Days 1 and 2 – Travel
We left school on Friday 10th February at 14:10. The coach was originally meant to leave at 11:00, but the coach that we had broke down. This meant I could do some work, and I had forgotten my neck pillow, which allowed me to sleep reasonably well on the bus. We drove down to Dover to get a ferry to Calais.
It was getting late on the crossing, and we had dinner on the boat. I had fish and chips. We couldn’t see much because it was dark, however the ferry was rocking slightly, and in just the right way to make me feel nauseous.
To get to Austria, we went through France, Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany, and throughout the night, we stopped at service stations to go to the loo and to have a walk around. One of which was in Luxembourg at 2 in the morning. Around 6 am, we stopped in Stuttgart to have breakfast.
Once we got there, the first thing we did was get our ski equipment. I only needed skis and poles because I have my own boots and helmet. This meant I could get my equipment quite quickly and not spend lots of time trying on boots. Once we got back to our hostel, we had spaghetti bolognese for lunch. There was time to get unpacked and have showers before dinner.
Day 3 – Skiing
Sunday was our first day of skiing. Because breakfast was at seven, we decided to get up at 6:30 am so we were ready for breakfast on time. At breakfast, we were also given our groups in terms of ability. I was in group 5.
To access the slopes, we went on the coach to the bottom of the station in Finkenburg, where we put on our ski boots. We then went up the cable car to the top of the slopes and met our instructors. We felt that the instructor hadn’t had a group as advanced as ours. We did a drill for half an hour before exploring. The drill was skiing across the slope just on downhill ski. This made sense for skiing, but it was quite hard to stay on one ski.
At lunch, we went to the top station, where we met our instructors and had lunch with the rest of the groups, after which we continued to ski.
On the way back from the slopes, we stopped at a supermarket to get extra supplies. It was only supposed to take 20 minutes to get items, but there was a massive queue which snaked around the perimeter of half the shop. It took over 20 minutes to get to the front of the queue.
Day 4 – Skiing
Monday, we went to the same place to go skiing. For the first half an hour, we did two drills. The first one was skiing without poles, and the second one was skiing with the poles parallel with one in front and one behind me. After some skiing, we went lunch in the same place Sunday.
After lunch, we went on a fairly steep black, two slaloms and a fun park. At the bottom of the first one, the instructor followed us down and sprayed all of us with snow. It was a good way to cool down, especially with the temperature being too hot for good skiing. At the bottom of the second one, just before I stopped, I managed to fall over, which I thought was impressive, and I ended up laughing for a good minute afterwards.
On the way back, we went to the pool. There were several different pools that we could go into, of which most had come form of water fountains along with massage chairs with water cannons. There were two flumes, and I went on one of them. I also had a mini handstand competition with two of my new friends, and I ended up winning, although I personally think my underwater handstands are terrible.
Day 5 – Skiing
Tuesday, we skied over to Eggalm, which was a slight trek because it is on the other side of the ski area. We went down the same red a few times, and the last time we went down, someone fell over and broke the toe end of his ski bindings. This caused us to go to a restaurant to have lunch while he got his ski fixed. He ended up with new skis. By the end of the day, I was exhausted through the amount of skiing we did that day.
We stopped by Mayrhofen to go shopping on the way back. We were there for about an hour and bought a few things like postcards and magnets and we browsed many shops. We were supposed to be back by a certain time; however, the teachers were late with everyone else being there one time or early.
Day 6 – Skiing
Wednesday, we skied in a similar area to Monday, and had lunch in a nearby restaurant. When we got back to the hotel, we had showers and an early dinner before heading off to a sports bar. The main idea was to play bowling, and there was a football match being played that people could watch. I tried pool for the first time, although I was terrible at it. There was also a darts station where I could try darts. My technique wasn’t the best, but I got a few bullseyes and most of the darts ended up on the target. We were there quite late, and we only returned past half ten, and I was falling asleep while I was there. Only went to bed at 11:30.
Day 7 – Skiing
Thursday, we started by taking a group photo of everyone on the trip before everyone went off in their separate groups. We skied in the same areas as the previous day, and we had lunch in the same restaurant, and we met one of the teachers who walked from the main gondola we used to get up the mountain.
To get back, the chairlift we would have used closed because a helicopter forced it to stop. That meant we had to take a different route which meant we had to pole along about 100m, some of which was up hill. That was hard work! At least three groups were affected, with one of the groups not turning up for a good half an hour.
We had showers before going to dinner, where, after everyone had finished eating, we had an award night with awards including fastest skier (which was someone from my ski group) and pickiest eater (someone from group 1). I didn’t get an award, which could be considered lucky or unlucky, depending on the award name.
Day 8 – Skiing
Friday was the final day of skiing and the final day in the hotel. We went to Kaltenbach to go skiing instead of Finkenburg. It was wild, with groups 3, 4 and 5 combining at points before lunch, so everyone ended up skiing together, and doing some jumps. Lunch was my group and group 4, before group 4 leaving before our group.
We finished early and went to a shop to get anything that was necessary for the journey back. We had showers in a room, and we went room by room. At that point, we no longer had our rooms. After that, we had dinner (I was falling asleep towards the end) and left in the coach.
Days 8 (cont.) and 9 – Travel
I was quite tired by this dinner, so I managed to fall asleep within half an hour of being on the bus, and woke up an hour or so later. We only stopped once, around midnight, and I slept through the night until the morning. We got to Calais port at around 9, but we ended up queuing for almost 3 hours, and we only got off at around 12 when we went through passport control.
The ferry back was very rocky, which, unlike the journey to Calais, meant I didn’t feel sick. I had a friend who crossed the channel at a similar time to me, and she had the exact opposite feeling with the journey there being better than the journey back. When people tried to walk in a straight line, it looked like they were drunk! Everyone went side to side when trying to walk straight.
We finally got back to school at four thirty, which was later than predicted due to the massive queues at the port.