ben ben benko blog

NO FEAR!...well maybe a little.

Tuesday

I went into the center on my own. Bought myself lunch (another yummy sausage). Went to two different stores to buy birthday gifts for our friend's twins. Asked for envelopes at the second store where they didn't have any. I went to another store, set off the alarm and figured out how to correct this little problem with the cashier. I then asked for envelopes at this store and then found them based on the sales person's directions and then bought them. I then bought myself a whole pack of tram tickets at the news stand and headed home. The entire time, I spoke Croatian and understood all of the Croatian that was spoken to me, and only one person responded to me in English. So Score! It all went well. In fact, in some ways it was a little anticlimactic. Nothing was really that difficult. So great. I can do this. My New Year's M.O. is a piece of cake.

Wednesday

What the hell was I thinking? No Fear?! No Way! Impossible! I'm scared out of my mind. I'm standing in the ski rental place in the Alps! THE ALPS PEOPLE! The boots I've just rented are two sizes too big and one is cracked, but it's all they've got. The skis are 20cm longer than I've even skied on and the last time I was anywhere near this steep of a vertical drop was a year ago. I'm fully aware of the fact that I will not actually die today. Nothing horrible will actually happen. I've skied before. I know how to make it down the mountain and if all else fails I can take off these too long skis and walk down. But for some reason I'm still scared. Very very scared. Fighting back tears scared.

20 minutes later, I'm heading down hill through a snow cloud. I can see about 30-50 feet in front of me, and I consider this a blessing because if I don't know what's in front of me I can't really be that scared of it right? Right! I make it to the bottom. I stop many many times on the way down and fall once in a steep area that technically qualifies as a more difficult level of slope. But I get up on my own. At the bottom, I realize every muscle in both of my legs is cramping. I don't know what's causing this, but the only way to keep it at bay is to keep moving so we head up the lift and back down again. The pain is getting worse and worse. So I wuss out and head to the lodge for a nice long lunch break.

At the start of the day I was more afraid than I'd been in a long time, but I conquered it. Once the skis were rented and H had walked me to the top of the slope there was really no choice, but I still tell myself that I had something to do with actually making it from the top to the bottom without crying. I readjusted my crappy boots at lunch and my legs finally felt better. I fit in two more good runs and a few baby slope runs* just for fun before they closed the place down for the day. So I had a good time. I'd do it again. And next time I won't be so scared. I promise.

On a side note the scenery driving to the mountain and on the mountain itself was like nothing I've seen before. It was incredible. It was a whole forest of giant pines closed like umbrellas by piles of snow. The further up we went the less green we saw. At the top of the mountain the tops of the boughs were covered in thick fluffy snow while the undersides were crystallized in frost and wind blown snow. It was truly amazing, and me without my camera. Oh well, you'll just have to wait until next time. In the mean time it looked something like this:



I looked something like this:



Or maybe this:



Okay, it was something in between.

*Don't let that baby slope fool you. I fell once there too, but I still claim it's because I was distracted by my hot ski instructor.

posted by Liz @ 10:33 PM