Skiing

I realised it'd had been a while since I last blogged so I looked back at my last blog and realised it was only about 2 weeks ago, so much has happened, My whole life here has changed in just two weeks and it's all due to one thing; the ski season (Christmas may have played a small part in it all too(I will talk about my 3 days of Noel in my next blog as it deserves it's own blog)). Every town here has made an amazing transformation, for instance Chantemerle was always a cute little town, I'd go there for the gym, but I'd never see people out walking about past 5 or having fun in the streets, now with the start of the ski season people are still walking around Chantemerle at 10, restaurants and pubs are open and everyone is just so much happier here, it's like everybody's stress has been lifted it's odd but it's just changed everything. I mean it's not like this was a depressed little town before but i never realised how tired and over summer everybody was until those ski lifts opened.

Apart from the whole new atmosphere here one of the biggest indicators that things are about to change are those bloody Brits. Man they're annoying. they talk in very loud voices, can't ski and are always staking right in front of you, I was skiing with some friends and we caught a group of Brits, one of the Brits suddenly swerved from the middle of the slope over the the left because he'd seen a jump, didn't look behind him or check if it was safe. If he had he'd have seen my mate lining himself up for the same jump and going at it with a lot more speed, the Brit got there first hit the jump and then hit the ground fairly hard crashing just as my mate (having committed himself to the jump already) also goes over the jump, my mate, thank god he can ski properly, goes flying over the startled Brit and landing comfortably skiing off, this is probably the only time I've seen where a Brit has crashed and not taken out half the slope. Now I know I may be offending a fair few Brits here, so I apologise for my Brit bashing and I'm sure your not all like that (dad i know you are) but the ones here are and I know I'm not so crash hot but I do know my limits. The one good thing is that they presume i don't understand English. This comes in handy when on ski lifts with school girls. The amount of conversations I've overheard which I'm sure I wasn't meant to hear is enormous. It really gets a good laugh out of friends when i sit there translating the conversations into French without the girls sitting right next to me understanding whats going on.

Overall the ski season has been amazing and even the Brits can't bring it down. I have skied everyday of the holidays plus bothd ays the first weekend and that wednesday afternoon, we've had perfect weather for all but one day, sunny, reasonbaly warm and no wind. Absolutley magnificent. I'm improving to which is nice, getting up more confidence in myself, probably not a good thing though. 2 days ago I did some of the most amazing off-piste with my brother and dad. We couldn't hear or see any sign of human activity, in this powder pulling out jumps and landing in metres of snow, all you could see was rolling white hills, majestic. then we hit the trees and antoine's like Callum follow my tracks, thinking he was going to be teaching me how to ski powder i did as I was told and followed, he goes over this jump which didn't look that big from back where I was, hit it with a lot more speed than was appropriate and I was very rudenly dropped about 2 or 3 metres down, somehow landed on my skis. I hit the powder on the skis going "Merde, Merde, Merde" like a real Frenchie, then as I hit the powder on my bum/head/back/shoulder, my mind clicked back into normalality and all I remember was thinking, "Shit". Thank god it was powder and I came out of it relatively unscathed but had it been real snow or ice I would be lying in a hospital in Briancon, It really hurt. Then boyz being boyz, Antoine starts calling me a girl cause I decide to skip a 4 or 5 metres drop, I don't quite know what hurt more the stack or my pride after not doing the bigger jump. Anywayz in a deperate attempt to regain a little bit of pride I spotted a jump off the side of the piste when we rejoined the real pistes, hit it with a lot of speed (Now I've never done this particular jump before, it's really big) and it threw me up in the air, I thought you beaut I've nailed this, then I saw the landing surface and for the second time in about 20mins hit the ground very hard. I rolled and looked very much like a Brit, the only good thing coming out of it was neither Remi nor Antoine saw. I limped home very sore that night.

