Following the last post about the disastrous attempt to go skiing before Christmas, here's the account of when we actually managed it!
A few weeks ago we all had a strange sense of deja vu as we packed our bags and our picnics for the bus, and headed back to the autostazione. I was convinced we would get there to find AEGEE had somehow forgotten us/sold our places on the trip to illegal immigrants or some other such nonsense, but amazingly we arrived to find a very calm guy, who actually managed to get us all on the bus and on the road only an hour later than planned (must be a record for Italian standards!)
Once more though our plan to hit the Alps had been foiled by those pesky avalanches, so we were going back to Slovenia, but to Maribor, a really nice ski resort in the east of the country. Sadly the bus ride was obscenely long, eventually arriving at the hotel at 3am. There were 12 of us staying in a very cute chalet, literally 100metres from the pistes.
Skiing Maribor
We dragged ourselves out of bed after a mere 3 hours sleep to head down early to get our skis, only to be told the shop wasn't open until 9! Argh! So...a leisurely breakfast, then we eventually got onto the slopes by about midday. We spent the first hour or two teaching 2 portugese girls who'd never skied before, then got started on some easy runs. (I can ski, but not with any particular skill, style or elegance. It's more just a matter of physically getting down the mountain while incurring as few injuries as possible!)
Our only problem hit when we came into contact with a chair lift which also involved a moving floor. This bizarre contraption was hilarious - Frouke and I shuffled forward and got thrown onto a moving carpet/conveyor belt thing, at which point somehow our skis crossed, Frouke panicked and pushed me over meaning we were now sliding towards the end of the conveyor belt, me with one ski on and one ski off and a chair lift approaching quickly. Somehow we managed to jump on the lift in time but I couldn't get my ski back on, so we ended up sailing off grabbing the ski and clutching our poles. Halfway up we realised our ski poles were now completely trapped between the bars of the lift, and were psyching ourselves up for an interesting exit at the top... as we approached the top of the lift the little man in the hut came running out, yelling at us in Slovenian, but didn't stop the lift! Absolute chaos ensued, somehow eventually we got off, managed to ski away from the lift with surprising panache before both losing control on an icy patch again and crashing to the floor. It was at this point Frouke realised her ski pole was practically bent in half having been crushed by the lift, so tried to bend it back... and promptly broke it in half!

Sadly that evening apres ski banter was thin on the ground due to extreme tiredness again, although we did almost manage to hijack a skidoo...
skidoo
...before again being shouted at in Slovenian :s Oops!
The next day we hit some harder slopes, and after getting slightly lost on the mountain and almost having to navigate a black (eek!) we made it back to the hotel ready to go home, only to be told 3 of the group were in hospital, including one of our friends! Thank God they were fine, just a few sprains, so we were on the road before too long. We arrived back in Bologna at 3am, again so tired and achey but having had a very good weekend. I'm off skiing again in March (fingers crossed for Monte Rosa this time!), and now cannot wait!