Non-Skiing
I have just come back from a weekend of skiing.
To celebrate a friend's birthday a group of us spent the weekend din a village up in the
On Friday afternoon we set off on our journey, quite a few people had told me that we had probably chosen the worst weekend ever to go skiing as a Siberian front was coming in causing freak weather conditions.. We debated the need for snow chains and finally decided to stop and buy them about half-way through our journey. They turned out to be a very good buy for as we reached the village the roads became thicker and thicker with snow which seemed to show no end of stopping..
The cottages where we would be staying were located about 1km up a windey hill which had no safety barriers.. We started to make our way up the hill with birthday boys friends following behind in a van and decided that it would be a good time to make use of the snow chains. We all piled out of the vehicles into 8 inch snow and attempted to attach the snowchains.. not as easy as it first appears but with the help of a chirpy irish chap, J.T., we finally got them on and made it to the cottages.
After bagsying rooms, it was time to get supplies. Freddy did not want to risk driving his car back down so we all piled in the back of the van and back down to the village we went.
Freddy had appointed me Amalgamisation Manager, a position I took very seriously, and made it my mission to integrate the three teams..
Team A - Barcelona Ex-Pats
Team B - Bday Boy's London Friends
Team C - Bday Boy's Home Friends
A swift beer in a local bar before shopping turned into a 6 hour binge exchanging google facts and eating vast quantities of eggs of the kinder variety. Tasty. Always a good way to start off amalgamistating!
Somehow we made it for dinner and then eventually back to the cottages, where on the way I was completely victimised and ended up flat on by back in the snow being pelted with giant snowballs from all sides with snow in my hat, gloves, socks, jumper.. etc etc
Warming up in front of the fire with a few more cheeky beverages we had a mexican wave. It was special.
Making it to bed at some point that evening a little worse for wear is not something I really remember.. Being woken up at the crack of dawn to go skiing I most unfortunately do.. Felt absolutely and utterly like 5 thousand cats had shat in my head yet I somehow I managed to get dressed, find drinking wine in the kitchen as there was no orange juice (?!) swallow half a piece of dry toast, and leave the house to enter the blizzard that was blowing outside. I was surprised to see Bday Boy, still in the house, muttering and cursing something about his gloves under his breath as we left... we had a very tiny time margin to catch the train up to the pistes and if he didn't hurry he would miss it.. but I let it slide..
We trudged down the hill and I managed to fall over exactly one time on the ice.. it hurt. BB then came sprinting past.. clearly having found the gloves he had earlier lost..
We made it to the station only to find out that our nearest pistes had been closed due to the weather. We now had the choice to go up to some other pistes slightly further away but the train there did not leave until 2 hours later.. 2 lost hours of sleep.. We whiled away the hours in a little café drinking coffee, water and whatever else would help me get over the hellish nightmare that was my hangover..
Eventually it was time to get the train up to La Molina. Bought our tickets, hung around on the platform.. the train was late.. this did nothing for BB's rage (yes he was still raging about his lost gloves). It arrived. We got on. And waited. The train did not go anywhere, apart from that it was like an oven. The heaters were so hot that one of guys actually managed to melt his snow boot!
The train set off and the scenery up to La Molina was amazing.. like scenes from Narnia.. Everything covered in inches of snow.. I did start to become concerned when I started seeing cars and vans dissappearing under snow drifts.. Once you get off the train you then have to get a bus up to the pistes..
Getting off the train and wading through the snow.. things did not look good..
We waited in the blizzard for what seemed like hours and just as we had decided to sack the whole idea off and spend the afternoon in a bar.. lo and behold.. the bus shows up... I am now torn between bus and bar... but finally end up on bus.
When we finally get there the snow is getting worse and worse and the conditions are pretty bad so the majority of us buy sledges! and spend a couple of hours having races!
The weather showed no signs of improving so we decided to head back lest we be stranded on the mountain overnight.. We arrived at the train station in plenty of time.. enough time to have a HUGE snowball war in the middle of the station.. for hours.. yet the train didn't arrive.. after about 90 minutes we became a little concerned about our situation.. stuck halfway up a mountain.. in the freezing cold.. with no way back.. hmm.
What were we going to do?
To be continued ...
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