This year for our annual ski trip, we once again joined the British ski group that we’ve been with for the last two years. We originally connected with this group through a colleague of mine at work whose father organizes the ski trip. This year had some potential for being truly awkward as my colleague had been let go during the summer and is still unemployed. Fortunately, most people do understand that work is work. This year the group was 19 people strong and there were only a few people that we hadn’t met in previous years.
This particular group tries to do a budget, no-frills trip. That means that we go through low-cost vacation companies out of England. They staff the hotels with young British kids who are paid next to nothing. The kids get to ski, but often they lack the maturity and experience to give good service.. Case in point: One afternoon we watched as the cleaning lady was doing the floor in the common area. She swept the floor and the door mat with a broom (not even lifting the mat or taking it outside for a good shake). Then she proceeded to mop around the mat. She also ran the mop in front of herself, thus walking over the freshly mopped floor. The sticky spots got enough attention that we knew she saw them, but not enough to get them clean. And, she managed to mop the entire floor without once rinsing her mop! I know that I have a problem with being a neat-freak, but come on, that’s just basic and where’s her manager? So, our budget hotel was less than clean. I can deal with that for a week.
Another peculiarity of these vacations is that you get truly authentic British food. Since we were skiing in France, let me tell you, that’s a disappointment. British breakfast is just plain weird. I’m OK with the continental breakfast of bread, cheese and meat, especially when the bread is nice and fresh. With this hotel, they warmed up frozen croissants that would have made a French person revolt. The hot breakfast is typically beans on toast. The next day they jazzed it up a bit and served beans on toast with a side of scrambled egg. I’m not OK with beans for breakfast. When we had bacon or sausage, I was also a bit challenged. British eat Canadian style bacon, not the regular strips of bacon like we’re used to. And don’t even get me started on the breakfast sausage…
At all these vacation chalets, the staff are given one day off per week and the guests have to go out for dinner. Unfortunately, all the hotels take the same night off. The restaurants are inundated with guests on that one night alone (both hotel guests and staff on break). We planned ahead and made reservations early for a lovely French restaurant. The food in France is really good and in the Alps, you have some regional specialties that are quite fabulous. Dennis and I shared a raclette. If you want to harden your arteries and run your blood pressure off the charts, this is your dish! It’s a block of cheese that is placed on the table with a heating unit. The heater melts the surface of the cheese which you then scrape off with a knife and eat with potatoes and sausage or ham. Start with a salad because there are no vegetables involved. MMM, it was good.
The other regional specialty is called tartiflette. This is a potato casserole with cheese and bits of ham or sausage. The cheese is a local variety (roblichon) that is rather strong, but really good. Dennis and I also managed to get out to one of the local bakeries for fresh chocolate croissants – one of our favorites. So, we managed to avoid the worst of the hotel food and we were happy to be in a cute town with lots of food choices.
The best thing about our hotel was the primo location. We were a 5 minute walk from one of the main gondolas and as I already mentioned in the center of a cute town. Being close to the lift was a huge advantage over the situation of last year where we had to be bussed to the ski hill. That was a problem because if you want to stop early, you still have to wait for the bus to take you back. Having a gondola also helps when the snow is poor (as it was this year) at the lower elevations. You can ride to the top, ski where there’s good snow, and then ride the gondola back to the bottom at the end of the day.
This year, we had pretty bad snow coverage. Despite the massive snow storms in December, the area had not seen any fresh snow in several weeks. A bit of warm weather melted everything at the lower levels. The very top of the mountain still had good snow, but it really limited the available runs. For me, and most of the group, the available runs were wonderful – lots of wide blue runs (for non-skiers: blue runs are the intermediate level hills, fun but not scary). Dennis and others who prefer more challenging terrain were out of luck so they got a bit bored.
The first two days of skiing, I was with my peeps (16 of us trying to ski together!) and I was really having a good time. I had been exercising a lot before the trip - even trying to run a little bit - to make sure I was fit for skiing, and it was paying off. I was strong and confident. The runs were groomed and fast. On the third day, I was punished for being over-confident. I was flying down the hill just enjoying the thrill of ride, when one leg suddenly slipped out from under me. In a spectacular, agony-of-defeat-style crash, I went down. As my head whacked against the hard packed snow, I was glad I had a helmet. I determined later that I actually gave myself whiplash, but at least I didn’t give myself brain damage. When everything came to stop and I tried to get sorted out, I realized that my skis had not come off. Again, for the non-skiers: your skis are supposed to come off during a crash to keep your knees from getting wrenched. So, ski s still on = knees wrenched. I managed to ski a little bit more that day, but then decided I better go in early and not risk further injury. I was still able to walk, but the knee pain got worse the next day. That was essentially the end of my skiing for this trip. By the time my knee felt OK, it was time to go home.
For the days I wasn’t able to ski, I hung out in the chalet with some of the other non-skiers. We typically spent the mornings reading books and sipping tea. Then, we’d take a short walk around lunch time to peek in the shops and find a good restaurant. An after-lunch siesta and some more reading was next. At about 3:00, we’d gather in the tea room to wait for the skiers to come back and regale us with their tales of more spectacular crashes and daring-dos’. Before dinner, we’d have cocktails (gin and tonic was the top choice – very British). Anyone still awake after dinner could hang out in the bar. With the right company, this kind of routine is really fun.
Another British tradition is fancy-dress. I know I’ve told you previously about fancy dress, so I’ll keep it short. Suffice to say that British men have a little thing for wearing dresses and all the better if it can be done in public. On the last night of our ski trip, we had our fancy dress night. We decided to skip the hotel dinner and go out on the town to get some of the more traditional French Alpine fare. The transvestites really grabbed a lot of attention even from the French people who were just trying to get a nice dinner in a quiet restaurant. Ha! No quiet dinners with our group nearby! We terrorized that restaurant the whole evening. Our French waiter was a hoot – he was practicing his English and kept asking for advice on pronunciation and phrasing. He was very patient and helpful which is not always the case when you are goofing off in a foreign country. I was actually surprised they didn’t kick us out.
And, so another year of skiing is done. We have met some fabulous people and are looking forward to skiing with them again next year.
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