[Penny]

This is really just a copy and paste of what I sent to my sister, I thought she needed a laugh. She suggested I post it on my website cos she thought it was amusing, but my website is more like a cobweb than anything else, so I am posting it here... its probably quite long and I am not sure you will find it funny unless you know me. You might just think I'm silly if you don't know me.

Yo lil Blister,

So my mate rings me up and sees if I want to go skiing, so I knowing that I don't enjoy sliding down the mountain on a couple of sticks say Yes! I just can't say no to the snow!

I set the alarm for 2.30 because I hadn't got anything organised the night before, my friend is arriving at 3am to drive us down, a frantic run around the house finding hat, scarf, gloves, pants, jersey, Jacket etc etc, I don't think I have worn as many clothes before in my life! except maybe last time I went skiing!

3am arrives and I am still in my PJ's friend arrives, I finally get ready to go and I get in the car and realise that I didn't quite need every layer on already, it is still 3 or 4 hours away! and the car is airconditioned. 2 minutes into the trip I fall asleep. I thought this was a great idea, my friend however felt this was not very fair and felt it nessecary to wake me up every 10 minutes or so... Giving up on that I settle for yakking his ear off, after bout 20 minutes of that I was preferred in my sleep state, but by that time I had drunk a bottle of V and there was no sleeping then!

Suddenly this fairly large creature starts running out at us, its a Hare.. having never really seen a hare before I felt this was an exciting moment, perhaps made less exciting by the sound of cracking then the thunk, thunk, as this cute lil hare goes under the car. breaking off part of the car at the same time (hence the crack). Not an important bit I'm told.

We get to the mountain, and at Whakapapa village we have a toilet stop, we realise it is only 6.30 or something and we are wayyyyy earlier than expected. At this time it was still rather dark, the sun was just coming up (and looking very prewty). The toilets at the village are in this cute cottage thing, at the back you walk through an area that is designed for sitting. Thinking only about going to the toilet and not looking where i am going, I bound along, finding out only late that the wooden path is layered with ICE and my shoes are not really designed for ice, I slip over, this would be OK, except what I did not realise is there were some dedicated (some might say crazy!) skiiers sleeping in the little hut sitting area, so in walks Penny, Penny slips over, Penny lands directly on top of sleeping man. He got a surprise as much as I did thats for sure!

I was thinking, man what else is going to happen today! I haven't even gotten to the mountain yet!

Being there early is good for one thing, a great car park, we park the car, get all this gear on again, pants, jersey, jacket, scarf, gloves, big socks, walk up to the hire place and everything, walk into the cafe for breakfast, they have the heaters pumped up so off comes the jacket, jersey, gloves, scarf etc etc... Breakfast was pretty uneventual so I was thinking sweet as.

Went upstairs hired out my boots and ski's and stuff, all uneventual too... I was still thinking sweet as. I must say that you see people in their ski gear and they think they are pretty cool... when I put on my ski boots I must admit I sat there and looked at my feet and thought... Hey I'm pretty cool, until I tried to walk when:

My only thought was: Do they actually design ski boots for feet?? they are not actually the most comfortable things in the world to wear. Anyway I'm standing out side, suddenly in my hands I am meant to be handling, skis, poles, jacket, scarf, gloves, hat etc, so the clothes all go back on, and I just stand there and contemplate.

The chair lift is turning, so I stick on one ski... all good, put the other ski on, all good too... then I start sliding, and all I can see in front of me is this large crowd of people, I manage to remember my lesson and stop *just* in time. Then I stand in line for the lift and all is cool, I manage to not fall over and take everyone out and get on the chair lift without it knocking me over.

So the chairlift starts to go up the hill and my overactive imagination starts to play and I feel the ski on my boot and it feels kind of heavy and we are about half way up and i start to wonder if I put my ski on properly or if its just holding on a little bit and is going to fall off half way up this chairlift, and I will have to wait till I get up the top then ski down on one ski and then try to find it... alright I realise now that wouldn't happen and I possibly should have concentrated worrying about getting off the chair lift.

