Ugh, again with the too much funess

I'm sick again. Damn snow. Well, probably damn the too much fun in the snow part but let's not dwell on the details and throw a little sympathy my way for I cannot swallow or breathe and I really need to go to sleep because a. I didn't get enough sleep last night and had to be up at 515am to catch a plane which would end up being delayed by 3 hours and b. it's NYE tomorrow night and I have some partying to do. Oh, and I also want to go shopping. Airborne germs are really messing with my social life and capacity for tolerating phlegm.

Ok, so being the ski bunny I am, I have just got back from the snow. Oooh, it sounds sooo European. If only I was as graceful at skiing as I am at, um, eating ice cream? Stepping over cracks in the pavement? Hmm, so point is, I am probably the most unco skier in the world. Pascal, my ski instructor, said I looked like an aeroplane taking off for Sydney whilst going down the slopes. That's what you get for trying to put technique into practice. Ridicule.

So let's go back to the first day at the snow. Megan and I are there, primed in our ski gear, minds like sponges ready to be turned into pro skiers by a preferably hot French ski instructor (note to self, next time try snowboarding)to be told our lesson isn't til the afternoon. So being the proactive person she is, Megan decides that we should play around on our skis for a bit. I agree thinking we'll put them on and do some gliding around on the flat bits. So we do that for oh, all of 5 seconds before she suggests we should catch one of the chairlifts to the 'beginner' slopes. Yes, great idea to do that when you were too scared to slide down the slight bump in the flat bit earlier. So Vanessa decides the slope doesn't look too high from the bottom and really, how hard can a bit of skiing be, so she agrees to go up there. By the way, I don't know why I am now referring to myself in the 3rd person but let's go with it. So we go up the chairlifts (I am on one by myself) when I realise I don't know how to get off the bloody thing. The dude next to me senses this, and pushes me off it. I don't know how to stop, so I lose my balance, cross my skis and stop by falling flat on my back and hitting my head. Great start.

So after this minor blip, I make my way to the edge of the slope. The very steep edge that didn't look steep because I couldn't bloody see it from the bottom. So I take a deep breath, watch Megan stack it and hope that some of the Winter Olympic watching I've done in the past will pay off. It doesn't. I stack in about 5 seconds after take off. I try to get up. I fall over. I try again. Fall over once more, this time so my skis are all twisted. I lie back in the snow wondering how I am going to untwist my skis and if a helicopter will have to come and get me down. While I am debating how long I can lay in the middle of the slope, a snowboarder comes and asks if I want a hand. Ummmm, duh. So I managed to pull him over three times while trying to get up, then he slides me down the mountain onto a flatter bit. In the process he tells me it's his first day snowboarding. Ha, don't I feel like a dickhead. So anyway, he leaves me standing closer to the bottom and as soon as he leaves, I fall again. This time I manage to get up on my own and make my way to the bottom and tell Megan I am never doing that again and we are waiting until our lesson.

I won't bore you so I will give you some dot points until another interesting story:

- the weather was fantastic, blue skies everyday, not too cold
- food was great, I became obsessed with ham
- my ski instructor thought I spoke fantastic French, ok, so he said very good, but I think they are the same. He even spoke to me in French when I kept on falling down one day during my lesson. I didn't really get what he was saying, something about falling on purpose but I was flattered he thought I did.
- xmas day was great. There was about 700 of us up there and we all went to the top of one of the mountains for a santa run down the slopes in our santa hats (note I didn't participate due to having only 1 lesson and hadn't learned how to turn at that point)
- got up on stage and did air guitar in a matching red wig with Megan at the retro party
- made the most hideous looking snowman, we didn't realise there was a technique to making these things
- lost control during a lesson and accidentally groped one of the girls while trying to stop
- did snow angels in the snow with Megan (may have been the turning point in the catching of illness)

Final story is of my final day skiing where I had a spectacular stack. Yes, the skis fell off, snow went in my mouth, skis hit the thigh, there was skidding, turning and wincing on Megan's behalf who was watching. I had previously been congratulating myself on my beautiful turns (Pascal said skiing is all in the mind so I was building up my mind power cause that's what sports people do) when I went too fast, thought I was going to go over the mountain so I decided I would take one for the team. Smart yet bruisy decision.

So now I am back in London trying to get better so I can go out tomorrow night. I can almost breathe through my nose so that's a good indicator I should try and sleep.

Night and see you in 2008!