Waking up to snowy alps, having taken in the surf and sunshine the previous morning, was a bit of a shock to the system, but in a nice way.
We woke up early (frankly, it's a little rude of these guys to expect my body clock to adapt just so they can go snowboarding) and drove up the windy, icy roads from Bourg d'Oisans (were our hotel was) to the bigger, more snowbound Alpe d'Huez. The cars we passed on the road were all sporting snow chains and winter tyres, but we thought that sort of behaviour was distictly unBritish, so pushed on in our low profile summer tyres - the van coping superbly all the way up.
The boys went off up the lifts and I wandered the town. It's all a little touristy (and the coffee's a bit bloody steep), but I had fun wandering about in the snow. That night a foot and a half of powder had fallen, and San Sebastian couldn't have felt further away.
After lunch with the guys, Bruce and I played some pool and wandered around some more while the other two had a last bit of boarding. This has been Oli's first time, and he's walking around with the wide-eyed stare of the recently converted. I was pretty jealous not to have a go myself, but money, insurance and the almost certain odds that I'd instantly hit a tree and have to go back home all kept me at the bottom of the slopes.
That night we went out for a meal and some beers in Bourg d'Oisans, which is not the thriving filthy fleshpot of debauchery you might expect of a small village at the bottom of an Alp. In fact, it's much more like a small quiet village at the bottom of an Alp.
We restrained ourselves to table football, games of shithead, and some daring excursions into experimental organ music in the lounge of our strange little hotel. Where to tomorrow..?
We woke up early (frankly, it's a little rude of these guys to expect my body clock to adapt just so they can go snowboarding) and drove up the windy, icy roads from Bourg d'Oisans (were our hotel was) to the bigger, more snowbound Alpe d'Huez. The cars we passed on the road were all sporting snow chains and winter tyres, but we thought that sort of behaviour was distictly unBritish, so pushed on in our low profile summer tyres - the van coping superbly all the way up.
The boys went off up the lifts and I wandered the town. It's all a little touristy (and the coffee's a bit bloody steep), but I had fun wandering about in the snow. That night a foot and a half of powder had fallen, and San Sebastian couldn't have felt further away.
After lunch with the guys, Bruce and I played some pool and wandered around some more while the other two had a last bit of boarding. This has been Oli's first time, and he's walking around with the wide-eyed stare of the recently converted. I was pretty jealous not to have a go myself, but money, insurance and the almost certain odds that I'd instantly hit a tree and have to go back home all kept me at the bottom of the slopes.
That night we went out for a meal and some beers in Bourg d'Oisans, which is not the thriving filthy fleshpot of debauchery you might expect of a small village at the bottom of an Alp. In fact, it's much more like a small quiet village at the bottom of an Alp.
We restrained ourselves to table football, games of shithead, and some daring excursions into experimental organ music in the lounge of our strange little hotel. Where to tomorrow..?
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