Screw you, immune system

The end of my winter vacation should have involved a five-day ski trip at Stowe. As an avid skier who received an amazing set of brandy new skis for Christmas, I've been waiting for this for awhile. Expecting to leave Harvard at 2pm on the 13th, I arrived at night on the 12th, you know, just to wait it out. Well, here's how I spent the night of the 12th and all of the 13th:

And if you can't tell, I'm not on a bus.

Why? Because somehow in the approximately 10 hours that I had sat alone in my dorm room, I managed to catch the same stomach flu (or something of the sort) that has hit essentially all of Boston. There are few things that I hate more than puking, but puking blood certainly qualifies.

I've probably never felt quite as helpless as I did when I started vomming my brains out all alone, in an empty dorm room. And incidentally, the 5am walk from Winthrop to After Hours Urgent Care felt like 10 miles of stumbling around all alone in the windy darkness.  Apparently, I became sick and dehydrated enough to warrant having a shot of anti-nausea medication stuck in my hip (which is about as thick as hair gel, BTW) and four bags of IV fluids pumped into my arm. Here's a timeline of my misfortune:

12th: 5pm: Arrive on campus. Never leave my dorm.

13th: 1:30am: Go to sleep. Feel kind of weird, but whatevs. I'll sleep it off.

          3:30am: Wake up and promptly start expelling my guts. 

          5:00am: Puking blood. WTF.

          5:30am: World's longest walk to UHS.

          6:00am: Find out that I have what everyone else has. Get my very own bed in Stillman Infirmary.

          4:30pm: My all too accommodating father picks me up from Stillman because suffering at home is better than suffering alone on campus.

And then I slept for 15 and a half hours.

So here I am now, sitting in my living room instead of on a ski lift and wearing a fuzzy blanket instead of snow pants.

Not a happy camper.

I want soup.

Some Post Ski Trip Reflections

If falling means that you’re learning and improving, I’ve become a professional skier over the past week. Seriously, I’ve eaten it so many times that it’s a wonder nothing’s broken (although there’s something funny going on with my ankle). But falling really is how I learn and you know what? I can see my own slight improvements; if it takes a face full of snow to get there, fine. I’ll take it.

Hardcore education

Overall, I’ve pretty much fallen in love with Stowe. It’s probably the largest ski area I’ve ever been to; I mean, how could I not be enamored with its not one but TWO gondolas?! Or is the plural of gondola gondolae? No, I got a red squiggly line under gondolae, so it must be wrong, but I’ll leave it here because we learn from our mistakes right? Right? I digress. Anyway, for the past week, I’ve been blessed with near perfect skiing conditions (I say near because the goddamn snow cannons tend to reduce visibility to approximately nothing). The lodges are beautiful, the lifts are (fairly) quick, and skiing during the week means no lift lines and nearly deserted slopes. The town of Stowe, Vermont is equally perfect. It’s cute, quaint, and all Currier and Ives like. Also, I wouldn’t mind living so close to the Ben and Jerry’s ice cream and Cabot cheese factories. I do love fine dairy products. Stowe (both town and ski resort) gets 1.75 thumbs up from me (if you just tried to do that, you will have realized that it’s a very awkward thumb angle) because it’s awesome. However, a quarter of a point has to be docked because it’s located so damn far both from my home and my school. I can’t day trip it to a resort that’s nearly 4 hours away.

Is this not a perfect snow-globe scene?

Another non-sequitor: I want to say right now that I am BEYOND impressed with the age of some of the skiers I see out on the mountain. I hope that when I’m 70 years old, I’ll be as spry as the fantastically fit grandmothers and grandfathers who play around in the moguls and frequent black diamond slopes when they’re not teaching their grandkids how to ski. I want to be that kind of old person. The kind who lives in the mountains, skis all winter, hikes all summer, and eats trail mix ALL YEAR ROUND. I swear, I’m going to be such a cool old person. I digress again.  I got excited thinking about elder-me.

Omnomnomnom

WANT.

Speaking about the future, I’ve come to terms with the fact that I absolutely MUST take a trip out west to ski America’s real mountains rather than New England’s large hills. I’ve never travelled west of New York before, but now I’m determined to make it out to Colorado for a ski trip. This is my goal for next winter. Anyone want to come with?

I really do love gondolas.

Some Skiing Do's and Don'ts

Skiers and snowboarders belong to a select group of winter sports-people – we’re willing to wake up early, brave frigid temperatures, and pay absolutely ludicrous prices for a cup of Swiss Miss hot cocoa. However, there is a list of rules that comes with the mountain – an etiquette that all skiers and riders should follow, in order for the earth to revolve more smoothly. One cannot simply walk (or ski) into Mordor. Here’s a list I’ve come up with that ski resort patrons should really follow. For the betterment of humankind.

In the lodge

DO 

• Leave your table at an appropriate time after you’ve finished eating/drinking/conversing – Seating is generally tight and difficult to find, so don’t be a table hog.

