2004-01-27
Haunted Green Cars, Three Countries in One Hour, and Other Stories

5:23 p.m.

The Swiss Alps, taken from atop a ski hill in the French Alps at Les Portes du Soleil

I'm tired from lack of sleep, cranky because I have to study and don't want to, and hungry from lack of food. However, I know that if I don't write something about my weekend, I'll likely be strung-up by those of you with sad lives who live vicariously through me. Which, considering where I am and what I'm doing is about 99% of you. ;) Why, you ask. Because I went skiing. So what, big deal, you say. Well, you see, I went skiing in the Alps. As in French and Swiss. I win.

This weekend was incredible. Well, I should say that Saturday was incredible and it made the weekend, 'tho Friday and Sunday were not bad.

We left Strasbourg around 8ish, about an hour or so behind the two cars which contained passport-toting persons. Beth and her boyfriend, Tyler, were in my car, as was most of the alcohol and the party goat. (By the way, Tyler is really cool. Go Beth.) We threw all of our jackets over the alcohol when we got to the Swiss border. I had to buy a sticker to drive in Switzerland, about 30 Euros. Fortunately, I was able to fake-stick it to the windshield and as soon as we drove off, Beth pulled it off.

The drive was mostly uneventful, only stopping twice, alhtough we did drive down the wrong way, on purpose, twice, and there were some fun hairpin turns up a dark, windy, narrow road to get to the chalet in Morzine. We arrived at the same time, about 12:30 a.m., as the two cars that had left before us. Also, I learned that for street lamps and even street lights, they use the word 'feu' (fire) instead of 'lumiere'. Cool. You can tell someone to turn left at the first red fire.

We had split into three groups, each one responsible for a night's dinner. Chris and Nicole headed up Thursday's and made v. good sausage sandwiches. We didn't go to bed until around 4, and even then I couldn't sleep and ended up getting only about 2 hours worth. Not fun.

Friday morning, Kelly, Cian, Nick, Gregory, Ruey, Kelly's friend (Claire), and I got up early, picked up our rentals (about 27 Euro for the entire weekend!!!) and were on the slopes of Les Portes du Soleil is the local hill and straddles both Switzerland and France, so it was a thrill getting off of the chair lift and deciding in which country to ski.

Kelly is an incredible, amazing skier. I am maybe marginally better than her as far as straight technique goes (thanks to a ski-instructing daddy), except in powder, but she has more outright skill than I do, and as far as fearlessness goes, she beats the pants off me. Girl is not afraid. She really challenged me, and despite the constant falling (more this weekend than the rest of my skiing career put together), I feel like I improved a lot. The stuff that I would normally find difficult was easy-peasy after what she took me down. However, it does come with a price - I'm insanely sore, and losing my skis seemed to be the order of the weekend; once, on Friday, it was lost for about an hour in powder until Kelly finally found it. Also, my toes HURT. I am just above a boot size 41, but the 42s were too big, so I had to wear the 41s. By the third day, it didn't seem as bad. Maybe it was because I'd already mashed my toes.

That night was our turn to cook. Mark and Brooke made shrimp creole, and I provided bruschetta for the appetizers. Ruey made dessert - rice krispie treats and oranges with chocolate. Nicole also made homemade egg nog which was v. good. We hung out for a bit and then went to bed.

Left to Right: Kelly's friend, Claire, me, Kelly, and Ruey at the top of Chamonix

Saturday, Kelly, Claire, Ruey, and I went to Chamonix, near Mont Blanc, which is (arguably) the most famous resort in Europe. A lot of people had been trying to dissuade us, saying that it would be crowded, it's too far, don't know the area, and so on, but Kelly and Claire really wanted to go and I'm so glad we did. It was incredible. The drive was amazing, and didn't feel like an hour to anyone except Kelly who had to ride with four pairs of skis on her shoulder due to the fact that we had no ski rack. We arrived around 11 and walked around for a while before heading to the hill. Despite the fact that I managed to put my boots on the wrong feet for the first time in my life (well, I put the first one on wrong, and then in attempting to put the second one on, and wondering why they hurt especially bad today, I noticed the mistake), we had a great day. The snow was beautiful, the weather perfect, and the lines short. Who could ask for better? We got back to the chalet around 7 and had curry for dinner. Yum!

