My Ski Weekend
Jan. 20th, 2003 09:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
transomwhiplassWow. I'm back. I had the greatest time ever. The most I've had in like, months, I'm so glad I got to go. It was an awesome experience. I hope I can recount the details with a good description. If you don't so much want to read the details, read the paragraph titled "SUMMARY", it's a decent summary of the emotions of the trip. OR, if you are SOOOOO lazy, read the last sentences under "SUPER SUM UP".
FRIDAY:
We got to the airport early in the morning. I was so dead to the world, and thinking back, almost feeling surrounded by strangers and people I didn't know too well, that really changed. So we flew in to Albuquerque tired from the plane a good drive away from Santa Fe, dreading the stop at Vandelier? National Park. "We were tired, but let's go take a long hike," was the opinion most were faced with. It was pretty damn cold, and I was faced with uhm ::cough:: a certain surprise, how fantastic that it ends up being "that time of month" right before a long hike and SKI vacation. Well, I will keep "those" details to a minimum, but it seriously effected the trip for me. The park we visited is the one with the cliff with the Native American cave dwellings cut into it. It was sort of interesting and you could go into a few, but I was feeling like total crap so I didn't. Mr. Peri, who came with beard/wife last minute (we had 2 extra tickets, somehow) gave me a hard time. I was seriously pissed off and bitchy and feeling very, very unhappy with the world and even more pissed off to be stuck in nature. So we walked around and took a long hike across many patches of ice to get to the ceremonial area. Which was like, 11 stories up? All accessed by ladders. I didn't climb any of the other ladders into the dwellings but something possessed me to do that one, oh but Thomas and Megan decided not to go, no way was I staying down with them. Ok, so we got down, out of the park, ready to settle down at the hotel and enjoy a nice meal there, right? Wrong, we stopped at a place on the way (felt like a good idea at the time), that was even rated by Zagat, restaurant critics I seriously used to trust. Mexican, on course, it started off with an offer for guacamole, some said yes, most said no. They brought 2 bowls, Frankie really liked it so it was ok for then. Little did we know, each bowl was $10 and they totally screwed us. Not many seemed to like their food, my soup was crap but the salad was very good. But that was a mistake, not to mention the: no seperate checks, the $20 worth of guacamole no one wanted to pay for, no refills, it basically sucked. We were like, $100 short for awhile. Mabel generously covered like almost all of the guacamole, I don't think she ate any of it either, many were bitter. Mabel asked Mr. H if I would be staying in their room, he said, "I don't know yet." In that way that means, "no." So later I asked what room I'd be in and he said with Meredith and Megan and had the nerve to ask if I was ok, I was upset and somehow managed to say, "no, I'm really not" instead of the usual push-over sarah response "sure whatever ok I'm fine leave me alone now." When we got to the hotel he read out room assignments and I was with Mabel and Puja, I felt really upset for Michelle, I got her bumped and she didn't look very happy. We got in the lobby and when I was headed for the room, Ms. Arnold grabbed me and told me she had moved me and said something about being the "peacekeeper," whatever that meant. She treated me like I was somewhat suicidal the entire trip, like a freaky time bomb that would explode any second, haha. We bummed around, went to bed, I wasn't so much looking forward to the next day. It had shit written all over it.
