Got back from the school ski trip to Italy yesterday - still ABSOLUTELY shattered - and it was totally brilliant. I was having serious second thoughts prior to departure, not least because I was convinced I was destined to break something (I'm sure many remember the mountain-boarding - broken tail bone debacle of last summer...) but no - I was actually not half bad. After I spent the first two days failing miserably to do anything terribly usefull of course.
We left on Friday 6th for the overnight boat to Aberdeen where we met up with our coach - home for the next two days. That's right, two days on a coach with nearly 40 teenagers, driving from Aberdeen to Italy, somewhere near the Swiss border. THAT was fun - especially as Kirsty and I got the short straw and had the crappy seats right at the front of the bus with no leg room. We finally arrived at lunch time on Sunday; tired, bad tempered, stiff, and probably not smelling too great either. What I didn't realise at the time was that smelling bad was going to be something of a theme for the week. We met our Rep, picked up our ski gear, and FINALLY arived at the hotel mid afternoon. One shower and a change of clothes later, and the world was a much nicer place. Especially as it was glorious sunshine and all the teachers headed out for a walk in the sun and then hit the pub - again, a theme for the week.
The Teachers: JD, Michael, Kirsty, Beth, John, Me
Food, wine, and a good night's sleep later, Monday dawned, again in glorious sunshine. We headed up the
mountain and were introduced to our instructors - and the week suddenly took a dramatic turn for the better. My group's instructor was Gorgeous George, a 21 year old student from Loughborough Uni (I have no idea if that's the right spelling...). All I have to say on that is...WOOF! I just about managed to contain my drooling long enough to introduce myself, but not before several of the pupils had twigged, ensuring much amusement for the rest of the week as they hissed "Miss Anderson fancies George" at various points.
The Instructors: l-r Alex (aka Fitty McHotty), Rich, Georgeous George, and CarolynThe remainder of Monday was then spent trying to learn the basics: getting skis on & staying in vertical position, snowplough on a non-existant slope & staying in a vertical position, stopping & staying in a vertical position, getting skis off & staying in a vertical position...pretty challenging stuff. None of which was helped by the fact that it was baking hot and our ski-suits felt roughly akin to having 15-tog duvets draped all over our bodies. I have never sweated so much in my life...until Tuesday.
Tuesday we were still on the basics but were getting a bit of speed and managed to move onto turning. This caused a lot of problems initially, but by the end of the day things were looking up and most people had got the hang of it. Things were starting to make sense and I was beginning to think that maybe this trip wasn't quite the worst idea I'd ever had in my life. At least until we got back down to the rest of the group and discovered that one of the fourth years in the intermediate group had broken his collar bone, thus starting our x-ray collection.
My Ski Groupl-r Hannah, Shelley, Gorgeous George, Joe, Matthew, Allan, Robbie, Cody, Frances, Paddy, Ashley, Me.
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