I can't real keep going on about the snow for much longer or I will have filled up 5 pages worth of it, everyday I come home with at least 3 amazing stories which even I can't believe happened it's been so jam packed. Actually something the happened today, one of my best moments on skis, made me feel very good about myself was much like the story of the crashing Brit from before. I was trying to find a place called the Melezone so I was cutting between pistes through the trees and all and I'd picked up a lot of speed on one trail as i had no space to turn so I just gunned it figuring the worst that would happen would be i would come out the other end and maybe take out a Brit (Actually that would have been closer to one of the best things I could have done, for the greater good). So I gunned it trying to get out of the trees, best thing to do when your a little nervous, go faster. Anywayz I saw the finish and thought thank god, something looked slightly wrong about the finish but I didn't care I was relieved to have not wrapped myself around a tree. I finally realised what was wrong about the finish when if ound myself in the air looking down on a train of 3 year olds doing a skiing lesson. There'd been a 3 or 4 metre drop onto the ski slope at the end and I'd just gone shooting over it at a pace which I wouldn't normally do a piste at let alone a jump. As much to my belief as to the ski instructors (of which I'm sure he thought he'd have to call an ambo) I landed the jump and went skiing off down the slope. Took me a good 5 minutes to realised I'd just landed something like that and then a further 2 seconds to think "I'm never taking that shortcut again".

Anywayz I must really go and start writing the blog for Christmas, It was one of the most amazing times I've had in my life, 3 days of eating food, skiing and generally having a great time, must go. By the way Congratulations to Oli for making the Aus team for the Youth Olympics and Congrats to all medal winners in the recent State Champs U19, it was really, close would have been great to watch it, and finally good luck to all racing the Chrissie Carnivals wherever you may be this year and also the Bay Crits.

Ciao

Gros Bisous

Cal

Just checking in

Photos: The group at Baptiste's Party. Just some guys at Baptiste's, me in the blue shirt and silver tie. A Long term exposure shot taken at the Villeneurve party.

Well after the excitement of the first student strike not a lot has happened, we had another one today which was a little bit more aggressive but less people turned up. I only went for half of it as it was -4 degrees and I did not want to be standing in the snow from 9-3, (my school hours for today) wearing thin socks and volleys. We chanted random chants outside the local government building, some reporter took our photo of which everyone who were looking quite bored suddenly jumped and threw their fists in the air. After that I'm not really sure what happened as I went home but I'm think not a lot.

All riding has ceased, all road riding. I tried the other day but my wheels could'nt get traction due to the light covering of ice on the main highways, so i returned to mine and jumped on the windtrainer for a session. I'm starting to get quite cranky because I'm still resting my ankle so I can't run and I can't ride properly. I'm stuck inside on an ergo. However soon that will all change as the ski season opens Saturday. I'm stoked, cannot wait. I went and got my skis and boots and poles today, I have my season pass ready to go and all my clothes just waiting there. We already have so much snow I'm not sure I'll be able to turn properly. I'm just skiing with family Saturday as I'm pretty sure I'll need all the help I can get but Sunday maybe I'll try with friends. It's going to be a disgrace with me thinking I'm pretty hot stuff only to have everyone fly past me, with me shouting "Hey guys, wanna wait for me?". Anywayz I believe all my Saturdays, Sundays and Wednesday afternoons will be filled up with skiing, I hope anyway.

Not much else has developed since my last blog, we had a nice party for a mate's birthday, only about 12-15 people but it was, not sure the word in English but in French it's tranquille, translation has it at relaxed but it's not the same meaning it's a little like nice because it was chilled, I can't quite explain it but you get my general gist. Also my mum returned from Strasbourg today, she was seeing her mum up there. It's nice to have her back, she's very much like my mum in Aus, I missed the dinner table antics between her and Marie.

Anywayz sorry not a lot has happened, I'm very tired so i apologise for my writing, it's not top notch tonight. Last thing is for the cyclists, did anyone notice that Cavendish has injured himself? And of all things, he was playing a Wii, apparently it was a snowboarding game which he fell off and banged his knee. I mean as if that isn't embarrassing enough it's now on Cyclingnews, poor bloke, I guess this just once again illustrates the dangers of video games.

