Well what a year it has been! But of couse we had to see the end of the year out doing something interesting... so after a glorious christmas dinner put on by the Bayliss's it was off to France for us for 8 days skiing! We headed off on the 26th of Dec to Tignes in the French Alps. With fingers crossed for a decent amount of snow (the season is just beginnning) we were not disappointed. We travelled by coach overnight from London with a group of about 18 people in tow... it was a long journey and we were pleased to arrive there midday on the 27th.
The alps are beautiful and the weather was brilliant for the most part. We had -15 degrees on average but the sun was shining and there was no wind - glorious! We had booked a package deal and were staying a place called UCPA, the location was brilliant and our accommodation was only 50 metres from a rope tow to the main chairlifts... the team could even ski straight into the bar!!!! How brilliant is that!
Anyway, day one was getting all of our accomodation, ski gear, lessons (for those that needed them), lift passes etc sorted and getting settled in. The next day though everyone was up and rearing to go at the crack of 8am! With everyone off exploring different parts of the resort and at different skill levels there were plenty of stories to share when everyone met back for dinner that night.
Shane had a particularly nasty fall on the first day which left him seeing small birds and stars for a bit... being the concerned wife and much to his dismay I went down the next day and got him a helmet so that his noggin stayed in one piece for the rest of the trip - if nothing else it kept his head warm and it must have been a good omen as he didnt have anymore big crashes after that for the rest of the trip.
As well as hitting the slopes we spent a bit of time wandering around the village and down to Le Lac. We headed down to Le Lac a few times which is the next village down the slope from Val Claret (where we were staying). To get there we had to walk across a frozen ice lake... I found this a little eerie I must admit. Even though the ice is over 0.5m thick, so we were told, I just had terrible visions of hearing a big crack! So needless to say I walked pretty quickly over that...
Wednesday night bought about the end of 2008, we saw in the new year in style. We headed to a small pub first for a few drinks with the whole crew before making our way down to Le Lac amongst the madness that had commenced. There were 15,000 people estimated there to see in the new year with David Guetta (a DJ from Ibiza) playing. On the stroke of midnight there was a fab fireworks display and a whole heap of drunk and happy people from all over the place celebrating 2009.
The celebrations went through to the wee hours of the morning although our group we not out too late... it was snowing and there were promises of an amazing powder day the next day so earlish to bed it was!
The skiing continued to be fantastic and everyone enjoyed themselves immensely which was great. We both headed back to work on the 5th so it was a case of getting back the weekend before and getting ourselves sorted. We had friends from America using our apartment while we were away so we planned to end our holiday break by staying in the English countryside for a night. Shane found an amazing old manor for a very very cheap price and we settled in there while the snow came down outside - very picturesque...
2008 was an absolute blast for us and 2009 is already shaping up to be another great year for the Smarts!
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