Ou est le Swimming Pool?

Today was my day off and so I decided to splash out (pardon the pun) and go to the Tignes Spa for a relaxing few hours.

I'm trying to be really healthy at the moment so I started the day with a power walk and a bowl of muesli and pear before heading out with a few friends to the swim centre. The cool thing about being here is that, while normally, you would hop in your car or walk to the local pool, we skied.

And it was worth the journey. It was my first time to the Tignes leisure centre and it was an absolutely incredible swimming centre (but you'd hope so for 15 euros). I started by doing laps of the pool. But not your regular pool. This pool played music under water, so you could listen to music as you swam. Amazing!

Then we enjoyed Turkish baths, a sauna and spa as well as sun-baking on sun-beds on a sun-deck overlooking the snow-covered mountains just next to us.

All of the facilities had glass windows that looked onto the pistes and so, as we did our breaststroke, we could take in the incredible view.

After the relaxing swim I got dressed, put my ski boots on and skied home. Brilliant.

I will definitely miss the convenience of traveling by skis- even after five months the novelty still hasn't really warn off!

Hot enough to sunbake

Sun-baking on the deck

Today we blitzed changeover (where we make up all the rooms fresh and ready for our new guests) so quickly that we had the entire afternoon off to relax.

The snowy slopes in the background

Of course, with the sun blazing down and temperatures of 12 degrees, I couldn't resist joining two of my Aussie co-workers in a bit of sun-baking on a little deck near the lake just behind our hotel.

Most of the ground snow has melted in Les Brevieres

I would never have thought I would be wanting to tan at only 12 degrees but it felt boiling hot - as if it were a thirty degree day in Sydney... I guess everything is relative. After five months of minus temperatures, anything above five degrees feels warm!

What a life

 This week I have been giving ski lessons to two of the children staying in my chalet.

It's actually pretty good fun and, as a consequence, I'm able to enjoy the luxury of lunch on the slopes.

I thought I'd share this with you; it's a delicious tuna salad I had yesterday at Sun Bar over in Val D'Isere, after having skied The Face (the Men's Olympic Downhill slope).

Sun bar Tuna Salad

From my table I had the most spectacular view, complete with vibrant blue skies, and hot hot sun. So hot, in fact, that I am now really sunburnt. But it was definitely a gorgeous lunch and a yummy meal!

The view from my table over to The Face

And, to top it all off, this morning, when I woke up I was greeted by the sight of thick snow falling and a winter (well, now it's Spring, but anyway) wonderland outside my window.

This is what I saw:

The view from my window this morning

I didn't really expect so much new fresh snow this late in the season, but I'm certainly not complaining!

Strolling in snow

Lake walk

After almost  four months of skiing it is now becoming less exciting to pull on the ski gear and head up the mountain day after day. Don't get me wrong, I usually really love it once I'm up there, it's just the getting there that can be a struggle.

So I have taken to doing other sorts of activities during the day between morning and evening work. One of my favourite ways to chill out and relax is to go for a walk in the snow and I thought I would show you some of the photos that I have taken recently on my wanderings.

Included in my journeys was a walk up the 'Summer Road', which is a skiable piste and is entirely up-hill. It was a bit of a mission, but so worthwhile once I made it to the top. Also, although you get quite hot, you're still cooled down by the snowy temperatures which are refreshing and, when you've reached the top, you can simply catch a chairlift back down to the bottom again.

The only problem with walks like these is that I can't find anyone who is keen to join me. Somehow the lure of watching a film in bed seems to far outdo the opportunity to get sweaty and do some exercise. Fair enough I suppose.

In the walking 'zone'

So pretty

The lake in Les Brevieres

So. much. ice

Frozen waterfall

The Boisses bubble

A little bit warm

L'Eglise at Boisses

At the top of Boisses

This week we have the Winter X Games which are being hosted in Val Claret. They are set to be very impressive and I am really excited to get out there and watch some amazing skiing and boarding. We've been watching some of the pros as they practice over the past few days. If you get a chance to check it out on television, definitely do. You'll see some incredibly talented people doing things you never thought possible.

