The Hiatus Ends

Again, a weeks-long break between blogs. Waiting this long to write them makes it really difficult to remember everything I wanted to talk about, but it also forces me to make them shorter (because of that lack of memory) and therefore easier for you all to read, and more enjoyable despite them being poorly written because you’ve been waiting so long for a new one. Right? Well anyway, three weeks ago I went on a 4 day long skiing trip to the Alps with ESEG, an international students organization here in Milan. The group was a mix of people from Cattolica (my school) and Bocconi (an English university in Milan); it was only 6 of us Cattolicaites and 40 or so Bocconians. We Cattolica kids were a little cliquey but we met some new people as well. We stayed in a town called Bardonecchia, and were a 10 minute walk (15 minute in ski boots) from the slopes.

We got there via coach bus, and I felt like I was in High School again, on my way to Niagara Falls with Mr. Beck and MUN about to go fail once again at pretending to be a foreign country in another foreign country in an imaginary United Nations conference. Oddly enough, that’s exactly what we ended up doing in Bardonecchia!

We got to the town around 10 (I think. Honestly at this point I’m just gonna make things up) and checked in to our hotel. The view from our balcony was fantastic, and there was a little stream gurgling along just behind our hotel.

After getting settled at the hotel we headed up to the lodge to get all our equipment for the week. Just so you know: ski rental places in Europe smell just as bad, if not worse, as those in the United States. Made me feel at home. We had to give our shoe sizes and such in the weird European sizes; luckily I over prepare and had looked it all up the night before (45!). So we got our boots, our skis and our poles and had to lug it all back to the hotel: our introduction to the soreness we would be feeling every morning and every evening for the next 4 days. After we got home we all napped (I think. I know we all napped at least one day. Maybe each day? Something) and went out to get groceries to stock our fridge for the weekend. Cooked some delicious spaghetti with pesto and then headed out for the night to the bar at the lodge, called I Due Merli (The Two Blackbirds). We drank, we danced, we were out until 3 am the night before we were supposed to start skiing in the Alps at 9 in the morning. Needless to say, waking up was a pleasure. So Benoit, Danny, Jorge, Andrew, Forrest and I (the 6 of us in our hotel room/apt type thing) got our awesome ski boots on and trekked up to the lodge. I didn’t mention this before but Jorge had never, ever, gone skiing before in his life. Why not start in the Alps? Luckily our roommate Benoit is French, so he’s been skiing since before he could say “Oui”. He took over Jorge duties for the week.

Pizza that hill

They grow up so fast

Forrest and I were around the same skill level (mediocre at best) so we buddied up to tackle the slopes together. We started with a few blues (meaning Easy in Europe, but these slopes would have been Black Diamonds in NEO) and decided to try to go to another side of the mountain. We caught the #2 bus right outside the lodge to go to Les Arnauds, but there’s two #2 buses and the other goes to Jafferau (the difficult mountain) so of course we ended up there. We realized our mistake immediately but were feeling a little daring, so we got on the Gondola up the mountain and hoped for the best. This is what we found:

No way to get down but to ski, so away we went. Luckily there was always a blue available to go down, and they were some really fun runs. There were some great views along the way too:

Of course, all good things must come to an end, and the only way to get down to the base of the mountain was to ski a black (most difficult slopes) or a red (medium slopes). We chose the red and still chose wrong: it was the steepest thing I’d ever skied down in my life (not saying much, but still. It was intimidating). I pizzaed my way down for most of it but started getting a feel for parallel turns and decided to try my luck. My luck ran out pretty quickly and I made myself fall so I didn’t go flying off track and ended up tweaking my knee and breaking off a ski. I was a little shaken up but made it down the rest of the slope all right. We headed back to the easy mountain and finished up our day with a few runs on the reds there, which were nothing compared to the red we had just “conquered”. We stopped around 4 and my legs had never felt more useless in my life; it was great! That night the whole group got dinner at the pizzeria downstairs in the hotel and it was delicious. Somehow I had the energy to go out too, and was out until 2 at a bar/club in the town of Bardonecchia. On the way home we had a snowball fight. At this point, I fell in love with Bardonecchia.

