Skiing in October
After a few tiring days at Oktoberfest in Munich we hopped on a train, which traveled through Austria for about 10 minutes, before heading through Switzerland and on to Geneva. There we were picked up for 3 days of skiing on a glacier in the French Alps. We arrived at the hotel in Tignes du Boisses at about 1 AM, weary from a whole day on a train.
The next morning we got up early to get up to the glacier for a day skiing. The ski package we got was a great deal. It was called the Atomic Boot Camp (www.atomicbootcamp.co.uk) and we got 3 nights accommodation, 3 dinners, 3 breakfasts, apres-ski snacks, 3 days of skiing and all rental equipement included (except ski pants). The weather on the first day of skiing was somewhat miserable with rain and snow but it was still a fun day.
The slopes were really crowded each day with ski racing camps of all ages including the France National team. There were even a few Canadian race teams there training. The racers were the kind of punks who would take the time out of their day to carefully ski over your gear and cut infront of you in line, just because these 12 year olds thought they were god’s gift to humanity.
The 2nd two days were really beautiful with the sun out all day long. The skiing conditions were not the greatest either but we made the best of it and were able to test out different pairs of this year’s Atomic skis and boots each day. The people working at the hotel were great, the food was excellent and we had a great time. The town the hotel was in was very small, there were cows grazing right next to the hotel and just down the road was the tallest dam in Europe.
The other neat thing was that the Tour de France went right past the hotel this year.
After 3 days of skiing we went to Annecy, France for a half a day since it is a very picturesque town with a huge crystal clear glacial lake. Unfortunately, we had planned to store our bags at the train station while we checked out the city for the morning. But, they didn’t have luggage lockers so we instead found a bench by the lake and each took turns walking around checking things out. It’s definitely a city we’d like to come back to and explore.
We got to Paris Tuesday evening and went to stay with a nice French couple. We met Julien and Caroline on Couchsurfing and they graciously put us up at their apartment for 3 nights. We had a nice time getting to know both of them and they were very hospitable and helpful in giving us a map and some ideas of what to see in the city. Happy Birthday Julien!!!
While in Paris we did a walking tour to see some of the sites such as the Champs d’Elysees, the Petit and Grand Palais, Les Tuilieres gardens, The Louvre, amongst other things. Eero visited the Louvre and we both went to the Catacombes, the Eiffel Tower, Sacre Coeur, Moulin Rouge, and Notre Dame. The Eiffel tower had two giant rugby balls for the World Cup of Rugby taking place here in France, one in the middle of it, and one even bigger one down at the base which was some sort of advert for NZ. Eero wanted to kick them. We have to admit, even though we still don’t quite know all the rules of rugby, we’ve been watching quite a few of the games and enjoying it quite immensely.