Palafour and Pancakes

Palafour party

This week has been full of fun times! My friends and I took our beers up to the top of one of the runs in Tignes called the Palafour on a sunny afternoon this week and soaked up the rays while listening to music and having snowball fights. It was awesome - and so surreal - to just be chilling in the snow with friends, without any pretenses, just enjoying everyone's company.

Beers in the sun

Despite having to chase a lone snowboard down the mountain, only to find it stuck in a barrier about 500 metres down the piste, we all safely managed to make our way back after our drinking sesh. The ride back down to Brevieres was amazing. Everyone was buzzing and just skied so effortlessly so that, in less than fifteen minutes, we were home.

This week has also included a lovely lunch at one of the village's restaurants, La Sachette. I had a coffee and a scoop of chocolate ice cream. So yummy! Everyone else had pizzas and delicious soups and pastas.

Fortunately I saved space for what was to come next. Pancakes! For it was Shrove Tuesday and everyone knows you have to have pancakes on Shrove Tuesday.

We even made ours with candied lemon served with the obligatory lemon juice and sugar. We all ate them outside on the balcony with the table nicely laid. Very civilized.

The pancake making

We have also had a bit of a room change this week so that I now only share my room with Sarah (and another gorgeous girl called Milly, though she doesn't generally sleep in our room). The room looks so much nicer. We have magazines on top of a silk cloth, with a gold filigree art/deco style mirror in the corner, and amazing images on the walls taken from Elle magazine and In Style. It's so nice to have an inviting space to come back to and means that we can now have people into our rooms just to chill and to have drinks with or to watch a movie with, rather than being embarrassed of the space.

I'm starting to realise just how little time there is left of the season and am making as much use of the time as I can. Even if I am not skiing every day and instead spend the day leisurely going to restaurants and making pancakes, these are all memories I am sure to keep well into the future.

Breaking out of the Brev Bubble

The snowy view from outside the window at work

On Monday night a group of the staff from my hotel decided to break out of the 'Brev bubble' and go out in Val Claret for something different.

We had pre-drinks at the Underground Bar beneath our hotel and drank the obligatory 'Drop Kick Ninja's' which have cider, lager, vodka and cassis in them. They pretty much guarantee you a good night and they didn't disappoint. At around half-twelve we got a taxi over to Val Claret - at this point it was snowing really heavily so we were all white in no time - and went to a bar called Saloon. Saloon was fun and quite chilled, with a good vibe to it.

We then made our way to one of the most sleazy places I have ever been, called The Melting Pot. It was crammed full of awful French men who took pleasure in preying on the girls in the club. I ended up wearing my ring on my wedding finger but to no avail really. All of us staff had such a good time dancing and drinking together and, although everyone was pretty gone, it was still amazing to be away from the usual partying routine. At about 4am Aaron (who I work with), Will and his girlfriend Flaps, and a new guy called Andy all headed over to the kebab shop for the customary post-Melting Pot feed. We made our way back to the hotel at about 4.30am and I was up for work at 7am.

The Tuesday morning breakfast service went surprisingly smoothly and although I was ridiculously tired I got through it. I crashed pretty heavily after that and didn't make it out skiing in the afternoon, but did manage a few laps around the lake on my afternoon walk, so it wasn't a complete waste of a day.

Although the past few weeks have been testing because of the Half-Term rush of people and a certain middle of season lull in enthusiasm from all of us staff, I think that we are all past that now and the morale amongst us has certainly lifted.

It's difficult to believe that there are less than eight weeks of the season left. With that ending looming I am starting to plan out what I am going to do afterwards. I am very excited to be spending five fun-filled days with my beautiful friend Sarah in Paris. We plan to visit the flea markets and go on lovely walks and to take photos and sketch and just soak up the Parisian vibes. Cannot wait!