Sunday, Gregory, Ruey, Kelly, Cian, and I (Kelly had taken Claire to the train station that morning) went skiing while everyone else got ready to leave. However, Kelly and I first went to the ruins of a nearby abbey. In the snow, they were v. beautiful and haunting.

It was colder that day, and between the weather and my constant falling, my gloves froze so that when I hit them against something hard, they made a clicking sound. Cian took us on some new runs, which involved traversing through a couple of tunnels. That was cool. We finished around 5 and while Kelly and Gregory went back to the chalet to load up his car, we dropped our rental stuff off. Cian wanted to take a shower, so Gregory waited for him while Kelly, Ruey, and I drove off towards Geneva (neither Gregory nor Cian were interested in visiting Geneva). We drove around for a while and then stopped for something to eat at a Tex-Mex restaurant that was surprisingly good, considering it was Tex-Mex in Switzerland.

We left Geneva around 10 p.m.; we actually left the restaurant about 9:30 but didn't figure our way out until nearly 10. Then, it was pretty much clear sailing, despite my attempts to kill us in the sudden pea-soup fog, finally arriving in Strasbourg just after 1 a.m. We drove from Switzerland, up through Germany, and into France. It was our goal to see if we could hit three countries in under an hour, and would have, too, had it not been for that dratted fog. We left Switzerland at 12:05 a.m. and arrived in France at 1:11 a.m.

I did most of the driving over the weekend, with Kelly taking the car to the train station to drop Claire off and driving to the abbey, and Nick driving the first day from the rental place to the ski hill because he whined that Ollie hadn't let him drive a minute on the ride up. Brooke didn't get to drive, either, so yesterday I let her drive to Ikea. The car wasn't due until 4 p.m. yesterday, so I picked up Kelly and drove to school in the morning, and then let Brooke drive me, Kelly, Tyler, and Beth to Ikea for lunch and a bit of shopping (Tyler wanted a lamp and Brooke and I wanted candles).

The other three cars - driven by Chris, Munir, and Ollie - had left around 1ish and went to Geneva. Munir and Chris left about 5 and headed back to Strasbourg. Ollie's car, with Bavs, Will, and Nick inside, headed south...to Monaco. Cross another country off of Nick's list! They arrived in Strasbourg at 3:30 p.m. yesterday, after having left Monte Carlo at 1:30 a.m. (about the time we were arriving in Strasbourg).

So, what's the part about the Haunted Green Car? Well, my car was green, as you might have guessed. Brooke swears that it was the same one that she, Nick, and Will took on their psycho let's-see-how-many-countries-we-can-do-in-one-weekend-if-we-don't-stop-driving trip, the one that they had deemed the Trogdor car. She was pleased to learn that they had broken it. In fact, it's top speed was 150 km/hr. I was v. disappointed in that, especially when driving on the Autobahn. Also, it had a nasty tendency to stall at inopportune moments. By stall, I mean it turned itself off. No lurching or anything. It just died. Apparently, it interpreted that downshifting into first while going up a hill meant turn off. Also, while driving, it would occasionally beep twice and flash the word 'stop' on the panel for no apparent reason. I don't think it liked me.

Anyway, that's the story of my incredible weekend, so try not to be too jealous. It was one of the best weekends ever. I had so much fun. Coming back to school was hard, and we're already planning our next trip.

Oh yeah, it's snowing again. How cool is that. I love living where it snows!!! It snowed yesterday, sort of stopped this morning, and now it's snowing again.

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