SATURDAY:
We had to wake up at 8 to have breakfast as a group, blah. So I attended breakfast looking like crap on a stick the entire weekend, hahaha. The food choice sucked, but that's not important or worth talking about. We had rehersal after breakfast, we played all of the songs we were doing in full orchestra but I had to play 2nd violin, so it was still sight reading for me. They informed us the itinerary had changed, wow had they whacked it to shit. We were going to the square on Sunday (originally) but it would be closed then, so we were going on Saturday after the concert, which we were now going to directly instead of picking up our ski equipment first. Dinner was switched to the end of the day as opposed to the 3rd item on the list, now we would have to sit through church to get some relief for our hunger pains. We got pizza hut at the hotel and mucked around till concert time, we changed and went to the chapel. It was a really cute chapel and had something called like the, "Miraculous Staircase." This spiral stair case that originally had no bannisters, that was semi-interesting. We had our concert, which I think was our best yet, the acoustics were nice. Later Ms. Arnold asked if I was "ok," I said yes and she said, "No, seriously how are you." I said, "wow, I'm great?" That woman would not leave me alone. We changed at the hotel and came back to the square for shopping. That was fun, though I didn't really buy anything, we had sort of a "posse" going. It was Mabel, Frankie, Robbie, Sam(son!), Alex Masoomian(sp? gosh I cant spell), and I and we just walked around the square sort of on a quest to find this place called "toyopolis" we had seen on the way. We stopped to get drinks and proceeded in wandering around till we found this "Hemp Shop" where everything was made of hemp. It was great, it smelled like my uncle, seriously HAHA. There was this yoga book for kids and the photograph on the front had a topless girl-child in a mermaid suit, that was disturbing. We went through and found this great poster of dissed logo's. Like the Microsoft XP logo changed to say: Monopoly XP. It was cute, Alex and I wanted to find the toystore so we wandered in silence for like 5 blocks, we had nothing to talk about, err, oh well. We went back to the place and got two more drinks and found the rest of the group who were ranting about this place that took like "5 back alleys to get to." Apparently Frankie saw this sign for "Guatamalan Cultural Items" or something and said, "let's go get some of my culture." There was talk of buying pipes. So we got over there and it wasn't that disreputable but, yes, they did have "pipes" that were more miniture carving-art-pieces than like, smoking pipes, but Alex bought one and it was really funny. We got to the cathedral and went in, the priest started out really friendly, but stuff went totally downhill. The way the mass went, it started late for one thing, then he was giving like, extensive history about the building like a tour guide. We wanted mass then we wanted to get out. Oh yeah, throw in 6 baptisms, after he described the signifigance and history of water pool. We had to leave after he annointed the last baby. There was word of Chinese buffet to which I quickly screamed protest, think about Chinese, in the middle of the desert, ::gag::, oh yeah, BUFFET. Then word of Japanese, like that is any better?? Guess what we had instead, guess guess guess..... MEXICAN, to a place with not so great food and no seperate checks either. HA. So after that magical meal we went to ski rentals and got all fitted up. I was nervous about getting my stuff but we got out of there pretty fast. We had a good deal too: poles, boots, and skis for $12. We got back where Ms. Arnold gave us "basic ski-equipment training." It was shear torture, sitting around inside wearing that crap. Her descriptions sucked and she made each beginner fall down and get back up. Remember "that time of month" no way in hell was I going to fall in front of the orchestra in skis and get back up. I took off my crap so she couldn't make me. HA. We messed around till curfew, I was anxious about the next day. Skiing, a totally foreign experience, yikes people, yikes.