Also putting together plans to head to Italy, Spain, France and then to Greece to meet up with the gorgeous Aussie girlies from school - the three Sarah's! Sarah-Jane (one of my absolute best friends) and I will then be journeying around Eastern Europe for about a month and our itinerary is already filling with exciting trips like a ferry ride from Corfu to Croatia.

This year away is so worthwhile and the adventures are wonderful. I am so pleased to have made the decision to take this sabbatical and am loving (almost) every minute of it.

We have snow!

Sarah and I on the gondola

As of Tuesday 15th February we now have fresh snow in Tignes which is so exciting and has been much awaited.

Here are a few photos from our first day out in the snow since it arrived. In the photos are two gorgeous people, namely Sarah my roommate and Chef John who works at a chalet nearby.

Snowy skies

Chef John

Caught unawares

The pistes

Tignes Le Lac 

It's snowing

Hopefully there will be plenty more snow to come!

Luckily our guests this week have been unbelievably cool and a pleasure to look after. They took us out for an amazing meal in a really nice restaurant - I had escargots for entree and a pan-seared salmon fillet for main. The food was delicious and it was such a treat to be taken out and served rather than always waitressing everyone else.

Hoping there is more snow on it's way and, until then, making the most of the small dump we just received.

Chalet Girl Foam Wrestling

This week has flown by ridiculously quickly! I spent my day off on Wednesday skiing with one of my colleagues - a 'ski companion'/ ski guide- and some guests over in Le Fournet, before enjoying some wine tasting in Val D'Isere. How civilized. We then headed to the Folie Douce and headed home at around 6pm - skiing in the dusky twilight - just in time for dinner.

On Wednesday night a 'once-in-a-season' event took place in the Underground Bar beneath our hotel. It is known as 'chalet girl foam wrestling' and, I have to admit, when I was asked to get involved I very firmly declined. I just wasn't really interested in participating in it because it is degrading to women and it doesn't really fit with my morals or principles. Boring I know. I didn't like the idea of so many sleazy men looking on at me while I competed without really gaining anything from it myself.

So although I wasn't wanting to personally participate I did go along to watch my friends give it a go. There was a foamy pit full of suds and each of the two competitors were given a sock. The object of the game was to remove your opponent's sock first. All clothes remained on, everyone was having fun and it wasn't skanky at all. It was just good, clean (and soapy) fun.

The bar was short of competitors and my colleague Janine who I get on so well with - and who was as adamant as I was that we wouldn't get involved - soon decided we'd compete against each other. Janine, who is from South Africa, took the stage-name 'Springbok' and my name was 'The Kangaroo'... how original of us. Our foam wrestling was spread over three rounds - round one I won, round two Janine defeated me and, in the third round, although it was ridiculously close, I managed to triumph. It was a huge amount of fun and I am really glad I did it in the end! A big buzz. Here are some of the photos:

The Kangaroo

Then, on Thursday, it was my roommate Sarah's 19th birthday. We all celebrated by holding an off-piste birthday picnic in the glorious sun. We had loud speakers, lots of food courtesy of the chefs, and some ice-cold beers. That picnic embodied what this ski season is about. It was unbelievably chilled and so much fun. We followed our picnic with a nice ski over to La Daille and the Ski Tranquille area of Tignes.

Regardless of the severe lack of snow here (there are exposed rocks and patches of grass all over the slopes) we are still in good spirits and are soon expecting some 10 centimetres of snow. Hopefully there will be much much more to come because my journey to work and back each day gets more and more slippery and I am now falling daily on the ice sheets.

Tomorrow is changeover day again and hopefully our guests next week will be lots of fun. We are expecting a large group of firefighters who like to party so I'm thinking it should be an interesting week. In the meantime... please pray for some snow!

