Ski Days (3/13-16 Les Arcs)

Thought about doing separate entries for each day, but that would have just bored everyone to tears: every day is pretty much the same. Here's the basic outline: Wake up somewhere between 9 and 11, have a pain au chocolate or croissant, and be on the slopes within an hour. Ski for 4 to 5 hours, then meet up with Michel for lunch (he's not skiing because of his accident... poor baby), go back to the apartment, clean-up/nap/errands, dinner around 8, head out to the bar and/or bowling around 10, to the club around midnight, home anywhere between 4 and 6 – possibly having inhaled a Kebab sandwich along the way. Lather, rinse, repeat.

So, instead, some highlights/lowlights of the last couple days:

* Bizarre as this may sound, I'm having way less fun when the girls are around. When it's just the 3 or 4 of us, the guys are conscious of my deficiency in french, and make an effort to speak slower, or to explain things to me in English if it's clear I'm not following. It's great, and I have a lot of fun when it's just us hanging out. However, when the girls show up, it all changes: the french speeds up, the number of times anyone will stop to explain something to me goes down, I’m not really part of the conversation, and I'm not sure France is even aware I exist. Even worse, they are always around: we meet up with them after breakfast, we ski with them, we have lunch with them, we have dinner with them, and they party with us. However, I guess they don’t feel like they are enough a part of the group to feel like they need to include me (or, maybe they don’t consider me a part of the group). Either way, not enjoying the “there are girls in the group” experience. With regards to France, Michel and Pimous insist that everything I’m experiencing is “cultural differences”. I think she’s just a bitch.

* That said, France and I do share one funny moment. On Thursday, when Pimous, Stephanie, France and I are skiing, I decide I’m going to make my own fun. So, every chance I get I start a race with the other 3, pick up snow balls to throw at Pimous (which ends up leading to a full on tackling each other in the snow episode… Pimous won), and snow spray someone whenever we stop to regroup. After one of these, France says something to me in French, and I snap right back in French. She says, in *perfect* English “Oh, so you can understand and speak French when you want to.” I start laughing and say back “And you can speak English just fine when you want to.” She laughs, I laugh, but also further proof she’s a bitch.

* Pierre/Pimous is awesome. There could have been no snow, and he would have made the trip to Les Arcs worth it for me. I don’t know how else to put it, but I feel like I’ve made a real friend here, and that’s really more than I could have ever asked for out of a trip like this.

* Skiing in Europe is so much better than in the US. I’ve been consciously avoiding talking about the fact that it dumped something like 8’ of snow in Tahoe pretty much the day I left for Europe until I got a chance to do some skiing here, and temper my bitterness over the whole thing. It’s better here because the runs are so much longer, it’s better here because you can get hot wine and beer right on the mountain, it’s better here because I’m using rented skis and don’t have to care how badly I thrash them, and it’s better here because the après-ski/nightlife is better than anything I’ve seen in Tahoe/Vail/Killington (though, not as good as Zermatt or St. Anton… more on that later).

* Lots of people here wear hats/jackets/etc. for US sports teams… especially the Yankees. I know that for them, they are just for fashion (much like my Barcelona sweatshirt), and at the most means that they’ve spent a few days in New York (more likely, they bought it at H&M and have never left France), but I still find myself muttering “Yankees suck” whenever I pass one of them, and a little bit hoping one of them really is a Yankee fan if for no other reason than I’ll have something/someone to talk about something “American”. Though, after the hundredth guy I see, I pretty much have to restrain myself from punching them in the face. Anyway, I think next time I come to Europe I’m bringing a bag full of Red Sox hats and doing my own little exchange program.

* Les Arcs has been different from my other ski trips over here. Previously, I’ve been to Zermatt (Switzerland) and St. Anton (Austria). While this doesn’t make me an expert or anything, I do feel at least qualified to comment on the differences between these three, and Les Arcs feels different. I think the biggest difference has to be that this time instead of being with a group of equally fish-out-of-water Aussies, I’m with a group of locals. It also feels like people here aren’t as friendly, but, again, that’s probably because I’m with French people and going to places that are more French, where as with the Aussies we would have sought out places that were more English (or, at least, more Anglophone). I think this is where I’m encountering the real cultural differences between the French and Americans. I want to say that the French are xenophobes who hate/look down on anyone who isn’t French, but that is in some ways too simple, in some ways giving the French too much credit, and in others not enough. It’s complicated. I don’t think I can get into this here without either using more space than blogger will allow and/or getting something wrong. I’ll probably devote an entire entry to this when I get back to the US, and I’ll probably have to get Michel to help me write it.

* When Michel wrote about the little “fight” he had with his friends with the bread, water, etc., he failed to mention that the three of them basically ended up anywhere from half-naked to naked. The only wardrobe change I made was to put a horrified look on my face. Oh, and French bread hurts. At some point it became Michel and I against Pimous and Nicolas. I got hit in the shoulder with a piece of bread, and it drew blood. I’m not kidding. In the morning, we all had a wound of some sort from the bread.

* Thursday night we went to an English bar. It was jukebox night, and in the span of half an hour I heard Toto, Bon Jovi, Oasis, Journey, and The Hooters. After a week of nothing but house music (and, especially “Love Generation”), it was sooooooo nice to hear good old, normal, sing along (badly) at the top of your lungs music. I loved it. France, Pimous and Michel seemed… ambivalent.

* Friday night, Michel and I get home late. Michel doesn’t want to be completely useless the next day (when we have to drive back), so, after calling his girlfriend back in SF, he goes into the bathroom to make himself throw up. His phone rings. “Mimi, your phone is ringing.” “Answer it.” “Ummm… hi.. this is Michel’s phone… Irina? Yeah… Michel isn’t really available right now.” “Tell him I give him another kiss.” “You sure about that?” Well, made me laugh.