SUNDAY:
Our room woke up late, Mr. Peri wanted us to breakfast early 7:45 in most of our ski clothes. We woke up at like, 7:45 and I went to breakfast in PJs. I ate most of my breakfast when someone said the bus was there, I almost needed to change "all" my clothes right then. I ran out of breakfast and started pulling on all layers of clothes like a mad person. I couldn't find my neck cover thingy, I threw it while I was ripping clothes out of my suitcase, I decided to take my scarf. HUGE MISTAKE, it got in the way the entire day. So we got all our stuff on and then were faced with the challenge of dragging all our ski equipment to the bus. FUN STUFF. I had a bright red sailing/snow suit. I felt like a giant flaming marshmallow. A scary bus ride later, we were up the mountain and ready for ski school. Robert DenBleyker was my partner, and saved me from sliding of the tiny hill into danger, many thanks to him. We got through basic training, I could go, stop, but I couldn't turn around with out sliding. We took the stretched-out-thong-underpants-looking-thingy-ma-bobs-on-a-moving-rope to the top of the bunny slopes. I basically got turning around in place and was ready to go. Eventually we learned turning while moving and other skills. After about 5 runs on the bunny's it was time for "Easy Street," MWAHAHAHA. Ms. Keller, Sam's mom was my partner, and she was really nice and patient and insisted we were "of equal level"/good partner match up even though she had gone skiing before. I fell once in line for the lift, but it wasn't a big deal, my ski got stuck in a rut and when I moved I fell. We got on the lift and eventually got to the end, where "Bill" the ski instructor was shouting choppy phrases at us, but didn't have the guy slow the lift any. I fell in a way Ms. Arnold called "advanced falling" something we would never do, supposedly. It meant, slipping backwards, knees bent, still attached to ski's, sliding on side or back, eating snow till you stopped. I didn't go far, in fact I landed right in front of the ski lift, unable to get up. Bill screamed "GET OUT OF THE WAY GET OUT OF THE WAY TAKE OFF YOUR SKIS TAKE OFF YOUR SKIS" I couldn't get them off, I was so freaked out, someone was going to land on me, eventually the attendent got my ski's off, but I was really shook up. The damn bindings were so tight I couldn't pop them off. But I shook it off, it was time to seriously ski now. Bill said the top and bottom were easy, the middle was sort of steep. We would meet at the middle. So we got down, and I was feeling more confident. We were now supposed to "snow plow" or "pizza" to the bottom of the middle section inch by inch. I felt, ok, I understood the pointing the skis like an arrow, but hadn't mastered digging in with the heels to go down. So what happened?? I didn't slow down, I went flying down like a mad person, totally out of control, panicking, and forgetting everything about "turning" to slow down. I knew I was going to fall, I felt it, I screamed half for fear, half for warning to those in my way, then I totally crashed and burned, again in the "advanced skiing fall" jamming my elbow into the snow. I got up, Ms. Keller helped. I got to the bottom, and got back on that horse. I did that thing like 7 more times, and didn't fall down at all after that. I got through it, I went with Robbie most of the time, we were a better match, he had a lot of issues getting off the ski lift, but we got it together. I had fun with him, and made sure that we got down the mountain, he didn't fall after the ski lift, but that gave him lots of problems. We had lunch, did easy street a more times with the others, including some of the advanced girls until he got tired. I got to know him a lot better, it was fun. Over lunch, I heard people talking about the "Santa Fe Trail," Frankie said he wiped out like "15 times" and Mr. Hernandez crashed. Sam had crashed into a tree, and took the emergency tobaggen down to First Aid (he was ok, nothing but a bruise if that much). All in all, I didn't think I could handle it. The day was almost over, but the eventually convinced me, it would be a good idea, I saw what it was, and it wasn't that steep (what I saw) so we got on the lift. We got off and I was skiing, feeling really cool and confident, till we got to "the hill" it was steep. And Mabel kept encouraging me, "Sarah, you can do it, just "pizza" your way down, no problem, you got it, you'll be fine" I started down and SMACK, I fell on the hill, "advanced falling" form and could not get up. I got my skis off and on, eventually after like 15 minutes, and we got to the bottom. It was getting close to ending time, but Mabel got me on it again. We went down, ok, got to the hill. Fine. I went down the hill ok, this time my speed got out of my control. I was trying to turn, but my skis were steering me towards the trees. I found it best to fall while I could without seriously injuring myself. This time I was pretty much alone, I did get back on eventually (after like 10 minutes, haha) and got to the bottom, where Mabel was having contact issues. Once we got her contact back it, they were shouting for the last call. It was past meeting time 4, but Mabel isisted it was 4:30. So we did it, we got on it was funny. The lift stopped right by the hill where we saw Thomas and Megan ready to take it, we took the op to scream, "PIZZA PIZZA.. PIZZA PIZZA" at them before we got moving. It was pretty funny. I got to the hill, and I got it, I got my speed under control, I steered away from the trees. I had a great feeling of accomplishment, it was a great way to end the day. I was so happy Mabel made me go again. We got back, changed, and proceeded back to the hotel. I had a great day. We finished it off at another Mexican restaurant, yuck. I had a Caesar salad, which the put anchovies on, EW. But I got those off. I had lots of fun, we bummed around till curfew like all of the previous nights. Michelle stayed in our room since it was her turn to stay with Megan. It was rude because they went to bed and when Michelle knocked to get in, they didn't get up, but when Thomas knocked, they door was immediately opened. ~_~ Oh well. So yeah. That was ski day, we took back our stuff, and it was sort of sad. I felt like I was saying goodbye forever to really good friends, friends who had shown me one of the best times in my life.