Le Villaret

Since we haven't been blessed with any new snow in a really long time here in Tignes, I decided to take a walk to Le Villaret, which is a hamlet near to Tignes Les Brevieres.

I was invited on this little adventure by a couple that I work with and I'm so glad I took up the opportunity because the views were gorgeous and it was great exercise!

Here are a few photos from our walk:

The lake in Les Brevieres

Me sitting next to a pretty water pump

The pretty water pump

A quirky house in Le Villaret

Some hand-painted handicrafts available for 5 euros each

The view from Le Villaret back down into Tignes Les Brevieres

A charming old door

The walk took around an hour and a half in total and was quite exerting on ascent, but much better descending the mountain on the way home.  Although there were sheets of ice and sharp thorns to avoid, it added to the adventure.

Le Villaret is a bit of an unusual little hamlet. When we arrived the village appeared to be deserted, with old buildings standing destitute, walls crumbling and wooden planks boarding them shut. However, we soon stumbled upon a sweet little table of handicrafts left unmanned outside a quirky house.

The house itself had a mannequin dangling from a rope at it's front - quite bizarre and somewhat creepy!

I did appreciate the little touches within Le Villaret though, like the hand-painted water pump and trough, which I imagine would look so gorgeous in summer, surrounded by lush grass and sunny skies. 

All in all it was a really enjoyable experience to do something other than skiing (or boarding) and I had a fabulous day, despite feeling the exercise in my legs the next day!

Australia Day and the start of snowboarding

Today is Australia day and of course we celebrated in true ski season fashion, drinking and sunbaking in the snow!

Walking in my thongs on the snow. I am so Australian.

As there are four of us Aussies working in my hotel, we all headed up to Petit Chalet around 11am, wearing our thongs - because what's more Aussie than that? - and soon started hitting the bevvies.

We listened to cliched Aussie music such as ACDC, Angus & Julia Stone, Hilltop Hoods, Pez etc and our head chef brought out his decks and DJ'd for us. It was lots and lots of fun and it was so good introducing some of my non-Aussie friends to our Australia day traditions.

Hayley, one of the Aussie chalet girls I work with, thought that it would be a brilliant idea to go out in our cossies into the snow for a quick sunbaking sesh. Yes, it was cold, but at least we can now say we've tried it. We had an amazing BBQ with prawns, ribs, wedges and salad and, after all of that, I needed a big sleep, so napped for a couple of hours, utterly exhausted.

Learning to snowboard with Janine and Paul

I am so tired because I have been learning to snowboard. It is so much fun, but absolutely knackering because I constantly fall down. It's nice to be doing something different from skiing though, and it is so thoroughly satisfying once I accomplish something new.

I can now go from heelside to toeside and back, and today I mastered the pull lift on my snowboard. I have to be honest, being on a snowboard feels so much cooler than being on skis, although I absolutely love skiing and wouldn't ever permanently swap over.

Given that we have had such poor snow it's great to be on the nursery slopes because poor snow down at the bottom doesn't really affect you, particularly given there are snow canons, whereas up the top of the mountain at the moment, the slopes are just so icy and full of snow cookies that have to be avoided at all costs.

Still having heaps of fun and I cannot believe that we are almost into February. How time flies when you're having fun!

A trip to Le Fournet

Today, on my day off, I enjoyed an amazing ski trip over to Le Fournet.

Le Fournet is the farthest point to the left on the Espace Killy piste map, meanwhile where I live is the farthest to the right.

The gondola back from Le Fournet

For the past month or so I have been desperate to make the lengthy day-trip journey across the Espace Killy and as each Wednesday day-off comes around, I put it off until next week because it seems too bigger treck! This morning however, as I looked out of my window to a clear blue sky, I knew today just had to be the day.

I don't share my day off with many other staff members and this makes finding an early morning ski buddy rather tricky. Luckily though, my friend Andy (who is the hotel's plongeur) finished work pretty early and was keen to get lots of skiing in, so a ski buddy I had found.

