Slopes Around the World

The season is upon us, along with twinkling lights and snowflake decals, warm jackets and fur-rimmed boots. Winter is here and here to stay, at least for the next two months. Sipping hot gingerbread lattes and breathing in the cool Edinburgh air makes me think Christmas and for me, Christmas is inseparable from a trip to the mountains. I enjoy a snowball contest as much as the next person but what I’m really after are powdery, bumpy, steep ski slopes. I'm a skiing fanatic; it's my favorite sport in the world where I feel freedom, nature, speed and sometimes snow down my trousers. As I'm always searching for new sensations, and enjoy a life of travelling, I've had the opportunity to experience various slopes all around the world. I’ve compared them in beauty, difficulty, nightlife, danger and complete randomness and you’d be surprised at some of the slopes I’ve swooshed down.

I am French and as you may know, some of the most renowned skiing stations are in the French Alps. My grandparents bought an apartment in Val D’Isère back when they were really cheap, before the winter break rage, so I was lucky enough to escape the exorbitant prices of Savoy-style chalets and tiny apartments away from the town center (far from the good après-ski bars).

We’ll have to come back to Val d’Isère because this isn’t actually the place where I learned to ski. When I was two, my family moved to Colorado and this means the legendary Rocky Mountains. The first slope I went down was in the ever so chic Aspen and the best part was the giant mascots of Pink Panther and Cookie Monster whizzing down the slopes and giving out candy. In retrospect, I think that learning to ski as a child in the USA is a fun, easygoing experience. We French are very serious about our skiing; exams, medals and technical terms. In the Rockies, the snowplow (a beginner’s position, when the tip of your skis touch in a triangular form) was called the pizza slice and parallel skiing was called French fries. This still makes me chuckle. The Rockies' Aspen, Wolf Creek and Arapahoe Basins are, as well as fun, breathtaking. These are ancient mountains, with rich pine forests and deliciously white snow from November (great for the long Thanksgiving weekend) to the end of April (my birthday), and national parks so closeby you may find yourself running into a deer or giant grizzly.

After skiing in Colorado where there is so much space, Val d’Isère and its neighboring station, Tignes, seemed like dollhouses. As it's such a popular winter destination, Tignes becomes extremely crowded during the season peak and there's a good reason for this: state of the art equipment, crazy nightlife, variety of slopes, views from Mont Blanc and the fact that it's not yet as pretentious as rival Courchevel or Méribel. I say not yet because in the past few years I've spotted an increase in very rich, very tan, very blond Russian women in the trendy hotel bars, and I have had to pull a few fur-clad Russian men off the more difficult slopes and hors piste – they think very highly of their skiing skills when clearly they should be back at the hotel bars with the ladies. Instead, they yell and bicker noisily at each other, at the risk of provoking an avalanche, and just ruining it for everybody. Other than that, Val d’Isère is probably one of the best places for experienced skiers. The proof lies in the 1992 Winter Olympics and the fact that every year, Val d’Isère hosts some of the Alpine World Skiing Championships.

Val d’Isère is great during the day but something also needs to be said about the nightlife. I was too young to experience the apparently famous Aspen nightlife last time I went (although I had some pretty wild times in the kiddie park). Over the years more and more clubs have opened in Val d’Isère but the best bar remains “Le petit Danois” (The Little Danish”). Home to all the Danish visitors, it’s a great place for a pint or five after a delicious dinner of typical savoy melted cheese specialties, like fondue, raclette, tartiflette, or before a pizza from the all-night pizzeria which serves slices so hot they warm up your gloveless fingers in an instant.

To prepare yourself for a trip to Val d’Isère you need to make sure a few things find their way into your suitcase: warm socks, long underwear and the knowledge that you aren’t going to sleep more than 4 hours a night if you want to party with the saisonniers and be there when the lifts open in the morning! Don’t worry though' chances are when you stumble back to your room after Brit club Dick’s Tea Bar closes its doors, Chevalot, which is in my humble opinion the best boulangerie in all of France, will just be laying out their freshly baked croissant. Oh, and afternoon naps are compulsory.

Written by Camille Soulier

Camille's full profile can be found here.

