Mission to the Czech Republic

Nathan, Lucy, Premek, and I celebrated the end of first semester by taking some of our students skiing on Saturday. And in the middle of the only snow of the season, everyone within a 100 mile radius had the same idea, unfortunatly, so it was pretty crowded. We took the hour-and-a-half train ride with all our equipment, and when we arrived I could hear Aaron's warning voice in my head: "it's not that bad once you get over the initial disappointment." With three slopes at an average of an amazing one minute and thirty seconds for each run, it was, shall I say, disappointing. HOWEVER, they have these fantastic little lifts (which are less fantastic with large crowds since you can only go one at a time) where you have to scoot yourself and your skis onto the loading area, stabalize, put both your poles in one hand, turn around and grab the round seat which is hurtling at you at about 50mph, put it between your legs, and get the biggest wiplash you've ever experienced as you are pulled up the slope, all in about 3.6 seconds. Congratulations, you have now made it onto the ski lift.

Good: you get your money's worth because you get to ski down AND up the hill.
Bad: you have to ski up the hill. Which means you still have to dodge the normal ski slope obstacles like ice, rocks, trees, and other skiers. If you fall, you have to do a James Bond-esque roll to avoid getting hit by the skier behind you. If you're lucky, you get back up, grab the next empty seat, and you're on your way. If you're me, you need five minutes to dig yourself out of the 3 feet of snow you landed in, another two to get yor skis parallel, and the hoots of the other people on the lift to finally stand up and inch your way through the woods to the adjacent slope so you can go back down the hill and start over, to the confused faces of the workers: "didn't we just see you?"

Then you make an amazing spectacle of yourself as you manage, while you are trying to inch up to the platform, to get hit with the seat, cross your skis, lose a pole, and go tumbling down to the amazement of everyone in line behind you. Then Nathan has to come rescue you for the ninth time that day, and explain your incompetence to everyone by announcing, "Ona je Americanka!" (she is an American!).

Yes, my Czech skiing experience was a humbling one, especially since skiing is one of the few things I usually do well at. However, the students seemed to enjoy it, especially the snowball fights afterward, so I'm thankful to have gone, but I doubt I'll soon forget my first day at the Czech ski slope.