MONDAY:
What to say? We had breakfast as usual, but stopped at a place called "Jackalope" which was like a marketplace/flea market for fun memorabilia souvenier-y type stuff. There was this lady with silver charms, $1 per gram, who I think ripped me off. I got 3 charms, $8, supposedly this Buddha one I couldn't pass up was 6 grams, I thought she was ripping me, but I couldn't put it dwon. Me being a relatively good moralled young girl, did not walk off with it ::cough:: though it would have been easy. I got a cute little Buddha, a tiny silver spoon (it was too funny), and a little sombero after much digging. Few were alike and I didn't find duplicates of any that I picked up. I was nervous and running out of money, but I found this cute $10 jewelery type box that I want to add to what I hope will become a good collection and got some little native painted bobble-head animals for the sib's. I wish I could have gotten more, but I still had to pay for my ski lesson which they wouldn't tell us how much was and another meal, which ended up between Arby's or KFC. It was gross, and I was pissed off. We got to the airport, waited for 2 hours or something, rode home with the Roach's. Here I am now. I had fun and I'm really glad I went. I'm worried about school, but whatever. I'm going to sum stuff up now.
SUMMARY:
Skiing was fantastic, I hope I get to do it again. I wouldn't go with my family, I would be to scared of someone seriously hurting themselves. They aren't very athletic at all, like, they do a lot less than me, and that is sayinga lot a VERY LITTLE. But I'd like to go with friends who I know have basic ballance skills and whatnot and can take care of themselves. It was great, one of the best experiences of my life. The food the entire trip sucked. It was crappy overpriced Mexican every night. They never let us choose a place to eat, ever, and we all had to eat together ALWAYS. So on top of the overpriced food, we had to look forward to nearly a 30% charge of tax and gratuity. It was 18-19% for parties of our magnitude. I wish we could have broken up in the square, chosen a place, saved some money from that and enjoyed the company of those WE WANTED and not waited to sit down. If it wasn't overpriced Mexican it was pizza (not that bad), a $7 sandwich/coke meal at the slopes (UGH!.. it was just turkey, bread, and swiss), and KFC. I was extremely irritated by the food, it bothered the shit out me the entire time. The "time of month" made the trip less enjoyable to a certain degree, especially at the beginning, it didn't help at all that basically all Mexican has cheese (and pizza has lots) and cheese and cramps is a no-no. Breakfast also sucked. I had the worst in my life, and a very dwindling Advil supply. Sleeping was semi-crappy, I never sleep well in hotels. Mr. Peri fucked up a lot of stuff as did Ms. Arnold, she annoyes me very much. They were bossy and made crappy decisions, I thought. But you know, despite all those complaints. Skiing just eliminated it all, it was that fun. Combine that with hours of fun with company of people you seriously enjoy, it was fantastic. I got to know many people much better, and I think it was a great team building experience to sound dorky and lame. But it was. I loved getting to know these people better, it was just great. "They" didn't wreck it, we usually managed to stay away from "them". We had several misadventures and Santa Fe might possibly be the UGLIEST city in the world, everything is like, pueblo-adobe syle, the buildings that is. They built them in modern times to match the motif and everything carry's the natural earthy colors, especaily turquoise, orange, reddish, and those all mixed with brown. It looked like God ate too much of their terrible overpriced mexican food and tooka bloody shit on the city, but that's my opinion, haha. So, now for the super-dee-dooper sum up.
