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Published: October 6th 2008
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Ah, following on from Christmas in Sweden, was a quick trip to the family-friendly ski-field of Åre, in the Swedish mountains near the Sweden-Norwegian border. Åre is apparently Sweden's number one ski resort, consisting of four separate ski areas and cute little villages containing everything from beauticians to coffee houses to trinket stores. The scenery is breathtaking, particularly from the very top of the largest mountain which overlooks the whole area. Framed by low sweeping mountains covered with pine forests, all overlooking a majestic, deep and frozen lake, it really is quite spectacular. Reason enough to go on its own, even without the skiing and the opportunity to spend a little more quality time with Luke, Maria and the child-to-be. At 8 months, Maria really was doing marvelously well to be moving about as freely and seemingly untroubled with her new centre of gravity, particularly on icy, sloping cobbled streets.
In contrast to our last Swedish ski adventure, it was a relatively painless trip to the resort this time round. No hitching required and all the way by train! The only set-back was an inability to locate our lodging. This required making numerous trips (replete with numerous bags, snowboard equipment
and a very pregnant Maria) up and down icy cobbled paths, engaging with locals (who were usually tourists) and making a few phone calls, before finally locating our abode for the next few days; a humble two bedroom (with bunks) unit in the heart of the main village.
Now on to the skiing! Supposedly, it is suited to all levels, which seemed perfect for the mixture of skiing skills to be found in our little party. However, the first day did not go to plan. It was a nice bright day, not too cold, around zero degrees. Miranda decided to stick to the lower, gentler slopes for the first part of the day to find her ski legs before venturing upwards to the larger slopes. In hindsight, this was a smart move and by the end of the day I wished I had taken that option. It is unfortunate that warm days do not always equate with great skiing conditions on the slopes. On this day, the warmer weather coupled with a bit of rain turned the slopes to ice, making edging very difficult. As Luke decided to start on a nice easy red slope, it proved to be
a painful trip to the bottom, with most of it spent on my bottom. Like any good (sic) sportsman I blamed the equipment. In this case, the board was way too long for my height making it difficult to maneouver, and thereby cut into the slope and turn. As such, by the end of the day, my ass was red raw and my coccyx bruised and perhaps broken. To make matters worse, in the final 10 metres of skiing for the day my board dug into a groove, sending me sprawling onto my face, severely banging up my knees in the process. Needless to say, I could barely move by the time I hobbled back to our room for dinner.
Having left Miranda to her own devices all day on the other side of the mountain, we agreed to meet at the end of the day (which happened to be 3 pm when darkness begins to fall). However, as 3pm arrived there was no sign of Miranda. I started to get worried when the people leaving the slopes dried to a trickle and the lifts were shut down, so I trudged part way up the slope to wait for
her in near darkness. But she did not appear and it was getting bloody cold so I headed back to the apartment hoping to find her there. It was quite a while later that she at last made her way back home. Her attempt to squeeze in one last ride as the lifts stopped running led to her being stranded halfway up a very steep slope surrounded by trees. Other skiers were able to disembark the button lift and ski their way back down the mountain but Miranda and an unidentified skier ahead of her on the lift were stranded by the sheer gradient of the point they were at when the lift stopped! Alas, it took a friendly skier to notify the skiing crew who about 20 minutes later restarted the lift and the two remaining skiers on board could disembark and ski their way in the tiny remaining light back to the bottom!
Despite my injuries, Miranda nearly being left stranded on the mountain earlier in the day, and in an attempt to spend some skiing time together, we ventured out for night skiing back to the icy slope I began the day on. It had not
improved much over the course of the day, despite the best efforts of the snow cannons, however I assured Miranda that she could safely negotiate her way down the slope. This proved not to be true, with Miranda taking a tumble and loosing a ski halfway down the slope. I managed to make my way back up to her, and spent the next eternity (actually about 30 min) trying to get her skis back on while stopping us sliding off the slope into the bushes. Finally we succeeded, made our way to our feet and slowly made our way back down the slope relatively incident free. As you can imagine, Miranda was not impressed upon reaching the bottom and refused to go back up again.
That was the end of Miranda’s ski experience for the year, deciding instead to spend lazy days lounging with Maria. However, I soldiered on for the next two days, where the conditions improved; wind died down, snow fell and the lift to the very top of the mountain opened up (for a day at least). My snowboarding improved (although Luke did not think so), despite my tentative approach to the slopes. Apart from skiing,
we spent our time relaxing in the village, drinking coffee, visiting the ICA and cooking meals. A very nice time was had by all.
Upon our return to Uppsala, it was time to prepare for New Years. A quiet one was planned consisting of a home cooked meal and plenty of wine and beer (alcohol-free for Maria). As midnight approached we made our way down to the local square where revellers had gathered with Champagne and fireworks. It was amazing watching all these fireworks being lit whilst little children were running around unsupervised dodging wicks and shooting crackers. As the countdown began we had to take evasive action as a stray cracker headed right our way, before the air reverberated with the sound of yells and popping corks. Bring on 2008!
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