Adventures in Italy

There was no easily accessible internet access in Bardonecchia unfortunately so now I have to dump all my stories down at once. It was a really good time. Anyways, I finally remembered the name of where I was going for snowboarding. If Bardonecchia doesn't sound familiar now, it will be in 2006 as it will be the site of the snowboarding events for the 2006 Winter Olympics. The main portion of the games will be in Torino which is about 90km away. Anyways, the first adventure was our trip by train there.

Most of the trip was pretty smooth. It was one of those cool bullet trains (we totally need these in the U.S.) so the trip only took about 4 hours. Anyways, we got to our stop, but for some strange reason the conductor wouldn't let us off. Traveling on trains in Europe, you got to be ready to jump off cuz you only have about a minute or so. Anyways, lame conductor doesn't realize we want to get off so we can't get off cuz he's in the way then the train starts moving again. So now we're going onward into the unknown, next stop Torino. By now, lame conductor has figured out he goofed, but oh well, you're in Italy so it's your problem kinda deal. Thanks alot. So we're assured that there are many trains that can take us back. Meanwhile while we're waiting by the door to get off at the next stop (we're getting off no matter what this time), my mom faints. That only added to the complexity. So we get off at Torino, find out that the train station is closed, there are no more trains back to Bardonecchia, and the only people around are people who are spending the night. So the only option is taxi to get back except there are no taxis and no guarantee that we'll find a taxi that will want to drive us 90km. The train station wasn't in the best part of town either. Anyways, we saw a hotel nearby and went there to see if they could get a cab for us. The lady at the hotel was very nice and got us there own driver which was a pretty nice man and he drove a really nice Mercedes. Needless to say, the ride to our hotel was comfortable, but very expensive (250 Euros!), but we got there and I was thankful for that.

Snowboarding in the Alps was pretty fun but only because snowboarding is really fun. I have to say it sounds alot more exotic than it really is. I still think Mammoth is the best place I've ever gone. It wasn't their best season and alot of the runs were closed. But the views were pretty good and I got alot of good pictures. The Alps make awesome scenery for snowboarding. You would think for a place that is going to host all the snowboarding competitions for the Winter Olympics would have snowboard friendly perks like chair lifts and benches. Well, Bardonecchia is definitely not ready in that respect. All the lifts to the top of the mountain are those button lifts that are basically those spring loaded little things you grab and sit on while you get pulled up the mountain. It's not bad if you're on skis, but on a snowboard you're turned sideways so instead of your weight resting on the seat, it's constantly pulling against your inner thigh. Not comfortable! Also not so easy to balance either and the incline was like 60 degrees angles in some parts! So the first couple days on this thing were a bit rough. The drag method works well though I find. This is where you lose your balance and instead of letting go, you just spin onto your back and get dragged up the mountain the rest of the way. I was pretty proud of this until I found out my brother, Micah, had fallen early on and got dragged up the mountain for nearly 15 minutes. I can't believe he hung on that long, ha ha.

Anyways, I forgot to mention that the reason we were on this trip was this was an annual ski trip with my parents church. So I spent alot of time snowboarding with the head pastor because he was a snowboarder as well and we were about at the same level. Anyways, one time we saw a ski school going down one of the closed slopes and so the head pastor, Brian, is like, "hey, how come they can go on those and not us, forget that, we're going!". So we get to the top and I get my binding on while one of the guys that work there is yelling at us for going down a closed slope. We just kinda shrug our shoulders and say, "do you speak English??" Heh heh. It finally came in handy not speaking the language. Then as we go down, I think to myself, I'm following the head pastor of my parent's church down a closed run, ha ha. That's the Italian way though. Rules are just guidelines so for the rest of the week we just determined that "closed" meant "optional". Those runs were really good too. I have no idea why they were closed, but it didn't stop us. Suck on that Italians! So we mainly did closed runs after that cuz they were better and less crowded, too. Funny thing was later on that day, Brian lost his pass. (The passes have our name and picture on them.) By the time we got to the hotel, the owner had his pass waiting for him saying someone had dropped it off saying that "they were very familiar with the people from our group". How creepy, so we think there was some sort of ski mafia or something and we definitely stood out since we didn't seem to follow any of the rules. The other rule we broke often was buckling our bindings on the lift. There were no benches to sit on at the top and Brian showed me it was way simpler to just be buckled in and come off and then just go right down the slope. So we got yelled at for that too, ha ha. It seems that when skiing in Italy, you get yelled at for something once, after that, it's your own fault if you get hurt. I also noticed a lack of "SLOW" signs where runs converged. Safety is definitely not priority in Italy. Ski at your own risk! Ha ha. Anyways, so I guess we were known as the Americans on the slopes that didn't follow any rules.

So my last story occurred yesterday. As I was getting out of one of my bindings so I could get on the lift, I see this flash as all of a sudden my legs are knocked out from under me and I get knocked on my back. I sit up and there is this little tiny girl in my lap who says, "sorry". Then we get up and one of her skis are missing. I have this though that maybe the missing ski is impaled into my back and I just haven't realized it yet because of the shock, but I guess she hit my brother first cuz the ski was with him. Man, she must have been hauling to hit my brother first and then knock me over. She couldn't have weighed more than 50 pounds.

Anyways, so that's a compressed version of the events that week. So snowboarding in the Alps was cool, but it's not like it's better than any place in the U.S. It sounds exotic, but the experience is really the same. I can't believe my body held out for 6 days of snowboarding. My legs aren't sore at all, but from the waste up I'm pretty sore. I definitely got better this week. I can't wait to try out my skills on the California slopes again.