Skiing NY!

The American, The Norwegian, The Englishman, The Italian and the Australian went up a mountain.... and came back relatively unscathed... last weekend I ventured up north with some friends from work to go skiing at Windham Mountain. Situated in the Catskills Mountain ranges we hired a car, did a grocery shop and drove 3 or so hours to a chalet owned by one of the guys. We spent two days on the slopes (read: two days with my heart in my throat as I hurtled down icy runs), but I think by the end I had made some improvement!... my bruised knee might argue that fact but really it was a lot of fun.

What suprised me though was the 'boringness' of the atmosphere on the mountain... in Australia when you go skiing, the runs are interesting (ie. they go through trees, there's hills and so on), there's music all over the mountain, there's restaraunt huts at the bottom of runs, there's comraderie between the skiers, and there are heaps of little kids in crazy head-dress helmets... but here it was no mucking around, there's a mountain, there's snow on it, there's one restaraunt at the bottom, the runs go straight up and down, the kids there are serious... no mucking around with dress ups... its more of a regular activity. My conclusion was that for the average american up on the mountain, its just what they do as weekend sport, just like they would play tennis or basketball in the summer.. there is nothing exciting about it for them... with so much snow around throughout winter year after year I guess the novelty has just worn off!

Nonetheless, our bunch of multicultural nearly non-Americans, had a great time, jumping off ramps into airbags (not me) sliding down mountains on bottoms (me) and general skiing for 6 hours each day... It was great getting to spend time with my colleagues, people I hardly new... put me out of my comfort zone which i like every now and then... we all got on great, cooked some wonderful meals, mixed it up with the locals and enjoyed the freezing weather!

Looking forward to heading up there again, hopefully before the winter is out... then I might become a real pro!