Sarah's ramblings about her trip to Europe March-July 2003
Hi everyone, so this is a very long entry! Bad Sarah for not posting in the last 2 weeks!
So I’m finally back in Slovakia after 3 weeks in the Alps! Ah where to begin. Snowboarding in Zermatt, Switzerland was quite amazing, the snow sucked, but the weather and the view made up for it. It was clear blue skies both days I was there, with barely a cloud in the sky. That combined with boarding underneath the Matterhorn made it amazing. The matterhorn is unskiable, but there’s another mountain nearby called the Klein Matterhorn which has a cable car that runs almost to the top (about 3500 m). From there you can either take an elevator to the very top and take pictures or board down. I did both. The first time I boarded down it was early in the day and I wasn’t very tired, but the second time was later in the day and I was kinda tired. When I started boarding down from the top I was actually short of breath and my lungs hurt. It kinda scared me until I realized that it was just the altitude! Switzerland was a little too expensive for my liking though. I peaked into McDonalds just to see how much it was, and meals were 12 Swiss Francs….and the swiss franc is almost equal to the canadian dollar! Needless to say I lived on chocolate bars, croisants, and apples; although the hotel I stayed in included breakfast, so I filled up then! I also discovered that on the Italian side of the boarder everything was a lot cheaper, so I had lunch there my second day…plus I could get red bull and really good coffee (can you say caffeine high?) there. Although they don’t check passports at the border anymore so I didn’t get a skier stamp in my passport…I was very disappointed!
After Zermatt I headed over to France. Chamonix was my first stop, but it wasn’t very good. They hadn’t had any new snow in a while, and it wasn’t warm enough to melt the ice. I had to get the edges on my board sharpened after the first day cuz they were so dull! The second day was a little better because I went to a different part of the resort which some people said wasn’t so icy. The annoying thing was that it started to snow at like 4, just when the mountain was closing, and I had already planned on leaving the next day! The gondola ride down nearly gave me a heart attack though. The gondolas were quite old, and so they didn’t have snowboard racks like the new ones do. But they had improvised and made some on the front and back of the gondolas. The thing is, they weren’t made right and they didn’t hold the board tight and every time we went under a tower and the gondola swung, my board would move back and forth. I was so sure it was gonna be the end of my board. Every time I heard it fall back and forth my heart nearly stopped! Luckily though, my board made it, but I swear I’m never putting my board in such a sketchy looking holder again!
My next stop was Les Arcs, also in France, about a 5 hour train ride from Chamonix. Luckily I found a hotel near the train station in Bourg St. Maurice, the village closest to the resort. The first hotel I stayed in was so gross that I changed hotels the next morning…that’ll teach me for not checking the rooms first! The second hotel was a lot better though, it looked like it had been a really expensive hotel in the 60’s or 70’s…it was old, but well kept up at least. Anyhow, so the night I arrived in Bourg, it was snowing. I was in absolute heaven. To get up the mountain, you had to take a funiculaire, which is kinda like skytrain, but everything inside is built slanted so it’s more comfortable when you’re going uphill. And when I got to the top, heaven met me there. They had gotten 35 cm of new snow overnight. Enough said. By the end of the day though the snow had gotten bumpy and I thought that the next day wouldn’t be as good, but lo and behold, the next day almost every run (except black ones) were nicely groomed. Another really awesome day! Especially since the top part of the resort that had been closed the day before because of avalanche warnings, was open. Also because Europeans don’t like powder. And I had several amazing black runs ALL to myself. And I have proof cuz I took pictures! The third day wasn’t too spectacular, but still good, unfortunately the top part was closed again because it was too cloudy (read: snowing at the top again), but it was sunny and also a fun day. It was the fourth and final day there that was the best. It was sunny again (I got quite the sunglass tan and my eyes were blood shot the next day from when I was boarding without my sunglasses!) and the top was open again. So I spent the whole day on empty black runs which had about 10 cm of new snow on them! Yeah I had a lot of fun. I also managed to get air for the first time while meaning to! I was so proud of myself…and I landed it too! But after 12 days of boarding in 18 days I was absolutely exhausted and ready to go back to my dad’s and sleep for a week! I actually satisfied my need to snowboard though. As I sit here I’m content with the fact that I can’t board till november or december.
