One of the evening activities organised by Skiworld during our ski week was a quiz night, which I must admit, I have quite the penchant for. The only downer was that it didn’t start until 10 PM!

Still, we managed to round up a team of nine, and along we went for the ride. It was actually a pretty decent evening in the end – even the drinks weren’t terribly overpriced, at €5 for a JD and coke. We don’t know how our team (“Quizzing in the Name Of”) fared, as they only announced last place, and the top three (of which we were in neither); but we did secure victory in the Aluminium Foil Sculpture round.

Basically, we had to make something out of a sheet of aluminium foil, on the theme of a circus. Todd took the bull by the horns, and sculpted us a cannon (i.e. the human cannonball) – and quite an impressive one at that! It even had wheels, and a 1p coin in the back to weight it correctly!

Impressive, no?! Was there ever any doubt that we wouldn’t win? Especially compared to one of the other teams who simply wrapped three champagne flutes in alfoil, juggled them, and then dropped (and broke) one. Pah! Pathetic.

This post is as much for the memories as it is a reference for if we find ourselves in the Three Valleys again! Here’s a few standouts for me:

Best Eat In Meal

We ate at the restaurant at the bottom of the Granges and Teppes lifts on Thursday, and we were blown away by the value for money (well, it’s all relative!). For €12, I got a huge lasagne (big enough for two really, but hey – we were skiing all day!) as well as a side salad with lettuce, tomato, walnuts, and some other stuff. The meal was so big that I couldn’t even finish it – yes, I’m as shocked as you are, but it’s true! I also ordered the first café crème that I’d had all week, and it was fantastic.

Best of all, the middle of the restaurant had a huge fireplace, which had a shelf around its protective grill, so you could put your gloves/beanies/goggles/etc there to dry off while you ate, and then enjoy toasty warm fingers/heads/eyes/etc for the first 22 seconds when you stepped outside!

Best Take Out/Picnic Meal

On our first day we had randomly arranged to meet everyone for lunch at the base of the Mont Vallon chair. Kristy and I shared a massive tuna mayo baguette, and a bottle of lemon fanta, which came to the princely sum of €10. Yes, it wasn’t the cheapest place on the mountain, but that baguette was delicious, and it was worth it just to sit and bask in the sunlight for a while.

Best nutella crepe

Aubain and I were straight out onto the slopes as soon as we arrived on day one. Having not eaten lunch, we stopped for a quick snack at the top of the first lift we took, where I promptly ordered: “One nutella crepe thanks love!”. Turns out the bird didn’t speak Australian, as instead of starting to prepare my piece of chocolate heaven, she simply looked at me with a somewhat confused expression on her face.

Thankfully Aubain – fluent in both Australian and French – came to the rescue, and said “une crêpe nutella”, which she had no trouble understanding. Now to me, they sounded pretty much identical, but I guess this is why Australian’s aren’t known for their language skills.

Anyway, her ignorance of the Australian language (as well as the pre-made-then-reheated crepes) cost her the title of “best nutella crepe”, which instead has to go to the little green crepe stand in Meribel-Mottaret. We only discovered it on Thursday, but you can bet your bananas that we were right back there on Friday. €3.50 of pure nutella ecstasy!

Best toilets

The cold weather (and possibly the altitude, though I don’t know how) was playing havoc with my bladder all week, and no matter what I tried, I needed to pee as soon as we hit the top of the first lift. (Too much information?) The toilets at the top of the Morel lift (or more accurately, at the bottom of the Altiport (Meribel) lift) were always there to offer a little piece of ceramic comfort. Not only were they immaculately clean, but there was only two stairs to traverse to get there! That’s a huge comfort when you’re busting, and wearing ski boots – ordinarily a fatal combination!

