This year's east coast ski trip started on Jan 26 and lasted for two days. It is a bit lame thinking about all the travelling, boarding and extremely early morning just for a couple of hours fun on the slope, or even not on the slope. However, I'm glad I was onboard.
Words were the first bus would leave at 5:15am, and last one around 6:00am. For this scarily early hour had not seen me up in years, I was invited to stay at Pang Za's on the previous night, which could save me about half an hour for commuting. Even so, the alarm clock was set at 3:30, giving 10 min of laziness rolling after the alarm. Morning was eventless, given the freezing wind at the water front should not be counted as an event.
Everything was set for the journey to begin, except, well, the journey didn't begin, yet. The first bus, which we managed to get onto, didn't leave till 6:30. That left everyone with a sour bitter taste in the mouth, for the squandered precious 1 hr of morning sleep. Eagerness in the bus finally got the engine running, but not for long.
After one hour's cozy nap, another darn fact slapped in my face and woke me up ---- we were stopped; and the bus was broken; and the bus driver was frantically calling. Well, here goes another 30 min on the ski slope. Fortunately it didn't take too long to transfer us to an almost empty bus and continue the journey.
Sky got darker, flakes danced around; as the bus carefully maneuvred throught the meandering endless white, we turned out to be in the mountain in a fresh snow. It was the good stuff.
The trip ended at around 11:00, a little more than 4 hrs on the road is not too shabby.
Stomachs groaning, everybody rushed to a restaurant and cheerfully spent the lunch voucher. The lounge privately reserved was good too, with enough beanbags in vibrant brand defining colors. That was the right place to spend half an hour after meal, but I spent more, involuntarily. All of us had to work for a while, and the connectivity issue on my laptop made that while a machine grabbing war, which procrastinated for an hour. When the dust settles, decision was made that the gang of three would not hit the slope, but rather hit the open trails for snow mobiles the next morning. Decision was yet to be made as for what to do in the afternoon. With some movies at hand, and three decks of cards, we figured it shouldn't be too hard to make good use of the time.
I made two trips to my hotel room; the first one was to put away my stuff; the second one was to get some proper clothing, out of my regular daily stuff, for hot tubs. What's in between, was the decision the girls made after the first sight of the hot tub right outside their room window. No one brought bathing suits or swimming trunks, but the decision was still made. I had no objections obviously.
The road to "perdition" was spotlessly fluffy white. Jumping around to warm up, I was still intrigued by my first step on the white; it was freezing to give me a sense of reality versus romanticism of walking half naked in the snow. Although there was a winter when I took cold-water shower in non-heated dorm bathroom with windows wide open, every day, that was almost 7 yrs ago. I know for sure if I stayed a minute longer in the snow, I would not be leisurely typing here now.
The hot-spring-like tubs surely lied at the end of our footprints. Jumping in, it was not conferrable with words afterwards. Snow flaks swirling twisted with white steam, then mixed with waterdrops at the end of the hair, slowly condensed into tiny droplets of crystals. Bubble jets smoothed out every knots in the pathetic amount of muscles; swinging my sight to the distant snow peaks, although not Mt. Everest, it was appealing enough for me to long for an intimate contact with the snow sheets right beside the tubs; unfortunately I lacked the courage to flat my stomach on the white, even after one guy did that.
That was a pretty fast two-hour, maybe more. No one really cared; if not for the nice party and dinner, we could easily spend 4 hrs in there.
A walk back to the room on our previous footprints was still not easy, let alonethe hanging-dry period; those didn't take long though.
Before the 7 o'clock party, we had about 1 hr, and that was for the movies. Movies were good, atmosphere was relaxed. It was quite a nice condo style room, with full livingroom, furnace, and kitchen. A set of skis marked Toback Tail were hanging above the furnace, reminding me of the crude animal-like passions for speed, challenge and courage outside in the cold. But for a moment, watching the fine movies in the cozy warmth was totally acceptable to me.
Walking to the party was not bad; it was a 3 min walk through the village. If only the buildings were original and aged. Italian villages in the Alps must be 1k times more attractive. The only highlight here was the low-hanging ice spears. Some obssessed ones could never resist the temptation of breaking some large pieces off, and planting those in the snow.
Party was good, good drink, good food, good music, and good same-sex dancing performance by Johnathan and the big beard guy. That was enough, so off we went for the second half of the great movies.
Second half of the movie night was significantly more dynamic. There was laughter, tears, and silent lying-arounds. Laughter was mine, I am not easily moved; and even moved, I can still crack some joy to balance things out. But not everyone was like me, so there were moments when flood damages caused by pouring tears were almost imminent. When the nerve teasing motion pictures stopped moving, I was seriously questioned for the laughter and tearlessness, before I could depart for my own room and bed.
There goes the first day of the ski trip.
