The Good, The Bad and the Damn Right Painful

28/02/2017

An update from the alps!

The Good

After a somewhat rocky start to the season, for the chalet and our team, we've started to get on track. We're finishing by 11am in the mornings and 10pm at nights meaning prime time on the slopes or wasting time in the hot tub and sauna. We've been getting some great feedback from guests like 10/10 reviews which is amazing. It's wicked to get some comments like "Becca made our holiday" and "was the life of the chalet". So good news on the work front!

It has just started snowing which is great because it's not all the reassuring when you're skiing and you can see lumps of grass and the piste is a mogul field, so over the next few days we're expecting 120cm of snow, yaaaaaaas!

We also got free cheese on the slopes the other day.

(me at the free cheese place) 

The Bad

On the news of our great feedback we also got one saying "out of 40 ski holidays this was the 2nd worse"which I am horrified/slightly proud about from week one.

Me and Louise thought it would be a good idea to slide down a (not so) snowy hill as a shortcut, of course I got impaled by a stick resulting in my saladpets getting demolished and practically ripped in half. D'oh! (pictures to follow)

I can't really complain about our accom, we live in a bit room in the top of our chalet. I can't really complain about the wifi either because compared to most we have god wifi, but oh man this wifi is the bane of my life. So I see this ski jacket on ebay and I fall in love with it. Even better; there's a matching pair of saladpets. The best part is, with about 10 minutes left on the bidding, they're only $10 (inc P&P). So I manage to get these saladpets for $10, amazing. They're an obnoxious blue, purple starry black mess but go PERFECT with the jacket. So I go to bid on the jacket and oh, the wifi stops working. So not only do I get lumbered with these completely unmatchable saladpets I lose the bidding for a $5 ski jacket. RAGGEEEE.

Tuesday night is our night of freedom (day off on Wednesday, yasss) so we brought tickets to a commdy night  at our haunt, something new to do and hanging out with some friends. Perfect! But I should've known it was all going to go wrong when I had to YOLO taking off snow chains after realising that there wasn't any snow,but slippery, icey slush instead meaning that my wheels were going everywhere on this mountain side, my patience has gone but who knows where and I'm like I AM THIS CLOSE TO TURNING THIS CAR AROUND. From icey hillstarts and wheels giving way and sliding across the road and swearing at everyone/thing/opportunity we finally got there, only with blood pressure much higher than when we started. So naturally we stroll up to the door only to realise THE DOOR IS LOCKED. The door to the venue we were just on this 45 minute crusade up a mountain in a snowstorm through the ice IS LOCKED. So of course, if nothing else made me give up that did. We got in the van and left. Moral of the story: Don't be the driver in your chalet, the only perk is seeing the malamute in the mornings sometimes outside the hire shop.

The Damn Right Painful

This week the Pascale chalet team have taken up snowboarding. Similar to surfing, and wakeboarding (which I love but I will never pretend I am good at) so I was buzzing to get started, brought myself some protection and ready to hit the slopes (with my broken saladpets). So day 1 included a lot of falling. A lot of falling. But me and Louise, despite her constant threats of having a breakdown, made it down some red slopes and nailed this falling leave mumbo jumbo. Needless to say, it's been a while since my butt has been in this much pain. I am covered in bruises but I absolutely love it. Unlike skiing which I feel is more of a thing to do I really look forwards to getting out on my board, plus I just want to be 1000x better than Joel so I'm gonna put the hours in.

And The Hilarious Pear Incident 

So, once a week we do a poached pear in a red wine sauce with Brandy Snaps and cinnamon cream (sounds nice, right?). The taste? Delicious. The look? It's a tough one to make look appealing when a flaccid pear looks a little bit like...well...SOOOOO this week we have a big group of 7 people in their mid 20's (they're a great bunch, they got drunk and wanted an orange so we made them sign a contract for it and everything) and Louise is doing the weekly job of taking the desserts out whilst I plate up, I then hear a roar of laughter coming from the table and damn, this group were LOVING their pears. Not the taste though.We then get all 18 faces staring at the door with anticipation for the next one. Louise takes out a bowl and BOOM eruption of laughter. This went on for 18 desserts. And there's me in the kitchen trying to plate them up as nicely as I can through tears. Maybe it was one of those "you had to be there" moments but wow, never thought I'd see so many adults chucking away, unable to breathe, because of a poached pear. It makes me think that maybe I'm not adulting so bad after all..

1/02/17

So this is the quiet little town I'm going to be calling home for the next couple months.

31/01/16

31/01/16

Welcoming to the world my new best friend;

As humans we are not worthy of dogs.

B vs Ski

30/01/2017

So 2017 has hit and I've decided to get back on the travel blog hype after a couple of years out*. I call this chapter "B vs Ski" it took me a long time so please appreciate it.

So after spending the past 7 months working hard as an Animator in Tenerife (and another 3 overstaying my welcome, not working hard, but having a lovely time) I have gone for the polar opposite (literally) and decided to give a ski season a shot. I have been placed in a tiny resort in Peisey, for anyone who has no idea where that is...it's in the French alps and that's all I can tell you because I have no idea where it is.

So I am now apparently a "seasonaire" (god, I hate that phrase). So naturally I've just got here and I've already been out. Some things will never change though, you find the drunkest, weirdest, most abnormal person in the bar and they'll magnet themselves over to me.  I get the good old French geezer who is the first of the list and he plonks himself on my lap (I genuinely think he thought I was part of the chair). First thing he tells me is he doesn't speak English...great. So I try my best to conversate/reject him. After a few minutes realise I've just been speaking Spanish and I can no longer remember any French. Luckily for me "No Ooo lala avec moi" worked fine.

My job is as a chalet host, so I pretty much cook and clean for people who come to my chalet on holiday and for anyone who knows me knows I am terrible at both of those things. But when I was mooching around in Tenerife I worked with my two best mates there who also happen to be really good chefs* and I apparently learnt quite a lot when I was washing dishes about food prep and presentation, and so far my colleagues seem quite impressed. I wonder how long it is until they realise that I've lived for the past 2 years on beans on toast, pasta and take outs.

Why come work a ski season when I don't know how to ski or snowboard and you hate the cold? That is a very good question because I really don't know. I am looking forwards to the challenge though. I'm getting some lessons, equipment and a lift pass sorted this week and I am bracing myself for some bruises and aching bones. The funny thing is people keep forgetting I'm a complete newbie to this and I just don't understand what they're on about half the time (lobster pots? piste? 1800/1600?) . I'm sure it's all extremely basic for anyone who has even looked at a pair of skis before but for me it's all snowman jargon.



*you can read my other blogs here and here, though this time  I'm aiming for more consistency

*anyone who would like to visit their restaurant (it's wicked, though I'm sure that the dishes aren't as clean anymore ;) )