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Published: March 19th 2011
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Traveling to Spain was an amazingly enriching experience.......just kidding, it was A BLAST!!! It taught me not only how to perfect my skiing, but an important life lesson: When traveling, it is not the beautiful scenery, the stunning attractions, or even the fun activities that make the trip memorable, but the amazing people who you meet along the way.
The morning of our departure, blurry eyed and laden with my gigantic suitcase, I met the other canadian student, Victoria for the first time. After a slightly akward introduction, where we both made a rather pathetic attempt at a the french greeting "bisous", we exchanged a couple words in frenglish. Five minutes of this uncomfortable chatter later, she turned to me apologetically and explained "My french is pretty much a joke... I only know a couple of words so lets just speak in english." This flat out- statement dissolved all and any awkwardness between us and, as we chatted excitedly in english and swapped stories of our adventures in Paris, I knew that a genuine friendship was in the making.
Three hours of bus trip later, we had passed into the country of bull-fighting and fiestas and were halfway
done our journey to Boi Taull ski resort. Contrary to my assumption, we were not assaulted at the boarder any grumpy spanish officers demanding to see our passports, but glided right through into Spain without even slowing down the bus.
The transition between Spain and France is subtle(only a true seasoned traveler like moi could pick out the differences) however, whenever I managed to tear my eyes from the cliche Pick-me -up camp movies they were playing, I picked out more and more discrete changes in scenery . For example, the farther we got from France the more rocky and dark the towns got. Finally, at some point, they began to look as if they were actually chiseled right out of the mountains hard grey rock. (Maybe these changes weren't that subtle..... but I try!)
As the bus crawled higher and higher into the mountains, the towns grew fewer and father between until, at last, all that surrounded us was an ocean of craggy white capped mountains. Spiralling up one last deserted road, we pulled into the resort.
One somewhat challenging staircase climb later(maybe I shouldn't have packed all those clothes), and we were
The expert group
Tiffane, Timothe, Camille, Parine, Maxime, Alexis, me,Juliette, Ian in our room. It was cozy, nicely furnished and neat....or at least it was neat for about 5 minutes before we started unpacking. Once Charlotte, Alexiane, Victoria and I had finished arranging our affaires, we settled in for a night of fiesta.
2 HOURS LATER.....
Stuffed full of french fries and pasta, we lumbered back to our room; but, getting a goodnight's rest for our big ski day tomorrow, was not marked anywhere on our itinerary. Behind us trailed all a large party of kids who we had met at dinner. They exploded into our room for a night of ski camp bonding. Several hours later, ears ringing with french music that had been blasting out of of someones blackberry, I stumbled into bed and passed out.
FIRST DAY SKIING
Our bus escorted us to the bottom of the ski mountains where all 60 of us scrambled out into the parking lot and engaged in a type of mad dash to retrieve our skies. I came out of the tangle of grabby limbs triumphantly holding my pair of beaten rental skies and wearing a pair of boots that had long since passed their
Me and Loryane
both had sunburns that night prime, but cradled my feet nicely. Off I marched, to the base of the hill to be sorted into my skill group.
I waited, nerves tense, ears straining to hear my name over the excited chatter......."Danika Thibault, group expert" GULP, the expert group. How they placed me, remains an unsolved mystery to this day; none of them had ever seen me ski. I silently prayed to the ski gods that they had not over estimated my skill level.
Clicking into my skies, which looked as if they had not been waxed since the time of the wooly mammoth, I glided towards my skill group. Fortunately, luck was on my side that day, and I picked out a familiar face amongst the expert group; it was Alexis Barjou who I had met yesterday. He and his two younger brothers Timothe and Maxime (who are twins) rode up the chairlift with me several times that day, and I chuckled knowingly as I watched several sibling rivalries play out (who got the most air off the last jump etc.). Chairlifts, as it turns out, are a key component in improving ones french; after a day's worth of constantly riding up
Riding up the chairlift
(don't worry I didn't drop my camera) them and blabbering away to the other passengers, I was starting to feel quite confident in my speaking skills. Thank you expert group, I couldn't have done it without you.
DAY TWO....DAY OF SUNTANNING IN THE GLACIERS
Stepping off the bus in the morning, I was struck by a mind boggling phenomenon that seemed to defy all laws of nature. I was situated at a ski resort where there was snow and, I kid you not, I was feeling uncomfortably warm. Narrowing my eyes, I pinched myself, checked myself for a fever, then looked around suspiciously. Thankfully, unless they put something in everyones french fries last night, I was not hallucinating. Looking around, I saw other kids reacting similarly; first looking incredulously at the enormous golden sun hovering above the mountains, then looking in exasperation at the many jackets and scarves they had been advised to wear by their elders. I saw a nice goggle tan in my near future.
The weather wasn't the only thing that was unusual about the ski hill.
1) There was not a single tree on the entire mountain.
2) It would take extreme skill to get lost, as all the
WOW!
(national geographic here I come!) runs are open and visible from every chairlift (makes wiping out that much more humiliating)
3) All their runs are groomed. Yes, slightly disappointing, but if you go "off run" you can find a few good bumps.
4)The temperature literally doesn't dip below 0 degrees.... mucho caliente!!!
DAY THREE... DAY OF THE GREAT STORM
The weather underwent a drastic mood swing during the night, and we woke up to wind howling the speed of a jet plane outside our bedroom window and snow whipping wildly across the slate grey sky. However, determined to conquer the weather, our group pilled into the bus and we were towed up to the mountain. Unfortunately, the ski hill wasn't quite as courageous(or stupid) as our group, and made the decision not to open a single chair lift. This of course meant that we had to re descend to our ski resort...only we couldn't. The wind had picked up considerable speed and strength since our arrival and had left us marooned in the ski hill parking lot. Our bus driver, Pierre, was luckily equipped with several old- school french James Bond movies and , in what seemed like no time, we
were inching our way down the icy road to our resort. Not exactly a Robinson Crusoe adventure, but I will not complain.
NIGHT FEVER....(still day three)
The afternoon had whisked by and, after another dinner of pasta and french fries, in was time to prepare for the discotheque. All crammed into our room were Loryane, Julie, Coraline, Caroline,Oceane, Victoria, Alexiane, Charlotte and me and, once the fumes of hairspray and nailpolish became too strong too bear, we headed off into the cool night towards the discotheque. As it turns out, discotheque has nothing to do with disco ( I'll have to brush out my afro), but is my generations standard version of a good time. Music blaring, strobe light flashing, limbs moving wildly we danced the night away. If dance truly is a universal language, I'm sure we will all one day find ourselves locked up in a mental institute.
The ski trip, already half done, was turning out to be one of those experiences that will forever have it's own special place close to my heart. I was already dreading leaving the great friends I had made.
STAY TUNED FOR PART II
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Grandma
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Finally!
I know, you think that the title "Finally" refers to the fact that you have finally posted another blog, but you're wrong. "Finally" refers to the fact that we now know what an Oceane is. Everybody's been wondering. Seriously, I'm so happy that there is a new posting. I just love your writing. Keep them coming! love, Grandma