SUPER SUM UP:
Skiing = fantastic, food = muy shitty, city = extremely ugly, people = great experience, trip rating (1-10) = 20, wish we could do something similar twice a year.
OOOOH... so much fun, imagine how much fun I must have had if it canceled out all those complaints.
I want to thank the following for making it one of the most memorable and best vacations:
Mabel, Puja, Frankie, Robbie, Masoomian, and SAMSON! (super-fish, growing boy).
In other random news:
THE ROCKETS WON! It was a great game, Puja and I were so excited. WE LOVE YAO! Haha, she made up what I call the "Yao-bow." This crazy thing I'll demonstrate tomorrow. He might save the game and NBA all together. We will start an unofficial fan club of the "we love the following people:" followed by YAO and the people in our sort of group from the trip.
My great uncle died, it is sad, but it was coming. So it was easier, everyone got their goodbyes. So yeah.
Otherwise, I had so much fun. I'm so not ready for school. Haha, this took me a long time to write, everyone will hear the stories over and over till their ears bleed. EEEEEEEH! FUN!
FRIDAY:
We got to the airport early in the morning. I was so dead to the world, and thinking back, almost feeling surrounded by strangers and people I didn't know too well, that really changed. So we flew in to Albuquerque tired from the plane a good drive away from Santa Fe, dreading the stop at Vandelier? National Park. "We were tired, but let's go take a long hike," was the opinion most were faced with. It was pretty damn cold, and I was faced with uhm ::cough:: a certain surprise, how fantastic that it ends up being "that time of month" right before a long hike and SKI vacation. Well, I will keep "those" details to a minimum, but it seriously effected the trip for me. The park we visited is the one with the cliff with the Native American cave dwellings cut into it. It was sort of interesting and you could go into a few, but I was feeling like total crap so I didn't. Mr. Peri, who came with beard/wife last minute (we had 2 extra tickets, somehow) gave me a hard time. I was seriously pissed off and bitchy and feeling very, very unhappy with the world and even more pissed off to be stuck in nature. So we walked around and took a long hike across many patches of ice to get to the ceremonial area. Which was like, 11 stories up? All accessed by ladders. I didn't climb any of the other ladders into the dwellings but something possessed me to do that one, oh but Thomas and Megan decided not to go, no way was I staying down with them. Ok, so we got down, out of the park, ready to settle down at the hotel and enjoy a nice meal there, right? Wrong, we stopped at a place on the way (felt like a good idea at the time), that was even rated by Zagat, restaurant critics I seriously used to trust. Mexican, on course, it started off with an offer for guacamole, some said yes, most said no. They brought 2 bowls, Frankie really liked it so it was ok for then. Little did we know, each bowl was $10 and they totally screwed us. Not many seemed to like their food, my soup was crap but the salad was very good. But that was a mistake, not to mention the: no seperate checks, the $20 worth of guacamole no one wanted to pay for, no refills, it basically sucked. We were like, $100 short for awhile. Mabel generously covered like almost all of the guacamole, I don't think she ate any of it either, many were bitter. Mabel asked Mr. H if I would be staying in their room, he said, "I don't know yet." In that way that means, "no." So later I asked what room I'd be in and he said with Meredith and Megan and had the nerve to ask if I was ok, I was upset and somehow managed to say, "no, I'm really not" instead of the usual push-over sarah response "sure whatever ok I'm fine leave me alone now." When we got to the hotel he read out room assignments and I was with Mabel and Puja, I felt really upset for Michelle, I got her bumped and she didn't look very happy. We got in the lobby and when I was headed for the room, Ms. Arnold grabbed me and told me she had moved me and said something about being the "peacekeeper," whatever that meant. She treated me like I was somewhat suicidal the entire trip, like a freaky time bomb that would explode any second, haha. We bummed around, went to bed, I wasn't so much looking forward to the next day. It had shit written all over it.
