around lunch time. It was nuts, all the construction workers and I mean all were sitting around eating and knocking back beer after beer. Even in the canteen where they all eat they serve straight vodka or you can buy 2 litre beers!! None of these guys wear hard hats and when they are 6 floors up and grabbing planks from the cranes they are not harnessed in at all. Crazy stuff, certainly would not fly in the states! I ended up egging Stu on and we sat down with all these hard, really
tough Bulgarian construction workers and ate our $1,50 semi raw meatballs with cabbage. I love experiences like that, I just enjoy soaking it all up.
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