Love Generation (3/11: Les Arcs)

Mimi won’t stop playing this song. “Love Generation” by Bob Sinclair. I wake up to it, we have breakfast to it, he sings it all day while we’re on the slopes, he plays it while we’re cleaning up after skiing, and he requests it at the club. It’s reached the point where, much like back home some friends will randomly say “who’s country is this?” and we sing back “this is ouuuuur country”*, we’ve taken to randomly saying “what generation is this?” and then we’ll either sing back “beeee the love generation”, or whistle the melody. People look at us funny.

Actually, we get lots of funny looks. There are lots of French people here, there are lots of English people here, but nary do the twain cross. The fact that my obviously French friends have this random brown person who speaks bad French and has an American accent following them around draws some funny looks. On the upside, I get some automatic credibility from being with them, so more people are willing to let me struggle through my French, and not automatically switch over to English (or ignore me all together!).

Anyway, we’re up and out around 10 and hit the slopes. Today we’re piddling around on mid-mountain, mostly trying to find our legs, and adjusting to the altitude. I made the mistake of letting Michel help pick my skis. He wants me to become a better skier, so he picks out skis that require good technique. I hate these skis. See, I have no technique. I’ve pretty much declared my self the world’s best bad skier. I can go just about anywhere, I can do just about anything, but lots of people have been alternately horrified by my technique, and amazed I can ski at all. My skis back home are *perfect* for my style. They absorb a lot of shock, and they turn slowly on their own, though I can still force quicker turns when I need to. These skis are the exact opposite. They absorb no shock, and they turn on a dime. I’m not used to this. I lean a little to my left expecting the skis to slowly bank to the left, and instead I’ve turned practically sideways. The only thing these skis are good for is doing moguls. Since they turn so sharply on their own, navigating the gaps is way easier (and less draining) than with my skis. So I guess that’s one thing I’ve going for me. So, we’re skiing. Michel is a really good skier. When he skis, he looks like a professional skier. I feel, and probably look, as wobbly as a newborn cow trying to take his first steps.

Around 2 we stop for lunch, and at the end Michel, Pierre and my self decide that we’re pretty much done for the day, and ski back down to our place, while Nicolas decides to stay and keep snowboarding on his own. Get home, crash for a nap and then get up and get ready for dinner/going out. Michel makes a dinner of spaghetti Bolognese… sort of. While he’s cooking, I have some funny conversations with Pierre and Nicolas about different US compared to Europe type stuff. Also, there’s a song these guys like to play that has a line in the chorus, “C’est le bonheur”, which roughly means “I’m having a good time.” However, “C’est le” literally means “it’s the”, and bonheur, well, it’s pronounced “boner”. I spent about an hour giggling about this. Actually, I’m still giggling about this. After, we head over to Ambiente (again) to meet up with some girls (Stephanie and France…yes, I’ve met a French girl in France who’s name is France) that are friends of Michel’s boss back in the US. We all hang out at the bar until closing time-ish, and then head over to Apokolypse (noticing a trend?). Things get out of hand. I don’t have a clear memory of everything that happened, but the following things I’m pretty certain of:

1. None of us danced in the cage up against the wall.
2. We didn’t gang tackle Nicolas and then drag him around in the snow.
3. And I definitely didn’t drunk dial my parents.

Please ignore any pictures that contradict any of the above statements.

* For anyone who didn’t get the reference, there were a series of Chevy ads that featured the really annoying (and almost nonsensical) song “Our Country” by John “don’t call me Cougar” Mellancamp. These ads were on TV incessantly during football games. So, for over 4 months, anyone who watched football heard 30 second snippets of the song about a thousand times every Sunday. You can see an example here This is ouuuuuuur country.