Friday evening, Hadley and I were picked up at 6pm by two of our friends, Romain and Daniel. We expected to have about a 4-hour drive ahead of us, including picking up Bruno in Toulouse. He told us we should pick up some chains for the tires along the way. We didn't expect to need them but bought them in Toulouse, just in case. That all went smoothly, until we got to the first pass we were supposed to go over: closed, blocked by snow. We turned around, drove 20 minutes back down to the nearest town, and took the other route. As soon as we got up into the mountains, we had to stop to put the chains on the tires. We kept them on the whole way there except when we went through a 6-km tunnel through a mountain to avoid going over it.
We ended up getting to Régis's cabin at around 1am, after a harrowing drive over mountains, in the dark, through snow so thick you couldn's see in front of the car, and all the time with the chains crunching under the car, giving us a little peace of mind. Since we were bringing the food, everyone had been waiting for us to eat, and as soon as we got there we poured ourselves a drink and the boys started making pasta. In fact, they did all of the cooking for the weekend, which was awesome. In fact they shooed us out of the kitchen everytime we offered to lend a hand.
On Saturday, Sam woke up the whole house at 7:45am, we had some coffee and fruit, and were out the door, reaching the ski resort at around 9. We rented skis and bought our passes and then we were off! It was definitely nice to have so many experiences skiers with us--Molly and I were the only beginners and everyone went down (slowly) with us the first time to help us out and take pictures and videos of us falling down.
By the second run, Molly and I felt much better, and managed with much less falling than before, although everytime we hauled ourselves up on our ski poles, our arms threatened to give out a little bit more than the last time.
After lunch (also organized by the boys--ham and cheese on baguettes), Molly and I decided to give it one more shot then head in for hot chocolate, while the others left us to do the hard trails. When the slopes closed at 4:30, we were SO ready to head home for our well-earned hot showers and hot dinner, which was also prepared by the boys. We had tartiflette, which is basically a big dish of potatoes, ham, and crème fraiche which cheese melted on top.
On Sunday, we had breakfast, cleaned up the cabin, and then piled into the cars to go home or head to another ski resort (guess which group I was in). By that time the roads had all been plowed and salted so we got home much faster than we got there. I only had 3 out of my usual 5 classes yesterday which is just as well because I can barely lift my arm to write on the board. Oh yeah, did I mention that my ENTIRE BODY is sore? Good thing I didn't have to do anything besides sit in a car, I could barely twist my arms around to get them into my coat sleeves... Oh well, what do you expect. So I'll leave you with the best pic of the day, which looks like a set-up but I assure you, this actually happened:
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