The art of skiing

Skiing was very weird. First of all, the awkwardness of the skiing wardrobe. I felt like a rubber puppet stuck inside a very white piece of paper. My feet hurt enormously in my awful boots and though I was aware of all the handy things in my pockets (iPod, tissues, money), I was never able to reach them during the day. After acquiring the basic skills of skiing near the town, my sister took me and Eefke up to the top of the glacier, where the snow was better. This was a one-hour journey walking/gliding/falling/waiting for the lift/waiting in the lift/getting yourself, your skis, your sticks inside crowded buses. We had to go through this agony twice a day, up and down.

The skiing itself was okay, as long as it wasn’t too scary. (It turns out I’m scared quite easily, which was the cause of some fights with my reckless sister). My friend Eefke was much braver than me. She went down some tricky slopes. She also fell out of the ski lift twice.

Then the town itself. Les Deux Alpes must be in the Guinness Book of World Records somewhere as being the town that was built within ten minutes. It’s extremely ugly and touristy, consisting only of big concrete condominiums, shops and hotels. It does not bring to mind the romantic streets you discover when in France, the rustic atmosphere, the old Roman churches in the middle of the town square. None of that. It did have a boulangerie where we bought French bread every morning. But that was about it. For the first four days, the only French I heard was the ‘bonjour’ from the guy who operated the ski lifts on the glacier. We only met Dutch and Belgian people, and some Italian ski instructors (who thought we were extremely interesting, by the way). We met them at the local bar, called ‘De Prins van Oranje’ (which is Dutch for ‘the prince of Orange’, which is the name of the Dutch royal family). The bar was a place where many bad, bad songs were played to many desperate people. And where alcohol was consumed in huge amounts and with astonishing speed. I joined in, because it was the only way to enjoy the music. I rarely dance when I go out, but at De Prins van Oranje, I danced all right. We stayed in the higher part of town, so we never really went down to explore the other side of it until the last day. When we finally did, we found out that the people downhill spoke English, Spanish and French. Segregation in the Alps. Who knew? But you know what the funny thing is? I had a great vacation! I was grumpy about the skiing part almost every day (except for the day when Eefke and I managed to escape to Grenoble, to be in the car with the music loud, then find a city where normal people were working, where the sun was shining on the terrace where we drank our cappuccinos, where we could watch regular French life and be part of it), but I also can’t remember the last time I laughed this much. We had good conversations, great meals, many cups of hot chocolate, beautiful views, lots of attention from the male locals (i.e. free drinks!), good music, a patient teacher. And most of all, so many moments where my mind swallowed the snow and turned all white and silent.