SATURDAY:
We had to wake up at 8 to have breakfast as a group, blah. So I attended breakfast looking like crap on a stick the entire weekend, hahaha. The food choice sucked, but that's not important or worth talking about. We had rehersal after breakfast, we played all of the songs we were doing in full orchestra but I had to play 2nd violin, so it was still sight reading for me. They informed us the itinerary had changed, wow had they whacked it to shit. We were going to the square on Sunday (originally) but it would be closed then, so we were going on Saturday after the concert, which we were now going to directly instead of picking up our ski equipment first. Dinner was switched to the end of the day as opposed to the 3rd item on the list, now we would have to sit through church to get some relief for our hunger pains. We got pizza hut at the hotel and mucked around till concert time, we changed and went to the chapel. It was a really cute chapel and had something called like the, "Miraculous Staircase." This spiral stair case that originally had no bannisters, that was semi-interesting. We had our concert, which I think was our best yet, the acoustics were nice. Later Ms. Arnold asked if I was "ok," I said yes and she said, "No, seriously how are you." I said, "wow, I'm great?" That woman would not leave me alone. We changed at the hotel and came back to the square for shopping. That was fun, though I didn't really buy anything, we had sort of a "posse" going. It was Mabel, Frankie, Robbie, Sam(son!), Alex Masoomian(sp? gosh I cant spell), and I and we just walked around the square sort of on a quest to find this place called "toyopolis" we had seen on the way. We stopped to get drinks and proceeded in wandering around till we found this "Hemp Shop" where everything was made of hemp. It was great, it smelled like my uncle, seriously HAHA. There was this yoga book for kids and the photograph on the front had a topless girl-child in a mermaid suit, that was disturbing. We went through and found this great poster of dissed logo's. Like the Microsoft XP logo changed to say: Monopoly XP. It was cute, Alex and I wanted to find the toystore so we wandered in silence for like 5 blocks, we had nothing to talk about, err, oh well. We went back to the place and got two more drinks and found the rest of the group who were ranting about this place that took like "5 back alleys to get to." Apparently Frankie saw this sign for "Guatamalan Cultural Items" or something and said, "let's go get some of my culture." There was talk of buying pipes. So we got over there and it wasn't that disreputable but, yes, they did have "pipes" that were more miniture carving-art-pieces than like, smoking pipes, but Alex bought one and it was really funny. We got to the cathedral and went in, the priest started out really friendly, but stuff went totally downhill. The way the mass went, it started late for one thing, then he was giving like, extensive history about the building like a tour guide. We wanted mass then we wanted to get out. Oh yeah, throw in 6 baptisms, after he described the signifigance and history of water pool. We had to leave after he annointed the last baby. There was word of Chinese buffet to which I quickly screamed protest, think about Chinese, in the middle of the desert, ::gag::, oh yeah, BUFFET. Then word of Japanese, like that is any better?? Guess what we had instead, guess guess guess..... MEXICAN, to a place with not so great food and no seperate checks either. HA. So after that magical meal we went to ski rentals and got all fitted up. I was nervous about getting my stuff but we got out of there pretty fast. We had a good deal too: poles, boots, and skis for $12. We got back where Ms. Arnold gave us "basic ski-equipment training." It was shear torture, sitting around inside wearing that crap. Her descriptions sucked and she made each beginner fall down and get back up. Remember "that time of month" no way in hell was I going to fall in front of the orchestra in skis and get back up. I took off my crap so she couldn't make me. HA. We messed around till curfew, I was anxious about the next day. Skiing, a totally foreign experience, yikes people, yikes.
