Wet, Wet, Wild

** back dated post **

I had a day off on Sunday because of the security sweep scheduled for the Olympic Village where i'm working. Yippie!

First thing Sunday morning, i received an sms from my italian colleague who was on his way to Bardonecchia. He asked if i would like to try skiing & so i thought - yea.. why not? While waiting for him to arrive, i was having my breakfast & checking my emails when...

Ding Dong
I opened my apartment door
Hungarian colleague: "Do you mind coming to my apartment & check out the washing machine? I can't get it to work..."
Me: "ok!"
And went up... took a look at the washing machine... pull the button... washing machine started... bravo! Gave myself a pat on my shoulder & went back to my apartment to check my emails...
5min later (or less!)
Ding Dong
Again opened my door
Hungarian colleague: "You won't believe this... can you please come to my apartment again?"
Me: "sure!" (thinking to myself, what else this time?)
Walked up... found his apartment was flooded with water because the washing machine was faulty... cried "Oh Shit!"... had cold feet (because the water was really icy cold!)... helped him to clean up... 30min gone... brought his clothes down to my apartment for washing... Unbelievable!!

1130am. Went with my skiing colleague to the nearby ski resort. Rent a ski boots, ski & ski sticks for myself. Unfortunately, they don't rent ski pants, so i just had my jeans on. Then the challenges:

1. walking with ski boots on is hard... the boots is about 5cm below your knee & you can't bend your ankles to walk like with normal shoes... just imagine how the israel army march - only slower... we had to walk approx. 500m on ski boots to the ski area... tough...
2. trying out with the ski... on baby slope, of course! first was to learn how to glide (no problem)... then to learn how to stop (sometimes work, sometimes not)... then off we went to the ski lift!
3. ski lift... instead of a chair lift that you could sit on & brings you up to the top, the ski lift has the same objective but works differently... you're to pull the rope, put the end (which is a round plate) between your legs & instead of sitting on the round thingy, you rest your butt on it - standing with your ski on & let the rope pull you uphill... when you reach the top, you'll have to pull the round plate away from your legs, release it. So far so good as i followed the steps & when i reached the top, released the rope & then there was a slope where i have to apply my ski braking skill. This part of the instruction was not told to me! And i had my 1st fall - totally caught off guard! Of course there are many more falls that follow that day... legs entangled... eyes watching... snow bites my body & all wet... fortunately, i don't know them & they don't know me! There are many embarrassing moments but i shall not go into details...