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Ski Trip
Skiing is easy, right? You must be joking; I have never been so physically exhausted after a week’s holiday in my life! Not to mention the bruises from all the falls. Did I regret it? Not for one second!
After weeks of anticipation the morning of the departure to the ski resort of Valloire in France finally arrived. It was impossible to sleep the night before so I was up and dressed, eager to go long before the designated time. As all 30 pupils piled into the two buses I could not help but think “Who would want to be a teacher in charge of us lot?”. The teachers who accompanied us were Mrs. McCartney, Mr. Fullerton and Mr. Dougherty. Weren’t they lucky! At the international airport we teamed up with pupils from lineal High school in Londonderry. The flight to Geneva passed in no time. Our excitement made time fly.
At Geneva we retrieved our cases and hurried to the waiting buses. The teachers informed us it would take us three hours to get to our final destination. The buzz of excitement grew as we neared Valloire, the village where we would be staying. It was so alluring, with the snow on the ground, it took my breath away literally, as it was so cold and dark.
I shared a room with my namesake Rachel and Jenny. It was petite (I did learn some French). After checking out everyone else’s rooms we unpacked and headed downstairs to get dinner. I was ravenous so although it did not look exciting it sure tasted good. We only had time for a ski fitting before it was ‘lights out’.
Our early start on Monday morning commenced with a typical French breakfast of croissants, cereal and fruit. Definitely no fry-up! The hard part was putting on the ski boots. I was as blind as a bat, didn’t have a clue. Finally with some help, I was ready for the walk to the slopes. I felt I had done my exercise for the day, but how wrong can you be? This was just the start!
Having never skied before, Poppi and I were put in a Beginners group. We had a great instructor. Even though he could not really speak English he had us all laughing, which broke the ice. The view from the top of the slope was truly amazing. I was busy looking for the ‘snowplough’ till it dawned on me this was a ski term and we were going to be taught how to snowplough. You open your legs in a sort of triangle shape with the points of the skis nearly meeting. This is a stopping technique. Needless to say, who wants to go flying down a ski slope uncontrollably?
Lunch loomed longingly, as we walked back to the hotel. We had just enough time to stock up on chocolate from the local shops before we had our next lesson. We managed four hours skiing a day. We collapsed when we reached our room in the afternoon, but not for long. We were going to explore the town. However, can you imagine three girls, with just one shower, one mirror and one plug? What a nightmare! What amused us was there was a plastic cow in the roundabout! There was also a lovely little French chapel and the people were charming. In the evening we had a treasure hunt. We were all so tired we just fell asleep after it.
By Wednesday I had moved up to a higher group. We were on the blue slope now, which meant we had to use the four-man lift, which was open. It was scary at the start, but it was fun the more we used it. On Thursday while we were skiing our group went on the seven mile ski, and to see the donkeys. Bum boarding was later that night. It was hilarious, and everyone kept falling. We all gulped hot chocolate afterwards - it was so luxurious, running down your throat and warming you up so quickly. Once we had finished we wandered down to a little pizza parlour. We mostly snacked there all week.
Friday skiing was a lot easier and more fun, with ice skating that night. I must admit this was one of my favourite nights. Everyone was trying to skate, but they couldn’t manage it. We fell so much, I was laughing the whole night. On Saturday we woke up with sore bums from falling so much the previous night. We had a test to do that day to see how far we had come in our learning that week. Once that was over, we skied about the places we had been that week, we also saw the igloos and went inside them. They were really cool. We finished our last day of skiing, which was sad, but we went back to the hotel and sorted our ski equipment out and gave it back.
We did last minute souvenir shopping. The ski presentation was at the hotel that night. I got a Beginner’s badge. After that dinner was the disco. We dressed all up and the disco was great fun. Even the teachers were dancing! For a final treat we had pizza that night. As it was our last night we were allowed to stay up later. We spent our time packing and just chilling in other people’s rooms, talking about the week and how we didn’t want to go home. It was like our home for the week and we had all seemed close.
As the time came to leave it was sad to say farewell to Valloire. I would say I’ll remember the ski trip, as it was so much fun and it was so different from any of the holidays I have been on before. I truly enjoyed it!
Rachael Hill