SUNDAY:
Our room woke up late, Mr. Peri wanted us to breakfast early 7:45 in most of our ski clothes. We woke up at like, 7:45 and I went to breakfast in PJs. I ate most of my breakfast when someone said the bus was there, I almost needed to change "all" my clothes right then. I ran out of breakfast and started pulling on all layers of clothes like a mad person. I couldn't find my neck cover thingy, I threw it while I was ripping clothes out of my suitcase, I decided to take my scarf. HUGE MISTAKE, it got in the way the entire day. So we got all our stuff on and then were faced with the challenge of dragging all our ski equipment to the bus. FUN STUFF. I had a bright red sailing/snow suit. I felt like a giant flaming marshmallow. A scary bus ride later, we were up the mountain and ready for ski school. Robert DenBleyker was my partner, and saved me from sliding of the tiny hill into danger, many thanks to him. We got through basic training, I could go, stop, but I couldn't turn around with out sliding. We took the stretched-out-thong-underpants-looking-thingy-ma-bobs-on-a-moving-rope to the top of the bunny slopes. I basically got turning around in place and was ready to go. Eventually we learned turning while moving and other skills. After about 5 runs on the bunny's it was time for "Easy Street," MWAHAHAHA. Ms. Keller, Sam's mom was my partner, and she was really nice and patient and insisted we were "of equal level"/good partner match up even though she had gone skiing before. I fell once in line for the lift, but it wasn't a big deal, my ski got stuck in a rut and when I moved I fell. We got on the lift and eventually got to the end, where "Bill" the ski instructor was shouting choppy phrases at us, but didn't have the guy slow the lift any. I fell in a way Ms. Arnold called "advanced falling" something we would never do, supposedly. It meant, slipping backwards, knees bent, still attached to ski's, sliding on side or back, eating snow till you stopped. I didn't go far, in fact I landed right in front of the ski lift, unable to get up. Bill screamed "GET OUT OF THE WAY GET OUT OF THE WAY TAKE OFF YOUR SKIS TAKE OFF YOUR SKIS" I couldn't get them off, I was so freaked out, someone was going to land on me, eventually the attendent got my ski's off, but I was really shook up. The damn bindings were so tight I couldn't pop them off. But I shook it off, it was time to seriously ski now. Bill said the top and bottom were easy, the middle was sort of steep. We would meet at the middle. So we got down, and I was feeling more confident. We were now supposed to "snow plow" or "pizza" to the bottom of the middle section inch by inch. I felt, ok, I understood the pointing the skis like an arrow, but hadn't mastered digging in with the heels to go down. So what happened?? I didn't slow down, I went flying down like a mad person, totally out of control, panicking, and forgetting everything about "turning" to slow down. I knew I was going to fall, I felt it, I screamed half for fear, half for warning to those in my way, then I totally crashed and burned, again in the "advanced skiing fall" jamming my elbow into the snow. I got up, Ms. Keller helped. I got to the bottom, and got back on that horse. I did that thing like 7 more times, and didn't fall down at all after that. I got through it, I went with Robbie most of the time, we were a better match, he had a lot of issues getting off the ski lift, but we got it together. I had fun with him, and made sure that we got down the mountain, he didn't fall after the ski lift, but that gave him lots of problems. We had lunch, did easy street a more times with the others, including some of the advanced girls until he got tired. I got to know him a lot better, it was fun. Over lunch, I heard people talking about the "Santa Fe Trail," Frankie said he wiped out like "15 times" and Mr. Hernandez crashed. Sam had crashed into a tree, and took the emergency tobaggen down to First Aid (he was ok, nothing but a bruise if that much). All in all, I didn't think I could handle it. The day was almost over, but the eventually convinced me, it would be a good idea, I saw what it was, and it wasn't that steep (what I saw) so we got on the lift. We got off and I was skiing, feeling really cool and confident, till we got to "the hill" it was steep. And Mabel kept encouraging me, "Sarah, you can do it, just "pizza" your way down, no problem, you got it, you'll be fine" I started down and SMACK, I fell on the hill, "advanced falling" form and