My trip back on the train was interesting though. I traveled in 24 hours what I had taken 4 or 5 days to travel before. 6 trains and 24 hours later I ended up back in bratislava very exhausted. I did get a sleeping compartment from Zurich to Vienna though, which was fun. They even serve you breakfast in the morning, if you can call 2 buns with jam and coffee breakfast…which I do so it was all good! I was so glad to be off of the train by the end of it though.
Not much happened last week either. Just spent the week resting up, and helping to prepare for Easter. Easter here was quite a lot of fun. Different customs but still fun in it’s own way! Spent Friday and Saturday decorating easter eggs. And then on Sunday we drove to the Czech Republic to visit one of my stepmom’s Aunts and a bunch of her cousins who live there. First we went to church, but I think it was pretty useless for me to have gone because I had absolutely no clue what they were saying. Oh well! Then we went to one of my stepmom’s cousin’s flats for lunch. That was interesting because they don’t speak or understand english, and I don’t understand czech/slovak. They were really nice though and stuffed us so full we could barely move. Then they invited us to their cabin. It was not a cabin, it was a small house which just happened to only have an outhouse instead of a toilet. It had a shower, electricity and a kitchen though. It’s very common here for people to live in a flat, but own a cabin where they can have a garden and relax away from the city. There we lounged around outside, and ate more food. Then Andrea’s cousins husband started with the slovovitza shots. Of course my dad and he couldn’t drink because they were driving (zero alcohol tolerance here), so they kept making Andrea, her cousin Eva, and me drink! Now slovovitza is not regular alcohol. It’s home brewed full strength plum brandy. Think pure alcohol. It is so strong you can feel it almost all the way down your throat. But after the first 2 they get better…I think I had about 4…I don’t know. I think I made the mistake of saying no when he offered. Of course he doesn’t know english and in czech ano means yes. Oops. Anyhow, I’m so bringing some of it home with me, so beware of me offering you drinks (evil laugh). Then we went to her Aunts house for dinner and to see the rest of the family. And here is where the different traditions come in. In the czech and slovak republics they have these traditions of what you do to women on Easter Monday. In Czech it’s milder than slovakia. So the tradition is that Monday morning the boys take whips that they’ve made, and whip the backs of the girls legs while singing a funny song that doesn’t make any sense either in slovak/czech or english. Then girls are supposed to give the boys candy and chocolate. It stops there in Czech. In slovakia they go further, after the whipping they dump water on you and then spray cheap cologne on you. Then you’re supposed to give them candy. I was told the candy is to bribe them to stop it! Luckily we were in the czech republic for most of easter Monday so I only got the whipping part! It’s all in good fun though, the adults act like kids for that part of the day!
And then to end Easter weekend we went to a place called Bojnice to visit a castle. It was a really cool castle too. We went on a tour and all that…except the tour was in Slovakia, but I had Andrea to translate the best parts for me! Then we went to the zoo that was beside the castle and saw lots of animals. There was even an elephant that would reach out its trunk and people would feed it. Of course they were feeding it bad stuff like chips and corn puffs.
Then I sat in the backseat of a car for 2 hours with 2 hyper kids. It was a very long car ride needless to say. Of course I love my little brothers to death but they do get on my nerves some times!
And today I went for a jog around the village where my dad lives, I’ve been pretty lazy since I got back from snowboarding so I thought I’d go do something. I got the strangest looks from people I passed. I guess girls don’t usually go jogging here! Anyhow, that’s all for now! Keep watching for more…I have a busy 3 months ahead!
I just finished a day of boarding in switzerland! Hahahaha It was sooooooo awesome! The snow sucked, but the view was absolutely amazing. I`ve never been so awestruck in all my life. It`s also always been a dream of mine to come to switzerland so its awesome to be here just because of that. I also got to board into Italy as well...the 2 mountains are linked together...so now i`ve been boarding in Austria, Switzerland and Italy! I decided to skip st. antons in austria cuz i heard that their runs were really short and not worth it. I also stopped by Zurich on the way here to visit a friend i haven`t seen in 8 years, so that was lots of fun! I`m here for another day of boarding then on sunday i`m heading over to the land of the frenchies to practice my french and get some boarding in as well :-) Learning german hasn`t happened, i may as well practice my french. I`ll write more later...unless i decide to stay and hide in the swiss alps for the rest of my life...hmmmmm :-)
