Since Thursday, I have been in the snow of Chamrousse, French Alpes. I went to London by train on Wednesday, and went for a discovery tour of all the shops: heaven! ; ) On the train, i spoke to my mom who booked me a flight to Grenoble for the next day.
(L) thanks mommy! (L)
I slept in piccadilly hostel (www.piccadillyhotel.net), which was nice apart from the extremely annoying roommate who kept talking to me and even did private things in the bed right next to me with me in the room!! :O *shock* Also, the kitchen was a big room with tables, chairs and microwaves. No sinks, no water boilers, no fridge, it was the worste ive ever seen in a hostel. Luckily i had some Hobnobs (best biscuits ever, ask J J) and Pringles left so i didnt die of hunger, but it wasnt very healthy.
Then, the next morning it was time for my flight. I checked in with easyjet (who apparently had an extremely annoying day cos they charged me for 2 kilos overweight: 12 pounds, and even another girl for 1 kilo overweight….) and took my flight to Grenoble. There, i waited in the sun (very nice and warm so sat outside in my top.. You gotta love france..) until Sofie, a belgium colleague came to pick me up. We drove to Vizille, where the central office of Sportura is in France. Its a gorgeous hotel (http://chateaudecornage.com/) where i received a warm welcome by the staff and stayed the night in a room that was heaven, well done Lotte and Jens!
The day after, Willem (my colleague for this week) and i drove off to Chamrousse to get organised. We met up there with two of organisers of the NSSK, the dutch student snowboarding championships (www.nssk.nl) and got started.
Up till now, its been really hard work, because lots of things need to be organised, but it also is a lot of fun, as a big group of people here at the NSSK are from my hometown boardsports club Spin (www.spin-utrecht.nl). Its really good to see them all again and get to know them better, altho it sometimes is difficult to be the Sportura travel guide to them, as they are also my friends. But I manage!
The weekend was really busy, as all the guests arrived, in total 167 in two groups: NSSK and ROC, a school thats on holiday here. On Monday, Willem left so i now i am all alone as a representative of Sportura.
Its fun to do the responsible part of the job, as normally im just a hospitality rep, with a travel guide above me to take all the blame and organise everything.
Yesterday, Monday, was the first day that was less chaotic, so i got up early and after doing the important things of the day went to go snowboarding for the first time here in Chamrousse. I got out of the lift at the same time as one of the advanced snowboarding lessons of Ripstar (www.ripstar.nl) by Evelien, and i could join in. It was really cool, she told us how to do better turns, do ollies and nollies and ride fakie or switch. I really enjoyed going on the lesson, it was educating and loads of fun. After that, i went to find the first official competition of the NSSK, the slalom. It took a while before we found it, and even had to take (my first) black piste, but it went really well, with turns and all, so i was really proud. The slalom was interesting, especially because there were 7 Spinners in the different categories (rookie, girls, men).
I had to go home quite quickly after, cos i still had some work to do. It had gone pretty misty already, so i took the piste down to the gondola, which took me right up to the highest peak to go down to my own part of town in one go. I was with some other Spinners, Do and Robert, and we tried to take an easy blue piste to go home safe and quickly. We couldnt really find the blue piste tho, and came to a sign that said that from there on, it was unpreparated (?) piste, and snowboarding was at your own risk. The guys decided to find the red piste that was supposed to be quite close to the right, and they took off into the off piste area. So did i, but as this is my third week of snowboarding, im not very good in powder snow thats 50 cm deep. I kept falling over and getting up was really difficult. Within minutes i could not hear or see the guys because of the thick fog that was all around. The vision was about 3 metres!!!
I decided to take of my board after a while, and try to walk thru the snow to the piste. This walking wasnt as easy as i had thought, because the powder was soo deep. It turned into crawling (tijgeren like Beyoncxe9 and her ladies in the video of Survivor) which was really exhausting. I hadnt eaten lunch, couldnt see, was alone and didnt know where to go so it was pretty scary, especially because it was in the uninsurred area, where i thought they would never find me if i couldnt go on. Instead of panicing tho, i decided to be a good travel guide and get myself to keep on going. Finally i came to a piste and sat down in proper hard snow. With no energy and hijgend als een paard (?translation?) i waited. After a while, a Hungarian skier came by and stopped. He didnt speak much english but understood that i needed some help. The only hungarian word i remembered was Kussunum (spelling?), which means thank you. He took me to the piste, which was hardly visible with the ever thickening fog. I kept falling over and getting off piste but he waited every time, and when he couldnt see me anymore he would yell to let me know where to go. He took me all the way down to the village (he was going the same way) and saved me. I really didnt think i could get down myself, my legs were (and are) killing me but he kept me going so that was great, hex92s officially the best guide in Chamrouse!
After i got of the piste, i didnt have time to think or scream or cry, cos i had to do my work, which i was already really late for. The local bar that i had to be in, the K-dox, gave me something to eat and was very kind, and after i had some friends to give me a big hug to de-stress, which was very very nice.
That night was the big x91kansloos fransoosx92 party of the NSSK, which was fun.
Today, i joined in with a freestyle clinic of Ripstar and learned about 180s, tail and nose rides, and more about ollies and nollies. It was really cool.
After that, i decided to sit in the restaurant and do paperwork, instead of going up the mountains again. That was a good decision because it became all foggy again right after i sat down. When i was done, i went to the outdoor swimming pool and the saunas that are underneath the restaurant to relax my extremely painfull muscles. Will go to bed early tonight, havent gotten much sleep lately but im havin a great time and enjoying myself bigtime!
Next week when Spin is going home, i will be going to Alpe dx92Huez or maybe Risoul if we can organise transport for another week in the snow. After that ix92ll be in Utrecht from Sunday the 30th till Tuesday the 1st of April, then go to the farm for a week and return to Utrecht on Monday. On Tuesday the 8th of April i fly back to London and take a train to Swansea.
There ix92ll have two crazy weeks of essay writing, and then almost summer holiday!
Hope evs ok with everyone at home, speak soon!
Xoxo
Rose
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