The whole ski trip was sponsored by my school. We (a group of about 20-25 kids) left on a Friday afternoon and headed up to a little town at the base of the mountain. The trip up was an adventure in itself. Our trip included a stop at a cafe, a foosball game and a pass over a bridge about the width of our bus with no railings. But when we finally got to our Albergue (hostel) we were welcomed with a nice dinner and snow!!! For the first time since last winter I saw and got to feel real snow! The trip was already worth it! Unfortunately by the time we got there it was dark and there was no possibility of going skiing, so we all called it a night.

The next morning we headed up to the ski slopes, rented all our gear and all that good stuff and got ready to get on the lift. Well since I had never been skiing this was quite an adventure for me. I got my skis on fine, but what I hadn't accounted for was the fact that I had no idea how to stop. On the way to the lift there was a little hill, well it was not really even a hill, a lump I'll say. Well what ended up happening was I slid down this lump and smacked into my friend who was standing in front of me (and an expert skier I should add). To make things worse I managed to fall over, in the middle of about 40 people, none of whom were having any trouble at all. Well here is where I got to practice for the first time something that I got really good at by the end of the weekend. Standing up without taking off my skis (I got good at standing up with my skis off too). After about 3 min of struggling to raise my self up I finally managed to stand and get on the lift.

OK, so I was ready to go, up all the way on the lift (which was quite fast), to the top part of the mountain in between the end of the lift and the lodge. This is where my day of falling began. OK so the lift is only about a 10 second ski ride from the lodge, it is a cinch for everyone who has ever skied in their lives before. But of course, since I had never skied, never taken a lesson, nothing, it was quite embarrassing. I fell at least 3 times, got stuck in powder and ran into a fence all between the end of the lift and the lodge. Good times.

On this mountain, which was called Cerler, there were four types of slopes. Green, blue, orange/red (we never decided what color it actually was) and black. Green was the easiest and they rose in difficulty all the way up to black which I think I might have killed myself if I had tried it. I stuck to the green slope. Now for most skiers, the green slope is just a warm up slope. They go down the green once only for the purpose of getting to a harder slope like blue or red or something like that. It is a good thing that I am a Celtics fan; because green was definitely my color. I stayed the entire weekend on the green slope in the attempt to learn how to ski.

All in all skiing was tons of fun. By Sunday I could get down the entire green slope without falling or hitting anyone and thus I was quite proud of my improvement, especially because I did not take a single lesson. The snow was fantastic and definitely one amazing experience.

The Green Slope from one of the lifts:

A view of the mountains:

The main lift from the lodge. It doesn't look all that far does it?