Another day off in Tignes

La Folie Douce where we enjoyed some apres ski!

Today was my day off (yes, it's Wednesday AGAIN) and I spent it having lots of fun skiing from 8.45 am until 5.45 pm.

I had made friends with a nice New Zealander guy - who is one of our guests - and so my friend Sam (who is also my workmate) and I decided to go skiing with him and some of his friends.

Fortunately during my day off I had absolutely beautiful weather! The sun shone brightly and, although it was cold, it wasn't unbearably so.

We skied all the way up to the Grande Motte in Tignes - which is an all-year skiing area and glacier - before skiing back down into Val D'Isere and doing several runs. Sam likes to ski pretty fast so it was a challenge trying to keep up, but lots of fun also.

La Grande Motte

We enjoyed lunch at the top of the Aeroski - I had something simple (hot chips) because it was all quite expensive and I wasn't too hungry - and then did some more skiing in the afternoon on some of my favourite pistes. Sam had to go home to get ready for work, so I continued to hang out with my friend and his mates.

Unfortunately one of his friends did a jump over at Grand Pre, which is a fun ski area I had taken the group to,  and while trying to accomplish a 360 jump, he fell and his ski brake snapped off his ski. Without a brake, his ski ran with increasing speed down the side of the mountain. Luckily we were able to retrieve the ski and, although the friend was forced to ski one-legged down the piste for a while, all was well.

After some more skiing it was decided that it was most certainly time for some apres ski and the place for that apres ski was most definitely La Folie Douce.

La Folie Douce is the most hectic apres ski bar I have ever come across. There are huge magnums of Moet et Chandon all over the place and massive bean bags in a special VIP area. You can even order a champagne bottle worth 4500 euros. Everyone dances in their ski/ snowboarding boots on the tables and there is an amazing DJ and trumpeter who play for the crowd, along with two brilliant singers. Here is the link to their website to give you a better idea of how cool it is.

Despite the temperatures, which were hovering at around -5, some of the guys had taken off their shirts and others were crowd surfing. Interestingly though, at 4.25pm every afternoon the bar becomes instantly deserted as everyone rushes to catch the final ski lift for the day.

After we caught our lift back to Tignes, we were too late to catch the Chaudannes chairlift over to Tignes Les Brevieres, so the guest I had been skiing with and I both caught a couple of buses and then skied home in the dark, taking in the beautiful twinkling lights of my new little town from above.

I was hoping to go skiing again tomorrow with the guest I was hanging out with today, but unfortunately tomorrow is my 'day in' which means that I don't get a break between my morning and evening duties. I have to lay out and wash up staff lunch as well as cleaning the staff bathrooms and doing any other chores that need to be done. Not so fun, but has to be done!

Having lots of fun and loving meeting so many new people although I can't quite believe just how fast time goes by!