Day and Night, Night and Day
I went snowboarding yesterday at Chamrousse. It was the first time I’d actually been to that particular ski station and it was one of the most frustrating days ever. To begin with, the weather has been quite stormy lately and although it wasn’t exactly hailing up at the mountain, the snow was falling and the haze caused by it was so thick that I could barely see three feet in front of me. Turns out Chamrousse has two stations but the bus only goes as far as the first one, which has only one chairlift and one T-bar. As luck would have it, the chairlift was out of order, so I had to suck up my pride and try to master the T-bar. Well, after 5 attempts which only resulted in my falling before I could even catch the bar to drag me up the hill, and pissing off everyone who was in line behind me, I skulked away and sat in front of the broken-down chairlift praying and hoping that it would re-open soon so I could catch up with my three friends, who were already at the top of the mountain waiting for me.
The snow continued to fall and before too long I was starting to look like frosty the snow girl. I threw a spiteful glance up at the T-bar and saw MC, JM and Sandra standing there waving at me. I went up to meet them and as soon as I reached them I saw a flood of people racing to the chairlift that I had been waiting for nearly an hour to open. I finally made it to the top of the hill, where the visibility was even worse than at the bottom. As I got off the chairlift I was trying my best to keep my balance and not run into JM, who was sitting next to me. I managed to push off just fine, but wasn’t able to turn away in time and crashed right into a snow bank. My board went up, I went sideways, and my ankle and knee both went in directions that ankles and knees are not supposed to go. I felt a pop, and thought to myself, “this is NOT good…” I sat for a while and waited for the pain to subside. My knee was fine, and my ankle was tender, but I decided to ignore it and try to make the best of what was not turning out to be a very good day.
As it turns out, snowboarding in zero visibility forces you to kind of go all out. You can’t go too slowly because you fall more, so I started cruising down the hill having no idea what kind of drops or hills there might be in front of me, and was starting to master my turns when crash! I fall flat on my face. My goggles are all scratched up, and today my neck is killing me, but I’m alive. I made it the rest of the way down to another part of the mountain where there was another T-bar, and no chairlift in sight. I gave it my best, but the operator finally told me something like, ‘you need to find another way to get up the mountain. This is too difficult for you. You can’t do it.’ For anyone who knows me well, you know that I absolutely cannot stand being told that there’s something I can’t do. But rather than try and prove the man wrong and hold up yet another line of people, I stomped away from my friends who yelled after me, “we’ll meet you at the next station!” and walked back to the lodge to inquire about the next bus home.
Turned out the bus left from the next station, so I hobbled on the free shuttle (my ankle is starting to hurt a bit more at this point) and 20 minutes later I was there. This station had 3 chairlifts, no T-bars, and the bus ride gave me a little time to change my attitude, so I decided to give it another go. But sitting in a heated shuttle for 20 minutes had caused my frozen clothes to melt and by the time I got there I realized I was soaked from all the snow, and freezing. I went down one more run (carefully this time), had lunch, and caught the 3:00 bus back to Grenoble. It just wasn’t my day.
But yesterday evening turned out to be much more fun. Last night was Ellen’s “housewarming party” -- she is no longer SDF: sans domicile fixe (homeless, basically)-- and I got to see more of the people who have finally returned from break. We popped open a couple bottles of cheap champagne (more like fizzy wine), handed out a few demi-pèches, cranked up the music, and had a great time. I took lots of pictures, and a couple of videos of Ellen being crazy and doing an impression of Stevie Wonder to some trance song… It was great! I stayed long enough to see the party jump into full swing then left early because I was in pain and tired from my not so great day, even though it turned out to be a great night. Today I slept until almost 1 in the afternoon. I didn’t leave my apartment until 7:30 this evening when I went to Deanna's boyfriend (Peter)'s birthday soirée... It was kind of nice to just relax. My ankle is only slightly sprained, and I have a slight case of whiplash, but all in all I’m feeling much better today than I felt yesterday.
I have fixed my class schedule so that I have 4 day weekends! That means at LEAST 2 days of snowboarding each week, maybe 3 weather and money permitting. I'm going to be a pro by the time winter is over. As for classes, I think I'll enjoy this semester much more than the previous one. For one, I can actually understand my professors now, for another, I think I'll enjoy the subject matter much more. Last semester I took all Political Science courses and they were interesting, but not my style. This quarter I'm taking Phonetics, Translation, Cinema, Lit. & Photography, Cultural History of France, and either Geopolitics or the History of Socialism in Europe. More my cup of tea.