Just a little after-note, I re-read that blog just making sure i hadn't made any mistakes (of which I'm sure there still are but it's too late to really look for them) and I found a lot of little sentences that don't really work in English but it's because I've translated them from French into English, like just then I know i can say "don't really work" but it's not good English, in French it would be perfectly exeptable to say "ca marche pas" ,also for instance; "I returned to mine", now I know that makes sense but I also know that there's a better way of saying that, in French that would be "J'ai rentre chez moi". I mean that works perfectly in French but just not in English, weird how little things are starting to become more comfortable in French than English, quite often i find myself translating what I would say from French to English, it's weird but slightly satisfying; proves that I've come a long way.

J'ai besoin de Dormir J'ai le Creve, Ciao for now

Cal

Une Seulle Solution, La Revolution!

Well since my last blog it has snowed so much it's not funny, and the french blood has been boiling.

From Left to Right the photos: President Marchello adresses her troops. Michelle's Car. The dumpsters blocking the entrance and two of the banners. The chants and people shouting on top of the dumpsters in the snow. The table outside, it had no snow on it the night before.

First to the snow. Monday night, I went to Remi, you know, I reckon it'll snow Thursday night. Thursday night we got over 60 cms of snow. It just came down in 2x 2 hour blocks and it was huge. This morning I walked to the bus in the snow and i fell down the steps outside the house because i couldn't see where they where, but because there was so much snow it didn't matter it just ended up like a slide. The table at the moment has about 80 cms-1m of snow on it as it's built up over the past week. We still have another week until the ski season opens and at the moment I'm worried about there being so much snow that we just sink into it and can't ski. I can't wait, so excited.

Now to the French blood. Every Frenchman believes Revolutions are in there blood. the french have a nasty habit of beheading their kings and queens and starting a revolution every decade. i guess us Aussie had the whole convict thing in our blood, so we honoured that with our Bush Rangers. Back in those days the french where pillaging towns and burning castles and beheading various nobles, these days they put dustbins in front of every entrance to the school and declare another revolution. At the moment the French government are trying to change their 'Bac' (same as our VCE, or final two years of school). However the kids at the school all over the country aren't to happy about that. Yesterday there were a few whispering about a student strike today, of course I just thought it'd be 20 kids outside the school not going in because they felt they had a cause, then the principal would come out, shout at them and that'd be that. I was planning on joining in just for the sake of it. This morning I packed my bag ready for school expecting to be already in by 2nd period. When the bus dropped us off we all walked up the hill, slowly the news trickled down, the school had been blocked. Sure i thought and few kids won't let anyone in the gate, then I heard the shouting and cheering and chants. I was still about 300-400ms away. We turned the corner and saw the cause of all the commotion, the school really was blocked. The boarders Had woken up at 6.30 that morning, waiting untill all the teachers were in the school and then proceeded to block every possible entrance using dumpsters. When Marie and I arrived there people were standing on top of the dustbins leading chants, shouting random things. We had banners up and like all true protesters we were ready to resort to violence when necessary, armed with snowballs. Whenever a teach showed their head at a window 4 or 5 snowballs would go barrelling into the window. Finally at 10am (we'd started around 7.30am) the government phoned with 3 different deals which we could choose to except or not. Lead by our president Eliza Marchello, she outlined the deals, of which we agreed to one of them , this was a meeting of 8 or 9 different school's student Presidents and the Minister of Education in Paris. To really force our point home for the next two weeks every kid will receive absences from every class so the government believes we're still striking however we will go to school. We got the rest of today off while the teachers moved our dustbins etc and I now have a long weekend :). It was a very odd scene, it reminded me slightly of some sort of industrial revolutions where the proles rise up against the upper class. We had our head (Marchello) who was locked in the Principal's office refuses almost all the offers placed on the table untill she got a free trip to Paris and we got the day off school. So the Revolution has started and apparently we expect to strike again in January after the Xmas holidays if nothing is done and that time we're going down to Marseille to join 2 other schools to really make a point.

Anywayz that was my best day I've had here so far.

Now I'm off to do nothing when I expected to be working, how good is that.

Ciao to all

Cal