Reflections: That Other Kind Of Travel

Just last week I was sitting in my garden watching this year’s batch of cabbage moths checking out my herbaceous borders. They finally settled for the nasturtiums growing around the herb garden and while I left them to their own devices I got to thinking about the past. It seems that after fifty, or in my case sixty, years you think about the past more and more. I'm sure this is brought about by the sure and certain knowledge that you have less distance to go in life than you've already travelled; in racing parlance you're settling down in the straight for the run to the judge. What's more, I suspect we will be judged if not by the almighty then certainly by our friends. It would therefore seem that the past has a stronger pull for us than the unknown future. It was the cabbage moths that got me started on a memory of me as a twelve year old - standing five feet tall like some ancient guardian of the gates, in the centre of my parents' tiny back garden set in the middle of a row of terraces, dealing out lethal and telling blows with my sister's old wooden tennis racquet to any poor cabbage moth that dared attempt a landing on my father’s lettuces. Forehand, backhand, overhead smash, I dealt out instant death to all. Nowadays, with a more liberal approach, I just let them get on with it.

It doesn’t just stop with the moths; moments of reflection can come unannounced at any time of the day or night. Day time I can handle - in fact, some days I positively encourage them by closing my eyes and settling back in an easy chair. Off I go into a trance where both the dead and the living come flooding into my life as if they never left. Night-time is a different kettle of fish all together; waking from a deep sleep at three am seems to invite all of those unwanted memories back for a good old think-a-thon. I've always believed that I can easily come to terms with things I've done in the past which on reflection I shouldn't have done. What I do have problems with is dealing with those things I didn’t do. These regrets are easily managed during the day with many distractions at hand but on a cold winter night one tends to roll around the bed unwilling to leave its warmth, agonizing over something that happened forty years ago. Why does it still bother me? There's no easy answer to this question; I've tried walking around the house, visiting rooms I hardly ever go in, watching television and checking for any new emails. On returning to bed the same thoughts crowd me and only disappear when sleep grudgingly returns.

So what does one do about the past, or at least about travelling into it? Is it a healthy road to travel and good for the soul or should it be avoided wherever possible and regarded as wasteful and self indulgent? After all, when we finally turn up our toes our past goes with us. We can write it down for posterity, hand it on to the up and coming, but it’s not the same and they will always be our memories, experiences, failures and triumphs no matter how well we recorded them. Perhaps I should continue to enjoy those solitary moments of travel when I drift back in time to relive some of those more rewarding and happy moments etched into my brain. Thinking back now I do recall a newspaper article written about a game of tennis I played in a Tuesday night comp. They described my forehand cross court as lethal. Oh how little did they know.

Written by Jeff Williams

New York - A Night to Remember

I feel a magnetic pull draws me back to this city. It's like I was born in the wrong life and belong there instead. It was my third visit to New York with my Dad and I was thrilled to be back in the city I'd fallen in love with. Walking around Broadway on a warm summer night was chaotic. I was still jet lagged and my surroundings were completely surreal. I stood for a moment to take it all in. The steam pouring from the man holes was unbearable in the already over whelming heat; I always thought the movies put it in for effect but really it's from the busy subway below.

We were heading towards a comedy club, or at least we hoped. Earlier that day a local approached us and sold us a couple of tickets for a gig. I was apprehensive at first but there's something about New York that makes me impulsive. After all, everyone else seemed so casual and at ease. Just one more reason why I keep returning to this inspiring city. As we walked to the club the smell of roasted peanuts and fried onions from the street stalls was thick in the humid air. My attention rested on a Latino-American guy running the stall, rushing to serve the sea of waiting faces. He was small in height with a thin build and his soft brown eyes looked tired with dark circles beneath. His forehead was creased with sweat as were his clothes but he didn't seem to mind any of these things. He looked perfectly content. I painted my own picture and thought perhaps he was from a deprived country and grateful to have a job in the big city. On the other hand maybe I was being naive and he was a local just getting by. New York is so big, anything is possible.

Walking away from the bright lights down a shady side street, I noticed a sign above a hidden doorway with two sturdy looking bouncers outside: our venue for the evening. We went down the dimly lit stairway into a basement-type room and I thought that such a place would be a great place for a horror movie. Considering the shabby surroundings, it turned out to be a really good show. It reminded me to never judge a book by its cover. I took a particular liking to one comedian; pale faced, bleached blonde hair and extremely camp. He was effortlessly funny and on a role until some drunk in the audience thought he would try and be the comic and threw some insulting comments his way. Of course, the comedian completely humiliated him but not in the humorous way I expected. He started telling us that his long term partner had been a victim to bowel cancer and on the day of his operation to remove the tumour there was an agonising wait for him to come round. When he finally woke up his first words were, “is it a boy or a girl?” We were astounded that after such a painful situation, this man was able to make a joke and the audience laughed off the tense atmosphere. He then concluded his story by saying, “if I can get through that awful time then you can throw whatever crap you want at me and it won't knock me down! I’m stronger than that.” With that, the whole crowd leapt up and applauded such a brave man.