Coldest lift

Yes, it’s not really an award that any lift would want to win, however the St Martin 2 chairlift was so much colder than any other, that I just had to give it a mention. Kristy, Eva and I had the “pleasure” of riding up it on Thursday afternoon, only moments after learning that it was -17˚C at the base. High up in the air, between two valleys acting as a wind tunnel, we almost died of frostbite. We tried to comfort ourselves by thinking the warmest thoughts that we could… curry… beaches… under floor heating…

Kristy decided to take things one step further, riding about 2/3rds the way up with her ski jacket unzipped! I tells ya, she’s hardcore!

They say that “all good things must come to an end” and in the case of our week of skiing, that stupid cliche came true yesterday when we got back to London. To be fair, I think everyone was happy to be resting their tired muscles after a week on the slopes; but a relaxing weekend in our chalet followed by another week of skiing would have been a much better outcome than having to come home!

Our chalet was in Merbiel, which – along with Courchevel and Val Thorens – is part of the largest ski area in the world, known as “The Three Valleys”. One thing I can definitely say about the area is that there is an absolute metric crapton of snow – way more snow than I’ve ever seen before. And, since we were also higher than we’ve ever skiied before (the highest slope we hit was just over 3000m), the quality of the snow was generally amazing.

We were very lucky to enjoy perfect weather on our first few days, but the clouds rolled in on Tuesday night, bringing with them a fresh dump of snow. By morning the weather hadn’t improved at all; four of us did venture up to the top of our closest mountain, but the fog was so thick we could barely see each other, even just a few metres apart. It took us about an hour to very cautiously ski back down!

Still, even though hitting the pistes were out of the question we weren’t going to let all that fresh powder go to waste! And given that our “backyard” consisted of a fairly steep, wide open hill, Giovanni and Suzie found some shovels and slaved away building a huge kicker! I must admit, it took quite a bit of courage just to hit it, and it seemed even bigger once you were in the air! But the landing pad was like a well fluffed pillow, which I think we were all very thankful for…

The visibility certainly improved on Thursday, though the snow continued to fall well into the afternoon – so much so that they didn’t bother grooming the slopes until after the resort had closed for the day. Still, boatloads of powder, freshly groomed runs, and perfect visibility added up to an unbeatable day of skiing on Friday – just a pity it had to be right at the end of our trip!

Aubain, Ingrid, Kristy and I took the opportunity to venture as far as possible, and after about three hours, we managed to make it to the eastern most point of the resort, and into The Fourth Valley – one of the most beautiful places that I have ever seen, in all the world. Photos don’t do it any justice!

This trip was also both colder and hotter than any other ski trip we’ve done. Thursday and Friday were especially cold – it was -17˚C at the base of one of the lifts, and that doesn’t account for windchill, nor the 1,000 metres or so of extra altitude at the peaks. I was mostly warm enough in two thermal layers, a fleece, a neck warmer, and the hardshell outer layers, but the wind rushing in and out of my goggles (which prevents fogging) was enough to give me a brain freeze! It’s even worse when you’re sitting on an “open plan” ski lift, as you’re not moving to keep warm, you’re up in the air, and you’ve got no protection from the elements! Brrrrrrr!!

On the contrary, our ski chalet was way too hot! Everything had in built heating – the rooms, the floors – even the sofas! And there was a problem with the wiring, which meant none of the thermostats worked properly (neither did the lights – they flicked on and off at random – but that’s another story). Most of the time we needed a door or window left open just to balance out the temperature a bit, and the hot, dry air meant everyone woke up feeling dehydrated each morning. Still, we can’t complain too much – too hot is definitely better than too cold!

All in all, it was a pretty amazing trip, and given how far in advance it had been planned, I’m still in disbelief that it’s already over. My fingers are crossed for a second ski trip this season; I just can’t get enough of it!

More photos in the skiing and the kicker albums.

It’s been a wonderfully quiet week, in which I’ve enjoyed lots of down time. I’ve been to the gym every day, played lots of PS3 (I finished Darksiders in 18 hours, and have started on Assassin’s Creed II), and got lots of tasks ticked off the never-ending “To Do” list. It’s been very satisfying!

