50 students and staff set off from school in a luxurious coach at about 3:30pm on Friday 8th Feb on a 26 hr coach trip. oh joy. it wasn't that bad though. Nick - another gap student and i went along with various members of staff from the PE and other departments. we stopped every 3 or 4 hrs at service stations or food places, but the time in between was taken up quickly by movies, sleeping or reading. In no time at all we were down at Dover (where you get the ferry to France) and then we were in Belgium, then Luxembourg then Germany where we queued for about 45mins to get a yummy brekky and then on to Austria. It didn't take long before we were up in the alps and driving through snow covered landscape, arriving quickly at Aschau, a little town near kitzbuhel where we were staying. The group had a Gusthof (guesthouse?) all to ourselves which was great for late night singing sessions and drinking games. It was nice to attempt to speak some form of German and soak in the culture, not to mention eat austrian food - prepared each evening by our very own chef.
The Sunday was our first day skiing, and boy had the alps turned it on for us! Blue skies, heaps of powder and relatively warm temperatures with no wind!!!!!!!!! We were treated with 5 days of perfect skiing conditions and the last day was foggy and cold, amazing to see how the weather can change so quickly.
The students on the tour were all 6th formers, lower 6th and upper 6th so that's year 11 and 12. It was really nice to get to know people of our own age and out of school, not that we have anything to do with them at school anyway. There were 4 skiing groups, split up into ability levels. I went with the second best group all week even though i could change whenever i wanted to, but i was suited to that level i thought. we had 4hrs of lessons a day, lunch in the middle and then at the end we had an hour of free skiing but we stayed in a big group anyway and hooned down a black run right the way to our hotel doorstep. it was unbelievable!!! by the end of the week we were doing warm up blacks in the morning! so much fun. i learnt a technique called 'carving' which i have no where near mastered but i can say that i did a few good carving turns. I couldn't believe how good everyone on the resort was at skiing! i don't think i saw more than 10 snow ploughs the whole time! I'd say it's cause the conditions are so good. There were massive amounts of powder everywhere off piste which we explored, sometimes skiing up to our waist deep in powder! the first time i went off piste i did a spectacular sommersault loosing all skis and poles and opened my eyes to find that my head was actually buried in the powder! It was so funny, and the powder is just so dry that you don't get soaking wet or anything. Anyway, by the end of the week we were doing jumps and moguls and lots of black runs. We went down the Hahnenkamm - famous ski race held on it, and i nearly took out the whole group. Just imagine. Erica, last as usual trying to go down the impossible moguls at the end of the run, almost to the bottom she decides to just go for it and goes straight. STRAIGHT TOWARDS THE GROUP!! she picks her gap in the middle of the group knowing she isn't going to stop in time and yells 'coming through'. the group freaks out as there is an out of control aussie skier heading their way and attemps to make the 30cm original gap into something more like 1m. Erica is next seen streaming through the group over the back or front of peoples skis and into the run, behind where the group was waiting. Looking and praying to make sure she doesn't take anyone out who is on the next run ( a main thoroughfare ) she goes over a little jump and skids to a halt over the other side of the run, breathing deeply and laughing at the situation just passed. The group is laughing (more in a nervous manner) at Erica and she recieves the 'most stupid person of the day' award (Wally award) later that evening. An award that she wins overall for the whole week, due to her blondness and general ability to be fooled on anything, but in particular that there were snow leopards on the resort.
In the evenings we had planned activities such as the pool, pub, quiz, pub, games night, drinking at the hotel night and a fondue/skittles evening which was great! My team won which was a highlight, although i believed that there was actually a little man pulling the strings that the skittles were attached to... another Wally nomination.
By the end of the week I was exhausted. i had no energy left at all. after stuffing all my clothes back into my bag and seeing it safely on the bus it was time to go home. i think i slept for the first 6 hrs or so, and then watched some movies and slept more. We got home really quickly, or so it felt. We had the next day off which was great, and then it was back to school. I still can't believe that we managed to fit so much into a week. Absolutely amazing. i had the time of my life and was constantly in awe of all that was around me, definately will be coming back!
