Last weekend, a few of my friends and I decided that we would be going skiing this past weekend (the 22nd and 23rd) and that to do so, we would need to be wearing appropriate winter clothing. Which none of us had. So off we went to Marseille to a thrift store that was selling full ski suits (that looked like they were from the 80s) for only 10€! In American money, that's like $12-13. So, it was a really good deal! I got boots, gloves, and a full (absolutely ridiculous-looking) snowsuit all for under 20€. You'll see the pictures and understand. If anyone in the pictures doesn't look like a marker box exploded on them, they were lucky enough to have their French families loan them ski clothes. Needless to say, we looked amazing.Having completely outfitted ourselves in a vibrant array of colors, our little family proceeded to plan meals and buy groceries and necessities for the weekend. Having spent the majority of Thursday buying food, most of us spent Friday actually getting ourselves packed and ready to go for the weekend. Our bus left at about 6:30pm on Friday and was scheduled to arrive at the ski station at about 10.
We got to the ski station a little after 10, and by then we were all starving because we hadn't really had dinner yet. We had planned to have sausage and potatoes for dinner that night, so we got to work on that as soon as we could and scarfed that food down while we watched a movie in one of our cozy apartments. (There were 8 of us, so they split us up into two groups.)
The next morning when we all woke up at about 8, we ate breakfast and then headed over to the ski rental place to get our snowboards and skis. Only three of us had
ever skied or snowboarded before, so the majority of us were beginners. We all headed over to the bunny hill to figure out how to handle ourselves. And I made it down without falling! So I hopped back on the ski lift (which was a sort of weird pole system with mini seats on the end that kind of looked like plungers. You put the pole between your legs and it pulled you to the top of the hill while you stood on your skis.) Anyway, halfway up the hill, I was enjoying the ease of the ski lift when all of a sudden, I was falling and I couldn't move my legs in the direction I wanted. My only focus was not losing my grip on the pole that was slipping out of my hand. Finally, after being dragged on my knees without any control, I decided that I should just let go and figure out what went wrong. So I let go of the pole--and promptly faceplanted. I rolled out of the way of my laughing friends who were coming up the lift behind me only to see that the reason I had fallen so suddenly was because one of my skis had popped off of my foot. So I didn't fall at all while I was going down the bunny slope--just up.
Anyway, most of us decided to move on to the next level hill once we'd gotten the gist of the bunny hill down, so we headed over to the other lift and hopped on. But what we thought was a little hill turned out to have a curve in it that you couldn't see from the bottom--the hill was at least twice as high as we had originally thought. But I did well on my first try; I only fell four times on that descent! By the end of the first day, I only managed to get down that hill once without falling, and the rest of the group hadn't had much luck either. We were all exhausted by the time the slopes closed at 4:30, so we went inside, took turns showering, and started cooking dinner.The next day was much better. I figured out how to get down the intermediate hill without falling, so I decided to step it up a notch and went up the mountain on the
real ski lift with Alexa, Kevin, and Josh (the three snowboarders). It turns out that I should never assume I know how tall a slope is just because I can only see so far up. The mountain was, well, a mountain. I was terrified. I had a camera in my pocket, but I was too scared to let go of the ski lift to take pictures. We made it up to the first stop on the mountain trails and got off. Quick side note: French people are all ridiculously good at skiing. What seemed terrifying and dangerous to me was only a beginner level for them. Anyway, we all made it up the mountain and off the ski lift without incident, and then we started our descent. If I had thought the second hill was scary, that was nothing compared to the mountain. There were so many times when I would be approaching a hill/curve with only a cliff on the other side that I would just fall in order to stop myself instead of risking getting killed. The very last hill on the mountain was actually probably steeper than the others, but it was also less scary because I knew that once I got to the bottom of it, I was done. To give you an idea of how steep it was, I couldn't see the bottom from where I was at the top of it. The only way I knew where to go was by watching where the person's head in front of me had disappeared. So I started down the hill, braking the entire way to avoid hurting myself, but I couldn't keep it up forever, so I just tucked into the speed skiing pose--and it was awesome! I was flying down that hill!! The only scary part was that the snow wasn't very powdery, and I was going so fast that any time there was a slight bump, I was worried I would lose control and go crashing into the packed snow. But we all made it down the mountain safely--and I've decided I love skiing. Basically, winter and I should spend some more time together because we get along really well.On the way home from the trip, the sun started setting on the mountains, and we made it to this beautiful area with a really big lake. It was probably the most beautiful area I have ever seen in my life. You'll have to see the pictures I took from the bus. They should be uploaded soon.
Edit: Pictures are FINALLY available!
