Le Guerre, La Shack et Le Premier Jour

After returning through the dumping of snow from the bar on my first night in France, I settled into my sleeping bag on the couch that I now call my bed. It isn't really that bad aside of the six inches it needs and Velcro that would be useful to hold the cushion on. Two-hour jet lag is pretty easy to get over if you drink enough, but when you are traveling eight time zones you have to drink a lot. Lars had had to get up early so the night was cut short and I was forced into sleep relatively sober for the task. Eventually, like after three hours of reading, I did doze off.

Then BOOM! I thought it might have just been a dream, so I laid my head down again and was almost back asleep when BOOM! I'm telling you I thought I was in Kosovo or some shit, but when I looked outside no one was running out of their homes screaming. In addition, Lars hadn't come out to tell me to make a run for the hills, so I composed myself, laid back down and tried my best to think of my "happy place". Trying to find your happy place is more difficult than you might think with chalet rattling explosions going off every five minutes. So, the explosions are really just avalanche precaution. I am really not sure which is worse, a few people dying by avalanche or the damn village of Avoriaz not being able to sleep for the entire season.

The first three nights I would wake up at like two or three in the morning and for the life of me could not get back to sleep. So, I would read my book until my eyelids became heavy, but wouldn't you know it. BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! It isn't really that bad anymore and I am finding it easier to sleep through Le Guerre, which is the French word for war.

The Shack (aka La Cabane)

My first bar experience was great! I met the owner and he must have sensed my barley roots because even though he can't speak English very well, Jacque and I are buddies. La Cabane was as much of a surprise as everything else I had underestimated about Avoriaz. Seriously, this bar could easily be in Steamboat or Aspen. Very nice wood interior, pool tables, thousands of CDs, and they even have a mini-keg for big (or small American) tables for only 140 francs. They server 1664 on tap, which I am told is a cheaper version of Kronenburg (favorite beer). Both are brewed in Strasbourg, France along with a beer, Fischer, from a separate brewery. Fischer used to be my first favorite, but after my last trip to France it has now taken third behind the big K and Pacifico, the cer vesa of Mexican champions I am told.

The game of pool is played a little differently here in France. I am trying to keep an open mind about. The table is smaller as well and there is a rule (unless the French guy I played was pulling my leg) that if you scratch you get two shots. The balls are red and yellow instead of solids (little ones) and stripes (big ones). This may be because all the balls are little ones. I am not sure what this means exactly, but you know what they always say about a country and the size of their billiards balls.

Jacque has thousands of CDs. Lars and I are going to try to convince him to take advantage of the power of MP3. We figure if we help him out, we will be doing everyone in the village good. Whatever, we're going for the free beer! I figure the likely hood of CD companies coming all the way to Avoraiz, France and additionally to La Cabane to see Jacque and his collection of pirated MP3s is really unlikely. Unless of course a search engine spiders my site and then those companies do searches for words like pirated and MP3.

The Premier Jour

The day I had been waiting for, first day I got to go boarding! I had my new board, new clothes, my lift ticket and I was ready to go tear it up. Oh wait I forgot, I suck. I didn't think I sucked this bad but hell! One thing I have learned in the past, but keep making the same mistake over and over again. Before you head off to go somewhere, know where you are going. There are basically two parts to the Avoriaz ski area. The side down the hill from me and the side up the hill from me. They are all in French so I don't know they're names.

I chose the one up the hill from me and I swear to get to that lift, I had to walk a mile. Please note that I have been sitting behind a computer for the last year on average of seven hours per working day. I got all the way to the lift and found out that this particular lift comes from Morzine (one of the other Portes du Soleil areas) and the lift ticket I had only is good for Avoriaz. So, I walked back the same mile I had just huffed and went back to my room. In my excitement I had forgotten my stomp pad (thing you step on when you have one foot out of the bindings to kick) and my leash (thing that hypothetically supposed to stop your board from flying down the hill and killing people). So I got those on and decided to head down the hill to the other half. Believe it or not everything went smoothly and I didn't even fall getting on the high-speed quad.

I got to the top and successfully exited the lift and then chose my path. I figured that down the hill was a good choice so I followed everyone else. Things were going great and I was carving on my new board better than ever. I flew past the sign that fermer and headed down that hill. Well, I got to the bottom and no one was there except two lift operators and then noticed that neither lift was moving. Oh yeah, fermer is the French verb "to close". Well I thought I would just adjust my goggles and… THWACK! … catch my front edge and land right on my face. I got up as quick as I could, brushed off the snow and gave a little whistle to the sky. I didn't see the lift guys laughing, but I know they saw it. So then, I am like "C'est fermer?", which is "This closed" (I think) and the guy says "Oui". I let out a good old American curse that immediately shows him where I am from. So he points to this hill and says "That way, you be okay." in broken English. I tried to get out of him if that was still going to be in the Avoriaz sector, but my French is so bad that he couldn't even understand me saying the name of the place he works. I've got my work cut out for me folks. I hiked the hill and took some small pleasure in two French people who happened to be trying to make it up on skis.

Once I got back to the other lifts I decided this day had just gone far enough. I was just gonna ride and have fun and not worry. I did and had a great caught some decent air and didn't even scrumble once. A few runs later I ran into a computer buyer from Geneva named Serge who showed me some of the backcountry. I was having a great time. I should have figured by the rest of the days happenings that something was bound to happen. I remember distinctly telling myself "Sean, don't go to the left of the lift line. Sean, there is some knappy shit in there, don't go left of the lift line." (I say knappy a lot when I talk to myself) I didn't mean to do it but I got stuck right under lift with no line back to the right. I got stuck so many times I was starting to think about my dad's last words to me, "Sean, be careful in those Alps." Turns out I was just fine anyway, just an out of shape puss. Finally I made it back to the bottom of the run, but in pain. The same thing I do every single year… BLISTER! Well, it ended up being a whopper and ended my day.

Even with all this bitching, I learned some good lessons and things about Avoriaz. The Alps on the other side are just breath taking. The are, as the French would say, "formidable". I learned that I should study the map more before picking my route. This place is still bigger than I thought the day before. And as soon as this damn blister gets better I am back on the saddle again fellas.

Differences and The Place >>