Winter Sports Weekend

This past weekend, I went snowboarding in the Alps. Some of the other girls I know in the dorm had gone skiing before with this program (affiliated with the university) and I thought it would be a really cool experience, so I signed up. Unfortunately I didn't really think, because nobody else I knew was actually going. But I decided to go anyway because I haven't snowboarded that much and it may have been difficult for someone else to be patient with me anyway. It was a really good deal though. I paid 15 euros to the school athletic department and that got me a lift ticket and transportation to the ski resort. I heard some people say that snowboarding was kind of a touristy thing to do but I have preferred snowboarding to skiing in the past.

On Friday night I went to a little shop across town to rent my snowboard, boots, and helmet. Then on Saturday morning I had to walk across town at 6:30am to meet the bus. It was about a two hour bus-ride to the ski hill called Mottaret and it involved a lot of driving in the mountains.

As we got farther up, we saw more and more snow (kind of like the amount that Iowa had this December). The ski hill had a lot of different resorts around it with people from all over the world staying in

them.

When we got to the valley, I was a little disoriented and didn't know where to go. The bunny hill was right near me but I couldn't figure out how to get up the hill with the special lift thing, so the first run I went on was a blue. All the slopes are color-coded (green = very easy, blue = easy, red = difficult, black = very difficult).

Because I haven't been snowboarding in a few years, it took me a second to remember how to get on the lift so I waited until a few other snowboarders went before me. They don't have people checking your lift tickets as you get on. The lift tickets are electronic, like the security cards we use to get in the dormitories at ISU. An electronic machine reads them and then opens a gate for you.

Anyway, as Ali (my friend who taught me to snowboard) and Hannah (my friend who learned with me) could tell you, I have problems getting off the lift on a snowboard and of course, the first time up I fell straight away trying to get off of it. It turns out that the first run that I chose wasn't a very good one for a snowboarder. Since it was my first run for awhile, I took it slow and then I got to a long flat stretch and I couldn't get through it. I ended up halfway crawling until it was downhill again.

The next time I went up on the same chair-lift but I tried a different run. I got off the lift without falling which was exciting and I got most of the way down the run without also without falling. So then I decided to try a lift that went a lot higher into the mountains. I would have taken a lot more pictures on my ride up and while up there but it was too foggy to see much and it was snowing the whole time.

This run was a lot steeper and a lot longer. It took me about 15 minutes to get up to the top of the lift, and it wasn't a normal chair lift, you put your snowboard and/or skis in a little holder outside of a pod that you sit in. Due to falling many many times, It probably took me about 20 minutes to actually get back down to the bottom of the slope. Snowboarding is very good exercise. You have to use every muscle of your body to balance on the board when you're going down the hill, and each time you fall, you have to use your core muscles to pull yourself back up fast enough that the board doesn't slide down the hill before you're up and ready to go.

After that I was completely exhausted so I got a yummy panini and a yummy chocolate crepe (basically, you can get crepes anywhere you go in France). I went down a couple more runs which went about the same. I was doing a lot better, a lot faster, for a lot longer by the end.

I was exhausted when I got home and very sore for the following two days.

On Sunday, I went ice skating at a local ice arena in a park close to my dorm. I went with a girl I met from Italy named Maria-Teresa and two other people from Italy and one from France whose names I don't remember. The arena was really big and played loud music but it was fun even with my soreness. (There were pictures from skating but I didn't take them and as far as I can tell they haven't been put up on facebook yet)

Well that's all for that. :)