We woke up the next morning a little bit later than we all wanted and hurried up to the slopes to get ahead of the huge weekend crowds. As soon as I started skiing my knee started killing me, but I kept on truckin because who needs their meniscus anyway? The day was full of pain but I figured out that it hurt worse when I was using crappy technique, so at least I was forced to actually ski correctly and efficiently. We did all the same runs as the day before, and I was definitely getting to learn them pretty well; I think despite the pain this was my favorite day. I just felt great going down some of those runs. We skied until 4 again, and then caught the lift up to the chalet on the main slopes to get dinner and ski down by torchlight with our group. Sarah, Danny, Jorge, Andrew, Benoit and I got separated from the other group (there wasn’t room in the back dining room where they were eating) so we ended up in the front of the restaurant next to a huge group of 20-something Milanese. After the endless wine started flowing they started cheersing (toasting) for anything and everything, and after our table caught on we started to chime in with them. We toasted to quite a few things (can’t really remember any, but they were all memorable) and blew threw a few liters of wine on the way. Dinner flew by (we had something like 4 courses) and then it was time to ski down a mountain under moon and torchlight after all those brindisi (toasts). It was a little nerve wracking at first, but luckily we were on the easiest slope on the mountain. 

Getting ready

Everyone made it down ok and we all headed home to change and go out once again, to that same bar from the first night. That night they were holding a raffle (every time you bought a drink with redbull in it you got a raffle ticket) and I ended up winning a totally rad Budweiser Fanny pack. Unfortunately I haven’t had an occasion to wear it but hopefully I will soon.

The next morning we got up even later (around 10:30) and got to the slopes at 11 (these times are all made up). What isn’t made up is the fact that the crowd at the ski lift was enormous:

So. Many. Italians.

The ski lifts at the resort moved pretty quickly though, so we got through that monstrosity in about 15 minutes. After, we took another ski lift (one that you rode on your skis) up to the very top of the mountain. This was the view (not an awesome pic):

Incredible

We headed down and my confidence did as well; some crazy slopes and that fall the first day did nothing to help. I made it down without completely wiping out but it just felt so much worse than the day before. I eventually got up to speed but stuck to my basic reds and blues; I made my way around the mountain finally (to both Les Arnauds and Melezet) and to the Olympic Snowboarding run on Melezet. All the slopes I ran that day were awesome, but my leg was killing me unfortunately. I kept up skiing until around 4 and went home to have some delicious something for dinner. I started feeling a little sick after dinner and decided to take it easy for the night. I ended up getting food poisoning or something like it, and felt horrible the whole night. I slept maybe four hours in-between all the puking. Good times…. But the next day because of my horrible illness my friend Sarah and I decided to take a walk around the city of Bardonecchia because we never really got to see it during our time there. It is a really charming little city, very Italian and very walkable. There wasn’t a ton to see but it was nice to just take a break from the incredible amounts of skiing we had done the last 3 days. After wandering around the town a little we decided to head back to the slopes to see what was going on, and ended up taking the ski lift up to the chalet we ate at on Friday night. I had my first solid meal of the day and finally felt alive after the endless night before and afterwards Sarah and I took a nalp (nap in the Alps. We’re soooo clever). We nalped right on the snow, lying on top of our jackets, and it felt great! We also got fantastic tans. 

Took this before the Chateau dinner, but its also where Sarah and I nalped.

from l-r, Bri, Sarah, Benoit, Me

Also on Sunday, the ski resort held a race for all the internationals in Bardonecchia that weekend (it was international weekend, so it wasn’t just kids from Bocconi). Actually I just remembered that the race was on Saturday, but act like it happened on Sunday as a grand finale to our time in the Italian Alps. Benoit, Andrew and Danny all competed and all did awesome (but not awesome enough to win) but I still got a few action pics of the competitors as they came down the run:

Benoit, victorious

Finally, it was time to pack up our stuff and hop on the bus back to Milan. I was sad to leave Bardonecchia but every time I come back to Milan after a long trip it feels more and more like home, like the place where I’m supposed to be. It’s an incredibly comforting feeling to have when all our trips take place in these places that are so foreign. And skiing at Holiday Valley will never be the same.

P.S. I'm sorry I'm not doing this blog thing right AT ALL. I have two more written and I'm trying to get all caught up on blogs before Spring Break starts this Thursday. I apologize, readers!!