I left the comedy club feeling inspired to never let the small things in life get me down. We decided to have a few more drinks and visit the bar opposite, a very confusing Scottish bar with an Irish barman wearing a kilt. Like true New Yorkers my dad and I were in the habit of sitting up at the bar and we got talking to the barman who told us about himself and how most tourists and locals presume he was actually Scottish as they can’t tell the accents apart. Chatting to him in such an electric atmosphere with the band playing in the background and the bar packed behind us was an amazing experience. The night couldn't possibly get any better but with that thought, a guy with dark hair and big brown eyes appeared next to me with a huge smile. He took my breath away with how handsome he was and when he introduced himself I was intrigued to chat to him. He had a southern American accent and told me he was from South Carolina, worked as a welder and played for a baseball team in his home town. The more we talked the more I enjoyed this aspect of New York; meeting new people and finding out about their lives and how we really are worlds apart. At the same time I was sad because living in a city like this is something I long for. Something so different from what I know.

I lay in bed that night with a mixture of emotions. I felt happy that I was in the place I loved the most but I was filled with dread at the thought of leaving the next day and returning back to normality. It had been a great evening and I was slightly annoyed with myself for feeling that way. Perhaps it was just alcohol flooding my mood but six months on I still feel the same. It truly was a night to remember.

Written by Michelle Turley.

Michelle's full profile can be found here.

Showing a Foreigner How to Be

Margueritte invited her father to visit for a weekend on his way through to China but he misheard, or mis-decided, and put down a hotel deposit for a week. She cried about it into her pillow the night before he arrived. What was she going to do with him for seven heat-soaked days? He hated the heat. She hated the heat – no, she didn't, she hated him in the heat. Sweat would gather in angry dens above his eyebrows and he wiped it like he was organising a bank job. And he bitched about it.

She put bottled water, apples, milk and a melamine mug in the room's fridge, then wondered if he'd prefer a bowl. She told him there was cereal over here and he'd said, I don't want any of that fish porridge shit. She replied, no Dad, they have cornflakes, and then he said, 'cause I hate that fish porridge.

His plane was due at five in the afternoon and she made sure she was late. He was standing underneath the McDonald's arch with a bag of fries.

'They have something called a bul-gog-i,' he said as she kissed his chin.

'How did you buy those?'

'A woman behind the counter told me I was handsome.'

On the train he pointed out how many people were using their phones. She explained that they were watching television and he leaned over a boy's shoulder to see and the boy inched away and he followed until both of them were squeezed in the doorway.

He didn't like the pavement. Of course he didn't; it had the nerve to be broken and uneven, making his wheelie suitcase (beige because he found black dramatic) bounce into his ankles and trip him.

'What's all this rubbish outside for?'

'It gets picked up every day. You just put it next to the road when you want it gone.'

'It doesn't look very good.'

She remembered how much he hated rubbish. Recycling in particular. Plastic bottles most of all. He hated spending money but he always bought expensive lemonade because it came in glass.

Margueritte installed him in his room the way she would put a book that had disappointed her on a shelf. Perhaps a book written by a great author who had, with this story, missed the mark.

He picked up a pillow and smelt it. She showed him the shower with its swivel head and massage spigots; remote for the A/C and TV (the same one); and the goods she had packed into the fridge. He asked what the mug was for and she put it in her bag.

'What are we having for breakfast?'

'Whatever you want. There's a bakery down the alley.'

'Do they have cereal here? You know how much I hate-'

'I know, Dad.'

He wanted her to show him how the TV worked and the first channel she found was porn. He watched for the longest moment like he didn't recognise what he was seeing. Then he asked if there was any sport. She said, baseball. He said no.

She told him they would visit the river, fish markets, palaces, BBQ restaurants. She wanted him to try live squid and rice cakes because it would make him part of what she had built. If he got food poisoning he might leave early.

He took off his polo and his torso was already glistening.

'Are you hot?'

'I just can't stand this kind of humidity. How do you do it?'

Margueritte turned on the A/C. 'Just keep this on.'

'It's like stepping into a rainstorm.'

'Yes.'

'Does it get better at night?'

'Not usually.'

'It doesn't get better?'

'No.'

'Jesus Christ, how do you do it?'

She pointed at the A/C.

Lara has never had a bulgogi burger. It's all about the little things...