Sunday, February 27, 2005

The Ski Trip

I'll try to provide a summary of our ski trip. We left Friday night and drove about half way. We arrived at a military base (where we have connections *wink*) 10 minutes before the commissary closed. I ran into the grocery store and in true supermarket sweep fashion, I am running down each aisle pulling items off the shelf. I was waiting on line 12 minutes later with boxes of Bisquick, cake mixes, hot sauce, children's tylenol, cheerios, sunmaid raisins, Goldfish, yoohoo chocolate drink, Pam, brown sugar, molasses and a few other items. I've never shopped so fast, so efficiently in my life. It was a beautiful 10 minutes and everything is now happily on my Parisian shelves.

Arrived at the hotel on Saturday afternoon and we rented our skis. Then the whole family headed to the pool. About that time I'm starting to feel really sick. I eat dinner with my birthday girl daughter and am in bed by 8pm shivering. The kids head out to ski school on Sunday and I stay in bed the whole day. Monday I get myself out of bed to head to the town doctor. He prescribes some medicine. I walk back to my hotel room and spend the rest of the day in bed with a high fever.

That night, Monday night, my son and husband at the spur of the moment (and brought on by only a little! pleading by my son) go tobogganning -- although I believe it is a luge, rather than a toboggan. This is one of those activities that would never be allowed in the US because it is way too dangerous. Well maybe that is an exaggeration. At 8:30pm in total darkness, you take two ski lifts up a mountain (around 700 meters up). There is a grooved area in the snow, kind of like a long half pipe, for you to toboggan down the side of a mountain. There is very little ability to control the tobaggan -- you can't turn it and unless you jump off it, you can't stop the sled -- at least at the speed you are flying down the mountain. It's basically an accident waiting to happen. It didn't happen the first time. The first time, by some luck and the thought that it really can't be as dangerous as it seems, the two boys went careening down the mountain without a care. My son jumps up at the end and says it's the best thing he's ever done in his life (probably a similiar reaction to those who parachute jump out of an airplane and survive -- you know you've come close to death). The second time, the sled flipped over and they both got bruised, but my husband twisted his already bad knee. They were soaking wet and still had to get down to the bottom of the mountain. They didn't take a third trip.

My husband limped around the rest of the week and didn't ski at all since he was waiting for me to recuperate. I woke up the next morning feeling like the plague had been lifted from my body. I went out skiing by myself and it felt great. My husband sat at the top of the mountain and read a book and I joined him for lunch. It was nice, but not how we expected to spend our vacation. We aren't big skiiers, my husband even less so because of his bad knees, but we do enjoy a day or two of skiing together. My husband will have to head to the orthopedist this week.


My friend and I (in blue) at the top of one of the mountains.

The kids had a great time skiing. They both stayed in ski school for the week and learned a lot. My son likes his group lessons, but he likes skiing straight down the mountain best. In his mind, learning to turn only slows you down. We're going to have to watch him. But he did come in third in place during the ski school ski races and got to stand on the podium. My daughter really did well this time. By the end of the week she was skiing down hills that I never would have thought possible last week. I'm so proud of them.



-- said Auntie M in Paris
5:04 PM

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