Getting off the chair lift, that was a bit wobbly, I was not impressed, and have visions of the chair knocking me flat, and man how embarrassing that would be, but I got off, managed to ski myself over to this little rope tow thing and a small hill, I thought that would be a great way to just have a little starting run and get used to skiing, so I hang on to the rope tow and decide that that is tooo much like hard work, get up the top, and ski down, then I took the advice of someone else..."push yourself" so I give the rope tow a miss and go to the top of this hill thing.

Right so I am standing there and my friend suggest I go this one way because it will be easier, so I start heading down, full of confidence, and then suddenly think *insert really bad words* I am heading straight for this like edge of something so I make myself fall over... and what a fall it was, I look around, no poles in my hands no skis on my feet, and they are like way far away from each other, so I just sit there and contemplate myself... I realised I rather enjoyed just sitting there watching the world go by(and the men!).

So my friend said, Wait here I'm going to go down and I'll meet you here... so I sit there and wait and then I get my skis on and go down to the next bit, same thing get to a bit here I decide stopping is a real problem, so I fall over again, sit and contemplate the world. What I didn't realise is sitting like that people worry, almost everyone going up and down the chair lift asked me if I was ok, haha, lovely concered bunch. So I got up and continued along the same way.. ski, fall over, sit on my bum for a while, get up ski, sit on my bum for a while.. Until I got to this bit, I couldn't see how I was going to do it, so I thought I would pick up my skis and walk a bit, then I found out, how much fun sliding down on my boots was... now that was fun, it did bring calls from the people on the chair lift above "Your meant to put your skis on mate". So On they went again and down I went, fairly uneventful the rest of the way.

I got to the bottom and looked at the line for the chair lift, and my only thought was, I'm meant to stand in line for like 1/2 hour to go through that AGAIN?? So I waited for my friend who was on about his 3rd run down (including standing in line) and told him I was going to go and sit somewhere for a while, so I went and sat and watched all the men go by.. not a bad past time...

Then I decided I should do some more skiing, so I went down to Happy Valley, thats more my scene... lots and lots of people, but I could yak and get to know some people, play in the snow, and then ski a bit and try to teach myself some skills... skills that seem to be lacking!

So at bout 1pm I gave up took my skis back, wore some stick from the guys at the hire centre bout giving up early and went to the car and made high scores in snake... on my phone and just enjoyed the snow.

Went to Taupo found a motel that had a spa and sky tv (Rugby rugby rugby) and finished the day relaxing in the spa and watching a game of rugby.

On sunday I woke up to the most beautiful view of the mountains across the flat lake. It was beautiful and then did some shopping and went over to Waihi to see Rasey.

What did I learn from this weekend? You can get sore mucsles even from spending allot of time on your butt!

I do love the snow!

Next time: Hijack the nieces for the weekend and play in the snow with them!

[Sparklechick]

heh heh heh ... sounds like you made the most of it though Penny.

Sounds similar to my skiing experience ... I ended up in the bar drinking mulled wine!

Playing in the snow is far more fun than skiing (in my opinion!).

[Penny]

Yeah, the highlight would have had to have been falling over onto the sleeping man!

haha, I do love the snow (How many times have I said that now! broken record alert!)

[Bluey and Aquila]

Sounds a bit like my first skiing experience.

I went at high school, fell over twice and spent the rest of the day in the cafe drinking coffee.

[NiteFenix]

I'm jealous. Never seen snow in my life before (cept on tv lol)

[Penny]

awww snow is cool... (literally)

You gotta save for a trip to NZ and come an dsee snow!

[NiteFenix]

Maybe next year or the year after. Bugdet is a bit tight right now but thanks for the invite

[Penny]

I knew that... just cancel Nambia mate... Priorities... :P

Snow vs Girl I know what I would choose!

[Sparklechick]

I didn't know you were that way inclined Penny

oooooh, you meant snow

[Penny]

Wel you know Sparkley Gal, i can't be too fussy these days!

[NiteFenix]

*just shakes his head*