Tomorrow, we leave for a week of skiing in Meribel, France, along with Nick and Suzie, Aubain and Ingrid, Eva and Ali, Todd, Giovanni (who we met at last year’s ski trip), Russell (Suzie’s old flatmate), and Russell’s brother. We’re actually heading off tonight to stay in an airport motel near Gatwick, as our flight leaves very early tomorrow morning.

Once we get there, we’ll be staying at Chalet Laetitia – a brand new, four star, fully catered chalet. Awesome! Just hope the weather isn’t actually as cold as the forecast – I can’t imagine what -26C (after windchill) will feel like, but by Wednesday afternoon, I might know!

See you in a week!

What an adventurous 48 hours we’ve had! On Saturday morning, we left Aberdeen with Stacey and Wes for a road trip to Cairngorm mountain for a day of skiing. About 20 miles from home, we noticed something going a little awry.

G: Hey Wes, the slug sounds awesome! Have you had a sports exhaust installed?
Wes: No mate, but now that you mention it, he does sound a little louder than usual.
G: Oh. Maybe we should pull over and have a look at it?
Wes: Good idea mate… lets pull in next to that pub.

Sure enough, The Slug was having some exhaust issues – the exhaust pipe had seperated from the rear muffler. No wonder he was sounding so sporty! Wes called up The AA, then we all headed in to the pub for a burger and chips.

Lesson Number 1: If you ever find yourself broken down in Banchory, do not – I repeat, do not – try to find solace in a burger from The Burnett Arms hotel and restaurant. Their burgers must have been made from Grade F meat (ex-circus animals and old gym mats), which as you may have guessed was rather disgusting. I don’t know if they were surprised when they collected our plates and found that most of our patties hadn’t been touched; hopefully they’ll get the point!

Anyway, a young lad – who I’ll call Angus – eventually turned up on behalf of the AA, and jimmied up a few metal cable ties to hold the exhaust pipe in place. It was only a temporary fix, but he assured us it should hold in place for our journey to Aviemore and back. Sure enough, we made it without too much trouble (save for a bit of car-skiing up a hill on an icy road), and checked in to Cairngorm Lodge, a youth hostel not far out of town where Stacey and Wes had stayed before.

Lesson Number 2: Cairngorn Lodge should be used strictly for summer accommodation only! Sleeping in thermals and huddled under a doona, I was still quite cold all night. None of us slept particularly well, and consequently, getting up for our early start was no easy task. Somehow we managed to drag ourselves out of bed, head down to the kitchen for some Paw Ridge, and then get back on to the road.

We arrived up at Cairngorm mountain by about 8:30 AM, picked up our hire gear and lift tickets, then caught the funicular up to the top of the mountain. Not only was it freezing (-6 at the base) but visibility was horrendous – 10 metres at best. We spent the whole day skiing quite slowly down some very fresh powder and ungroomed runs, most of the time wondering where on earth we were supposed to be going! Ironically, the best run of the day was our last one, because the fog had finally lifted and we could actually see the snow. I tells ya, it makes a huge difference.

Completely exhausted (powder snow is such hard work!), we hopped back into The Slug for the three hour journey home. When we got down the mountain and into Aviemore, we all noticed a rather unfriendly sounding scraping noise coming from under the car. We pulled over at the information centre and got down to have a look, only to find that the entire exhaust pipe (that runs between the front and back muffler) was scraping on the road.

Lesson Number 3: Join the AA.

A dude showed up about an hour-and-a-half after we called him, and rigged up a much better temporary fix than what the first guy did. He also scolded Angus (who was contracted from a third party company by the AA, but not actually from the AA) for sending us on our merry way, rather than telling us to turn back and get the car fixed.

The new rig held for our entire journey back to Aberdeen. Admittedly, we got a few “looks” from passing motorists, clearly not impressed by our superior sounding exhaust system. I think they were just jealous.

We were very pleased to step back into Hotel Bramley, where we cooked up a massive Tomato and Chili pasta feast, then finally hit the sack just after midnight. Suffice to say, we all slept very, very well.

