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