DO NOT

• Allow your helmet, coat, mittens etc to each have their own chairs – Again, when seating is tight, your outerwear just isn’t important enough to sit in its own seat…no matter how much you paid for it.

This is not your house.

On the slopes

DO

• Ski/snowboard on trails that match your level – Advanced skiers aren’t supercool when they zip down beginner trails. Actually, they just scare the bajesushchrist out of the little snow babies who are tethered to their parents. Similarly, if you’re a beginner, kindly keep off of the black diamond trails. I know you think you’re SICK, DAWG for trying those moguls, but no one likes the kid who snowplows down the mountain, an inch at a time, in everyone else’s way.
• Get up after you’ve fallen – unless something is broken, or the snow is being stained red, get out of the way. Everyone falls, so get up and keep moving.

DON’T

• Cut in front of other people – it’s irritating, dangerous, and again, does NOT make you look superbadass because you can flail all over the trail.
• Go under the black and orange rope that closes off an unsafe trail – that is, don’t become “that idiot” who breaks his/her leg halfway down the mountain and has to wait for hours before he/she is found because the ski patrol is busy patrolling OPEN TRAILS.
• Laugh at little kids – they’ve probably been in ski school since their birth and can consequently ski your pants off
• Laugh at old people on the mountain – because they’ve probably been skiing since before your birth and can also ski your pants off.

This does not belong exclusively to one person. Share.

On the ski lift

DO

• Talk with the random person who sits next to you at the last minute – don’t get all pouty because you thought you were going to get the chair to yourself. If you don’t talk to the other person, the ride turns into a giant, silent, awkward turtle. Also, start the conversation early, because if you wait until you’re halfway up the mountain, that’s awkward too.
• Lower the bar – because if you’re sitting with me, I’ll likely freak if there’s nothing preventing me from falling to my death. And you don’t want my death on your hands. I’m a liability.

DON’T

• Bounce up and down – no one likes “that guy” who turns the lift into a see-saw. Imagine your chairmate ralphing from 40 feet up. In a snowsuit. Ew.
• Yell and scream when the lift stops – because 1. It’s irritating and 2. The lift controllers in their little huts CANNOT hear you. Shut up and wait for movement to resume.

This is not a see-saw

In the gondola

DO

• Make conversation with your car-mates – see note about making conversation with a lift chair-mate.

DON’T

• Smoke doobies in the gondola car – because I really, really don’t like stepping in a car to find that it smells like weed.

This is not a hotbox.

These aren’t difficult rules and they aren’t anything that common sense wouldn’t tell you to do. In general, enjoy the awesomeness of lots of snow and spectacular views. Don’t think you’re MAD AWESOME because you disobey the rules that the nice ski patrollers have posted everywhere. Don’t be rambunctious or act like an angsty, impulsive tween. Oh, and stay off of my lawn.

Tired, slightly windburned, and very happy

And FINALLY, my skiing season started. It certainly took long enough, considering we're almost halfway through January and I just now made it to a mountain. Mount Snow, that is. I've visited the resort at least once per year since I was about 9 years old, always on a bus trip through my town's parks and rec. committee (yeah, the ski trips are pretty much the best thing my town does all year). I love me some group-discount tickets. Here are a few ups and downs, because I refuse to believe in complete perfection:



Epic wins:

• Fresh, ungroomed powder
• Continuous natural snow throughout the day (but not so much that I couldn't see)
• An entire day of skiing. Enough said.
• Sitting next to an attractive ski instructor from Berkshire East on a lift
• Getting the gold chair on one of the lifts on the North Face
• Bruised shins - I love battle scars
• New snow pants and mittens  (mittens > gloves)
• Moguls that actually had snow left on them (much preferred to the icy bumps that are generally left around at the end of the season)

Only pansies stay inside during wintertime. 

Epic Fails:

• Gale force winds and slow lifts
• Hoards of children wanting to show off their MAD SKILLZ because it was "youth pay their age day" GET OFF OF MY LAWN.
• Totally eating it...on a lift trail where lots of people could watch and laugh
• Waking up at 5am to catch the bus. And consequently becoming Queen B*tch, from the land of "I Hate Everyone and Everything" for the next couple of hours.

Deliver me from misery.

Furthermore, skiing makes me feel like I'm exploring in Narnia (major props to my girl Izabel here). I love the snowy evergreens and scampering and fluttering wildlife. I like thin, secluded trails and interesting glades. I've never gotten to a ski resort through a wardrobe, but I'll find Narnia, yet. Wait for it... Bring on the Turkish fudge and the ice castle.

And I'll be best friends with Mr. Tumnus. Obviously.

Okay, so now that I've presented myself as slightly neurotic and enamored with mythical snowy lands, who wants to rent a zip car for a day and go skiing with me once we get back to school? I won't even talk about Narnia. Much.