Anyways... time for bed. Class starts at 8:30 tomorrow morning and goes straight through until about 5:30pm. I promise I'll try to write more often!
-Liv
PS: it's going to be -10 degrees tomorrow! How crazy is that? (Celsius, not Fahrenheit, but still!)
The snow continued to fall and before too long I was starting to look like frosty the snow girl. I threw a spiteful glance up at the T-bar and saw MC, JM and Sandra standing there waving at me. I went up to meet them and as soon as I reached them I saw a flood of people racing to the chairlift that I had been waiting for nearly an hour to open. I finally made it to the top of the hill, where the visibility was even worse than at the bottom. As I got off the chairlift I was trying my best to keep my balance and not run into JM, who was sitting next to me. I managed to push off just fine, but wasn’t able to turn away in time and crashed right into a snow bank. My board went up, I went sideways, and my ankle and knee both went in directions that ankles and knees are not supposed to go. I felt a pop, and thought to myself, “this is NOT good…” I sat for a while and waited for the pain to subside. My knee was fine, and my ankle was tender, but I decided to ignore it and try to make the best of what was not turning out to be a very good day.
As it turns out, snowboarding in zero visibility forces you to kind of go all out. You can’t go too slowly because you fall more, so I started cruising down the hill having no idea what kind of drops or hills there might be in front of me, and was starting to master my turns when crash! I fall flat on my face. My goggles are all scratched up, and today my neck is killing me, but I’m alive. I made it the rest of the way down to another part of the mountain where there was another T-bar, and no chairlift in sight. I gave it my best, but the operator finally told me something like, ‘you need to find another way to get up the mountain. This is too difficult for you. You can’t do it.’ For anyone who knows me well, you know that I absolutely cannot stand being told that there’s something I can’t do. But rather than try and prove the man wrong and hold up yet another line of people, I stomped away from my friends who yelled after me, “we’ll meet you at the next station!” and walked back to the lodge to inquire about the next bus home.
Turned out the bus left from the next station, so I hobbled on the free shuttle (my ankle is starting to hurt a bit more at this point) and 20 minutes later I was there. This station had 3 chairlifts, no T-bars, and the bus ride gave me a little time to change my attitude, so I decided to give it another go. But sitting in a heated shuttle for 20 minutes had caused my frozen clothes to melt and by the time I got there I realized I was soaked from all the snow, and freezing. I went down one more run (carefully this time), had lunch, and caught the 3:00 bus back to Grenoble. It just wasn’t my day.
But yesterday evening turned out to be much more fun. Last night was Ellen’s “housewarming party” -- she is no longer SDF: sans domicile fixe (homeless, basically)-- and I got to see more of the people who have finally returned from break. We popped open a couple bottles of cheap champagne (more like fizzy wine), handed out a few demi-pèches, cranked up the music, and had a great time. I took lots of pictures, and a couple of videos of Ellen being crazy and doing an impression of Stevie Wonder to some trance song… It was great! I stayed long enough to see the party jump into full swing then left early because I was in pain and tired from my not so great day, even though it turned out to be a great night. Today I slept until almost 1 in the afternoon. I didn’t leave my apartment until 7:30 this evening when I went to Deanna's boyfriend (Peter)'s birthday soirée... It was kind of nice to just relax. My ankle is only slightly sprained, and I have a slight case of whiplash, but all in all I’m feeling much better today than I felt yesterday.
I have fixed my class schedule so that I have 4 day weekends! That means at LEAST 2 days of snowboarding each week, maybe 3 weather and money permitting. I'm going to be a pro by the time winter is over. As for classes, I think I'll enjoy this semester much more than the previous one. For one, I can actually understand my professors now, for another, I think I'll enjoy the subject matter much more. Last semester I took all Political Science courses and they were interesting, but not my style. This quarter I'm taking Phonetics, Translation, Cinema, Lit. & Photography, Cultural History of France, and either Geopolitics or the History of Socialism in Europe. More my cup of tea.
Anyways... time for bed. Class starts at 8:30 tomorrow morning and goes straight through until about 5:30pm. I promise I'll try to write more often!
-Liv
PS: it's going to be -10 degrees tomorrow! How crazy is that? (Celsius, not Fahrenheit, but still!)
posted by Liv at 11:43 PM
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