Engstienalp

An entry while waiting for dessert tonight. It promises to be good, with leftover chocolate cake from yesterday and some Austrian cake with a name I can't pronounce. After the weekend, each of the dinner at the camp will/have been cooked by participants showcasing specialities from their home countries. On Monday we had French food cooked by the camp director as not enough participants volunteered to cook and tonight, it was Austrian. Tomorrow will be Polish, Thursday Columbian and Friday, Swiss. Should be interesting, to say the least.


Today's skiing was hard work, as we had a heap of snow last night, which made for some very pretty scenery. We spent the day on blues and reds. (For those who don't know, the run grading system in France/Switzerland goes green, blue, red, black, yellow from easiest to hardest.) The conditions meant that the usual slope categories didn't really matter, since all the runs we went on were fairly wide. All the fresh powder means a different skiing technique than on groomed pistes, which took getting used to, and which uses different leg muscles. This means I'm sore in all different places today, though at least I can take solace in the fact that I will look good for summer. *winks* I don't mind the fresh snow though, since it's so much softer to fall in, which is fortunate, since I did fall down a fair few times today. It does make for harder skiing in the afternoon though, after people have been skiing all morning and creating bumps on the slopes.

Tomorrow's conditions should be the same, so I'll get more opportunity to practice what I learnt today. I'm actually a little worried about how much I'm getting to like this skiing business. I won't get much chance to do any after this season. Unless I catch a few days at the end of season at home in August. Or come back to CERN during ski season next year. Anyway, I'll make the most of it here while I can...