Chamonix, France for New Years 2009

My friend Kelly, my roommate Joanna, her sister Amy, and I went to Chamonix, France for New Years to go skiing. First we left on December 3oth from Freiburg and then went to Geneve, Switzerland and rented our car from Europcar and drove to St. Gervais, France where our hotel was. The ride was amazing because it was the first time I have ever seen mountains, and for it my first experience to be the Alps, it was amazing. The part of the Alps we were in had the highest peak in Europe, Mont Blanc. The peak is 15,781 ft. above sea level, and it is the 11th highest peak in the world, and highest in the Alps. Once we arrived to our hotel, it was really cute, and we got into our room and had a balcony with a mountain right outside our window, it was gorgeous, and awesome to wake up to every morning. The first night all we did was walk around St. Gervais and we also got our skis rented for the next day. We also ate dinner at a restaurant next to our hotel, it was pretty good, but paying 6 Euros for a Cola Light was not cool. We noticed right away that food was so expensive and you couldn't find food under 15 Euros, which really hit us hard for money. We brought food too to save money, but we definitely ended up paying too much to eat in France, it was pretty upsetting. We went to bed early that night so we would be ready for a day of skiing.

The next morning we all woke up and ate some breakfast then drove to Chamonix and found out where we could ski. It took me forever to get my ski boots on because it was hurting my ankle so much, but we finally managed it. It was also so hard to even walk in the ski boots. Once we were all ready we got on the gondola to the mountain where we were skiing, the gondola was so scary at first because it was basically a vertical ride and we would go over the posts where the pulleys met and the gondola would rock really hard after that, it would scare me so much! Especially since I have a slight fear of heights to begin with. Once we got to the top we found out to get down we had to go on a 'blue' ski hill, which is supposed to be considered an easy hill for a skier.So Kelly and I made out on our way down the hill, it took forever because both of us were so scared going down and Kelly had only skied twice before so she fell so many times, she was getting really frustrated with skiing that day because she kept falling really hard, she even fell once so hard that she kneed herself in the face, she was going so fast down the mountain. I am glad we both made it without getting hurt. We finally made it back to the hotel and all of us were so sore after skiing. That night was New Years, so we decided to get ready and drink some Champagne. We were all ready to go out by 10 and we went to the bar to celebrate and we found out that we were the first to arrive. We were really surprised that we were first to get there because in the US people usually start to party early until midnight and it seemed in France that people partied after midnight because no one showed up to the bar until around 11:45. We had a fun night on New Years.
The next morning we all woke up and we were so sore from skiing the day before. Amy and I planned on skiing, but Joanna and Kelly decided to look around Chamonix. We had to walk all the way up this huge hill in our ski boots because we couldn't drive the car all the way up the hill because of the massive amount of ice. Once me and Amy got to the top of the mountain again I only got to go down on one run because my legs couldn't bear to go down anymore because they were so sore. I think it took me about 45 minutes to get down that one hill. No comparison to the Quad City ski hill, Snowstar, where it takes about 30 seconds to get down. I went down to the town again earlier than Amy did and we shopped around for a while in Chamonix, it was a really cute town with all the mountains surrounding it.

On friday Kelly and I decided to not go skiing again because we were still sore and we wanted to try out some different winter recreation activities. That morning we went to a ski store and got some snow shoes to go snow shoeing on some trails that the Tourist Office recommended. Once we started going snow shoeing and then realized we really didn't need snow shoes, but we still wore them because it was fun. We walked around on some trails for a few hours and then we decided we were going to go on the cable car up to Aiguille du Midi, it was a cable car/gondola that went 12,000 ft. above sea level, it was the scariest ride ever but once we got to the top, it was the most amazing thing I have ever seen, but yet again my fear of heights got to me a little bit. We were getting out of breath though at the top because the air was so thin, Kelly was even getting light headed while we climbed stairs. I couldn't even get close to the edge because I was getting really scared to look all the way down, I finally warmed up to everything after 15 minutes up there. We took a lot of pictures all the way at the top, and we could even see Mont Blanc from there too. It was insane to think we were that high. Once we decided to take the last gondola down I was kind of scared to start out with because it went really fast on the way down. We finally got all into the gondola and started off then it just felt like it dropped for like 3 seconds, I had a legitimate anxiety attack, it was the weirdest thing because I was shaking and breathing really hard. I think it was everything combined with the fear of heights.

(Pictures from when we went up to Aiguille du Midi, a really cool one is where the hikers were climbing up to the platform we were on, we were pretty amazed.)










We left the next day for Geneva and it was such an amazing trip, I am so glad I went even though it turned out to be much more expensive than I had expected. It was great to get back on skis again and actually do it in the ALPS! I will never forget it!

I am in Berlin right now for a school trip, so be expecting a blog from that trip soon too!!

Auf Wiedersehen!!