After conquering the infamous Face without trouble, we caught multiple chairlifts and drag lifts and found ourselves at our intended destination. Despite the freezing temperatures of -12 degrees celsius and the icy slopes, it was gorgeous weather which made the trip so very worthwhile. 

We decided to stop for some lunch, each ordering un assiette de frites si vous plait and we both enjoyed them in the warmth of the Le Fournet restaurant. 

Inside the restaurant at Le Fournet

Andy and his frites

Once we were truly full from our hot chips, we thought we ought to start heading home. The 2-hour each way trip meant that we didn't have much time to explore the area, but it was a fabulous ski nonetheless.

Lunchtime!

In fact, upon arrival at home afterwards, we were met with questions of "did you go to the glacier just above Le Fournet?"... Unfortunately I wasn't aware there was a glacier nearby and so I may just have to make another trip back in the near future to check it out.

Just gondola-ing

Andy in the gondola

Here is the picturesque view as we skied back from Le Fournet to Val D'Isere, the clouds and blue sky nicely framing the mountains and village below.

On the way back into Val D'Isere from Le Fournet

This week our guests are really lovely and, despite a slight faux pas on my account, our week is going very well. One of my male guests was telling me that his heater wasn't really working too well. I asked him whether he had "had a fiddle with the knob in his room" which, of course, was met with hysterics. Yes, I will be more careful with word choices from now on!

Last week's guests were really fun! We were even lucky enough to be given a bottle of Moet & Chandon as a thank-you and, to be given recognition for hard work just makes it so worthwhile!

Into the Hidden Valley

Me, just before I left to go skiing this morning

On my day off today I was fortunate enough to catch up with some friends from back home in Sydney who are staying in Val D'Isere. The group was rather huge - 20 of them - and despite having only been here a few days, they were able to show me an absolutely amazing off-piste run called The Hidden Valley. This run is definitely not for the faint hearted. It requires the taking off and putting back on of skis many times, the skiing over of mini bridges, the abseiling through rock holes and the climbing through crevasses. But it is most certainly worth it as you ski through a beautiful little hidden area that seems barely touched, apart from the ropes left by predecessors enabling you to climb more easily.

Having accomplished this amazing adventure, we stopped for lunch before splitting off into smaller groups to do our own skiing. Nick - who is a friend from back home - and I both went off and did lots of fun off-piste powder skiing in knee-deep powder. Unfortunately I fell more than a couple of times, but it was definitely a huge amount of fun creating our own tracks and was a memorable afternoon!

On another note, earlier this week I was skiing with our chef, Robbie, and his 2 male mates and encountered another type of skiing adventure, but one that didn't end up as successfully! Robbie (who is probably going to read this so I should be careful of what I say) decided I had the capability to do a 15 foot rock jump. As the others did the jump I started to feel a bit uncomfortable about the idea of doing it myself. I wasn't the only one looking on though. The chairlift right next to the jump meant that all the passers by felt the need to add their own encouragement and yells of "you can do it", "go on, what are you waiting for" to my own internal voice that was most clearly yelling a "that's probably not the best idea". So of course I crumpled under peer pressure and did the jump. I stacked magnificently, with both skis coming off in different directions and me face planting into the snow! After about 20 minutes of climbing up the thick powder to retrieve my skis, I made it to the bottom of the snow dome and, after skiing back to the ski lift, I left the guys and shakingly skied home. Not going to do that again too soon. To be fair though, Robbie does take me to lots of fun jumps and, while I might not enjoy the 15 foot ones, I do have heaps of fun skiing with him and the other staff I work with!

Just about to head out now for some quiet drinks because it is my night off. I was a good girl last night - in bed before 10pm - so I suppose it's not too bad to head out tonight.

Feeling as though I am not being too successful in my attempts to keep in touch with everyone back home, but know that I am sending lots of love!