Old post

So this is what I was writing about 2 weeks ago:

So it's Monday again.

I still have 4 work days left before our skiing vacation starts !

We are to leave on Saturday in the car of Olivier's friends who are a couple.

We still need to reserve skiing and snowboarding equipment for me, but otherwise it's pretty much organized. We'll go grocery shopping Saturday, we'll need to buy lots because at one point we're going to be 10 in total, and most of us are staying from Saturday till Sunday. We mustn't forget drinks either :D

Last week was pretty calm.

Work is ok, as always.

Thursday I went jogging and shopping with AK, Friday I didn't do anything. Sunday I dragged Mat out of his bed (I had to walk to his flat first) to go running with me. He was a bit hung over but I have no heart ;)

At the end he was content to have done something of his Sunday.

Oh, I dyed my hair ! It's a deep red now, less natural than before but I like it !

Olivier finds it a bit too red but I don't care :D My hair, my color.

The girls seem to compliment me on it. Hehee.

Mum left for Sri Lanka, and I've been talking with her and Timo via Skype. After all these years of asking her to get Skype, she needs to go to Sri Lanka to get it... Figures.

I'm sure she's not getting it for Finland. She claims she doesn't know how to use it. You press a button, it's not that complicated :D

Oh ! I went to get my ring Friday, I forgot to tell you :)

I was so happy to finally get it, after 5 weeks of waiting..

...only to find out that it was still too big...........

Boy was I gutted.

So I showed it to Oliv' the following evening and he promised we'd go sort it out Saturday.

So there we went and asked them to make it the right size. They wanted to charge us for it, but once Olivier had raised his voice they were like "fine" and agreed to do it.

So now we have to wait another 5 weeks.

Oh and one of the addresses we were given by the tribunal in order to acquire a paper proving I'm not an outlaw proved to be fake. So Oliv had to ring the tribunal and tell them what had happened. They gave a sliiiightly different one with sliiiiightly different instructions.... What a bunch of douches.

And this is what happened during the ski :

Last week was pretty fun. I have to admit I was pretty nervous about spending a whole week with people I don't really know, apart JD and Cat.

My fears proved to be for naught and we had a lovely time.

We left with Mato and Pepet and arrived Saturday pretty late after having made a stop at the supermarket and bought all that we needed for the week.

At the flat, JD, Cat, ChaCha, Brousouf, Xav and Margo were waiting for us.

We installed all our stuff (we had the "royal suite"=parents' bedroom) and ate a late dinner while discussing stuff and getting to know each other.

At first, I was pretty intimidated by the other girls but after a few days I was more relaxed.

So, Sunday. I used Olivier's sister-in-law's skis, his dad's poles and rented boots from Intersport.

It was a disaster.

The last time I had skied, it was like 10 years ago. And the steepness of the slopes was too much for me. I struggled to keep up with the others who ski or surf regularly, but in vain.

I tried to go faster than I should, and after a few hours, I had already fallen two times because I couldn't brake and twice 2 different people had crashed into me - and that was when I wasn't moving and they came in from the behind ! The last crash really hurt, I was standing with Mato, feeling pretty down because of the failed skiing when a surfer crashed into me in full speed, yelling "ATTENTIOOOOOON!!!!".

And it was NOT my fault. He couldn't control his speed, he blamed first me, then the snow and finally the way the skiing station was shaped. Mato just yelled at him while I was down and gasping for breath, tears of frustration and hurt filling my ski mask.

I drew a line right there and then, left the others to their pleasure, descended in the oeufs, returned the boots and rented the snowboarding equipment.

Monday we started snowboarding.

Or as I like to call it : trying not to fall.

Olivier chose the "easiest" of pistes, but for one who just starts surfing, everything seems steep.

We started with my right foot in front.

I kept falling on my ass. :D

We did a lot of "dead leaf" exercises. It means that my snow was perpendical to the slope and I tried to descend like that, finding my balance and getting used to the sensation.

We descended the piste twice the first day. And I fell down constantly. This video shows me doing some dead leaves before managing to turn. Not bad for a first day ! :D

Tuesday I was very enthusiastic to jump on my snow to get better and better.

We tried a new approach : left foot first, and that was what made all the difference. I even managed to turn a few times !

I fell down on my left arm one time too many, and had to stop for the day. I went to see the doctor who after x-raying my arm determined my arm had just suffered the shock of too many falls and needed to rest.

I got painkillers and a gel to apply 3 times a day.

So Wednesday I did nothing. I did go eat with the others at noon and went to see the shops of the small town of Contamines. I found a lovely scarf that Oliv bought for me, to congratulate me on my progress :)

Thursday, my arm still ached, but I still wanted to surf.

I finally managed to master turning on both sides and started to surf a bit faster, I gained in confidence. I really liked it. We even changed the piste to try something else.

And for the last descent we showed everyone my progress. I managed to fall down a few times, but otherwise everyone was pretty impressed by my fast learning. I gave all credit to my chéri :)

We went out that day, got drunk, spoke to a few Englishmen and had fun :)

Here's me gaining in confidence, and Olivier had this Tarantino thing for my ass (don't know why), he needed to film it. Sorry about that.

Here's another, less ass-y.

Friday, Olivier wanted to go with the others and try another piste.

He told me it was going to be easy and no steep hills were in sight.

He lied.

The first hill was insanely steep for me. What also stressed me was that the others were waiting for us.

I felt furious with him and a blockade installed. I was scared of descending, but wanted to try, forced myself to descend the piste even if I was terrified and enraged.

I just fell down all the time. I lost all confidence in myself.

We left to surf the piste, but I couldn't do it. I couldn't even stay on my snow. I had lost all my balance. So at one point, I just took off my snow and started to walk towards the oeufs which were far away. Oliv didn't understand anything and started to get upset with me and once I had reached side of the hardest piste there, I had a panic attack.

Breathing problems, trembling, tears, all that jazz.

Took me a while to calm down.

I just needed to get out of the pistes and get home.

So I just speeded home and stayed in my corner the whole evening. Didn't even want to eat with the others.

During the evening we started drinking and playing "I've never" game.

It was really funny. Cat was really awkward, she didn't want to know about JDs past.

I was pretty intrigued by that.

Saturday I asked her about it, because Olivier know everything about me, and I know everything about him. She just said that sometimes the past can hurt the relationship and so she preferred to not know anything about him before they met.

I just find that.. hmm.. sad.

So Saturday I tried to surf. I had a lot of trouble with confidence and I felt I was just regressing in my surfing.

So I sat down on the snow and let everything out. My frustration, my anger at him, EVERYTHING. We sat together for an hour, and everything got better. My blockade vanished and I managed to surf again.

It was good :)

We didn't do anything special for our last evening, just drank a little.

The next day we took the train early.

We got home at 2, I slept for 3 hrs and ate. All was good.