Skiing and Carnaval!

Well, even a week or two late, I'm finally getting a post up of our ski trip over the February winter vacation! I love their break schedule here, about two weeks of holiday every six or seven weeks of school, I don't know why, but I really enjoy the timing. Anyway, I spent the first week of holiday relaxing, sleeping in, doing a couple things with friends, the typical break stuff. It was the next friday when we left for our ski trip in the French Alps, down in the south of France, right next to Itlay. The mountain we stayed at all week is called Isola 2000, here's a link if you want to check it out: http://hiver.isola2000.com/.

You can see where it is relative to france in the  lower right hand corner.

As you can see from the map, it was a very, very long ways away (remember I'm west of Paris), so we broke  the drive into two days, staying at a hotel for one night. It was cool for me to see some of the south of France, which has it's own distinct architecture definitely different from Paris.We stopped on the coast en route, had some McFlurries, and I got to take a couple photos. It was sunny and gorgeous (but definitely not warm enough to swim or anything). I was expecting such a huge weather contrast when we arrived at the mountain later that afternoon, but it was actually just about as sunny there as well.

Palm trees on the coast.

So shimmery

Later that afternoon, we arrived at the mountain, rented our gear, and walked around a bit before going to bed ready for our first ski day. It was spring skiing to the letter, the weather was warm and sunny everyday, and I mean warm. The hottest day got up 14° C, about 55° F! The mountain was pretty large and nice, even if they were lacking a little snow due to the weather. All three of my host siblings decided to do snowboarding, I had started out with skiis but I ended up switching to a snowboard as well for almost the whole week. I had only done it twice before, so I fell about five hundred times the first day or two, but I wasn't doing bad by the end :)

Lunch time! With typical sandwichs: Baguettes with butter, ham and sometimes pickles.

Lucie, me and Elisa

Like I said, we were right next to Italy. On one run you can even go over to the border. So I've offically been in Italy now!

This random sign in Italy in the mountains.

A picture of the Italien Alps haha

Me half in Italy, half in France :) 

On the lift, Ludovic, Lucie, Valérie, Elisa

Crêpes at the Altitude Café

We stayed in a cute little apartment, you just had to take a short Funiclar down the the ski runs. We even rented a raclette for dinner one night and a fondue pot for anther (both meals were delicious of course). If you're wondering what a raclette is, here's a picture. You mostly use if for the cheese melting and sometimes frying meat on top. Then you dump the melty cheese on potatos, with meat if you'd like (usually ham). It's really yummy, especially after a long day on the slopes.

 

They put on a nice little fireworks show that we watched from the apartement.

So after six lovely days, we packed up and headed home. Because the kids wanted to get home at least a day before school started, we did the return trip in one chunk. We left at 9:30am and didn't get in until after 1:00 in the morning! (ok, we did stop for lunch and dinner, took about 45 minutes to look at a cute town, and stopped for a little while that night so my host dad could sleep, but still). We ate lunch in this town famous for parfum, though the museum was closed. I left my camera in the car at the other town, which is too bad because it was a really adorable little village. My host mom might have took some, so I might be able to get those posted later.

Well, there you go! I had a really good time (except maybe some of the car ride), the skiing and the weather and seeing the south of France was all really awesome. I'm going to post again soon about Carnaval (mardi gras) at my school, which was really fun as well. Until then, au revoir!
Oh yes, I learned that gondolas are called "eggs" in french. I suppose they do kind of resemble them.
Hope everyone has a good week,
Lauren