could not get up. I got my skis off and on, eventually after like 15 minutes, and we got to the bottom. It was getting close to ending time, but Mabel got me on it again. We went down, ok, got to the hill. Fine. I went down the hill ok, this time my speed got out of my control. I was trying to turn, but my skis were steering me towards the trees. I found it best to fall while I could without seriously injuring myself. This time I was pretty much alone, I did get back on eventually (after like 10 minutes, haha) and got to the bottom, where Mabel was having contact issues. Once we got her contact back it, they were shouting for the last call. It was past meeting time 4, but Mabel isisted it was 4:30. So we did it, we got on it was funny. The lift stopped right by the hill where we saw Thomas and Megan ready to take it, we took the op to scream, "PIZZA PIZZA.. PIZZA PIZZA" at them before we got moving. It was pretty funny. I got to the hill, and I got it, I got my speed under control, I steered away from the trees. I had a great feeling of accomplishment, it was a great way to end the day. I was so happy Mabel made me go again. We got back, changed, and proceeded back to the hotel. I had a great day. We finished it off at another Mexican restaurant, yuck. I had a Caesar salad, which the put anchovies on, EW. But I got those off. I had lots of fun, we bummed around till curfew like all of the previous nights. Michelle stayed in our room since it was her turn to stay with Megan. It was rude because they went to bed and when Michelle knocked to get in, they didn't get up, but when Thomas knocked, they door was immediately opened. ~_~ Oh well. So yeah. That was ski day, we took back our stuff, and it was sort of sad. I felt like I was saying goodbye forever to really good friends, friends who had shown me one of the best times in my life.
MONDAY:
What to say? We had breakfast as usual, but stopped at a place called "Jackalope" which was like a marketplace/flea market for fun memorabilia souvenier-y type stuff. There was this lady with silver charms, $1 per gram, who I think ripped me off. I got 3 charms, $8, supposedly this Buddha one I couldn't pass up was 6 grams, I thought she was ripping me, but I couldn't put it dwon. Me being a relatively good moralled young girl, did not walk off with it ::cough:: though it would have been easy. I got a cute little Buddha, a tiny silver spoon (it was too funny), and a little sombero after much digging. Few were alike and I didn't find duplicates of any that I picked up. I was nervous and running out of money, but I found this cute $10 jewelery type box that I want to add to what I hope will become a good collection and got some little native painted bobble-head animals for the sib's. I wish I could have gotten more, but I still had to pay for my ski lesson which they wouldn't tell us how much was and another meal, which ended up between Arby's or KFC. It was gross, and I was pissed off. We got to the airport, waited for 2 hours or something, rode home with the Roach's. Here I am now. I had fun and I'm really glad I went. I'm worried about school, but whatever. I'm going to sum stuff up now.
SUMMARY:
Skiing was fantastic, I hope I get to do it again. I wouldn't go with my family, I would be to scared of someone seriously hurting themselves. They aren't very athletic at all, like, they do a lot less than me, and that is saying
SUPER SUM UP:
Skiing = fantastic, food = muy shitty, city = extremely ugly, people = great experience, trip rating (1-10) = 20, wish we could do something similar twice a year.
OOOOH... so much fun, imagine how much fun I must have had if it canceled out all those complaints.
I want to thank the following for making it one of the most memorable and best vacations:
Mabel, Puja, Frankie, Robbie, Masoomian, and SAMSON! (super-fish, growing boy).
In other random news:
THE ROCKETS WON! It was a great game, Puja and I were so excited. WE LOVE YAO! Haha, she made up what I call the "Yao-bow." This crazy thing I'll demonstrate tomorrow. He might save the game and NBA all together. We will start an unofficial fan club of the "we love the following people:" followed by YAO and the people in our sort of group from the trip.
My great uncle died, it is sad, but it was coming. So it was easier, everyone got their goodbyes. So yeah.
Otherwise, I had so much fun. I'm so not ready for school. Haha, this took me a long time to write, everyone will hear the stories over and over till their ears bleed. EEEEEEEH! FUN!