Yes, it’s been a very long time coming, but I’ve finally put together a bit of a ski video from our most recent trip to Morzine.

In my defence, I was waiting for my copy of iMovie ’09 to arrive, which it did with Jason and Susan. It’s an absolute joy to use – a lovely clean, intuitive interface, with lots of quick-editing features. Unfortunately, it’s also full of bugs, the worst one which seems to randomly corrupt your project file. Better yet, Apple, in all their wisdom, have decided that the ability to load and save projects at will is unnecessary – hence, when the video file gets corrupted, there’s no way to go back, except for the extremely painful option of starting the entire video again.

The only way I’ve found around this is to periodically quit iMovie and make another copy of the project file. This saved me countless times during my second attempt! Unfortunately though, by the end, iMovie was playing up so much that I simply had to give up – so the audio editing is not quite what I wanted it to be.

Less ranting, more video!

Time – 10:42, Size: 83 MB

Yes, I realise that it’s 83MB, and yes, I realise that it’s almost 11 minutes long; but more accurately, it’s 11 very entertaining minutes, and I worked through much frustration to get there. So I hope you like it.

After a horrible day of traveling, we’re home from our week in Chalet Berger in Morzine, France. And what an amazing week it was!

We couldn’t have asked for better weather. It was quite foggy a few times – especially in the mornings – but for the most part we had warm, sunny blue skies. And most importantly, lots and lots of gorgeous snow!

Our chalet host – Andy – was an amazing cook. Each day for breakfast we could select from eggs and bacon, cereal, porridge, fresh bread with butter and jam, pastries, tea, and coffee. More bread – as well as a home made cake – greeted us when we got home each day; and each night’s dinner was a three course meal, accompanied by both red and white wine.

Best of all, it was a great week on the snow. We spent three of our days skiing in a group with a guide, Rob, a fanatic young snowboarder. He took us all over various mountains and showed us how to get between different parts of the resort (the place is huge; we probably only skiied on a third of it all week).

On our last day, we headed to the park to try our hand at some jumps. Even the little ones are very intimidating at first, but after a few runs they become much easier. By the end we were all pulling off some decent air – and even a few tricks!

It was some of the best skiing that we’ve ever had – I just wish I could go again this season! A few more photos from the trip in my picasa web album; and a video to come (courtesy of Kirsty!).

Whilst you’re busy beavering away at work for the next week, spare a thought for us, as we’ll be doing time here:

Yep, it’s going to be tough to be surrounded by all that snow, with only a few pairs of skis, a hot tub, and some of our friends to keep us company.

And as if that wasn’t traumatic enough, our flight out tomorrow is at 7:05 AM, which means we’ll have to get up at 4:30 AM! Life can be so cruel!

I’ve finally finished putting up a selection of photos from Spain (Seville, Barcelona and Costa Brava) and Andorra. Go and check them out, if you haven’t already!

Hopefully the stories from our adventures in Spain will follow soon…

After a long day of skiing (ok, well four hours feels like a long time to me) what could be better than chilling in a spa like this?

The Sport Hotel Wellness Centre was just a hop, skip and a jump away from our digs in Soldeu, Andorra, and warranted at least one trip by every member of our group. This place rocked! It was fabulously designed and soothed away all our aches and pains.

By standing under the high-pressure shower coming off the pillar pictured and arranging myself just so, it was possible to get one jet directed at each tricep and another at that pesky muscle knot in my left shoulder. Aaaaaahhhhhh.

Rather than put up a million photos of it, you can check them out here if you’re interested. Swimming under the little bridge took us out into a heated outdoor spa overlooking the ski fields (very trippy experience – see pic 10). Admission also included spa hopping along a line of smaller pools all at different temperatures (pic 9), sauna hopping from pleasant right through to lunatic temperatures, and a variety of other rockin’ rooms including a “tepidarium” (pic 4). Had a lovely little nap in here in fact!

Just thinking about it has me so enthused I’m googling similar places in NYC, though I think some of the magic would be lost in riding a subway home afterwards!