We arrived, colder than hell, in central Geneva 6am on Wednesday last week, 20 hours after setting out from London. You're probably thinking "they must've been stuck at Heathrow for ages, just like everyone else - stop moaning!", but we weren't stuck anywhere, except for an hour in Paris for coach change and under gun point in French customs.
"Have you got anything to declare?" - We're not supposed to open half our packing 'till the 25th.
"Are you carrying more than €10 000?" - What do you think?
We were picked up from Geneva Airport by Gillon, a manager at the company. He took us to Samoens and the flat we'll spend our next five months in, and invited us to meet all the co-workers for dinner later on. We put our bags down and that was about it for floor space. So it's not big, but it's got the necessities: bed, shower, kitchen. Another thing that came with the flat is a balcony as big as the flat. Unfortunately, since we're on ground level, we can't store anything, like skis, on our balcony.
We were served a three course meal by two colleagues, and all sixteen of us at Alps Accommodation sat down to eat and chat. After dinner sixteen sets of red wine stained teeth went to a seasonnaires party at the cinema. We met some people and drank more wine, but walked home reasonably early after our knackering journey the previous night.
The following week was spent training as professional property assistants(/chalet cleaners), or, in the Grand Massif, skiing. We'll tell you more about the latter.
The lift map is huge. We live in Samoens, we have a bus that takes us to our cable car lift each morning. Our cable car lift, Grand Massif Express, takes us from 700m above sea level to 1600m, and from there we can get straight up to 2200m for a wide selection of pistes (or powder between the pistes). We had almost perfect conditions on the first day, new snow, empty slopes and sun.
Three days followed with us working mostly and when we went back up the mountain on Tuesday the temperature had risen and a gazillion people had arrived only to turn the white tip into a sharp point with spots of brown sorbet. We did go to the other side of the Grand Massif (where it reaches over 2500m), as far our lift passes take us, but still have many lifts and even more pistes to go up and down, up and down, up and down...
Our three days in the piste have brought us joy, fatigue and some anger - it usually depends on the weather, the amount of people in the slope or how many jagermeisters were consumed the night before. Covey's Irish pub seems to be our new local, who would've thought.
We bought each other a Christmas helmet to save the little brains that remain. Sally has developed her skiing massively over these days and doesn't have a problem keeping up, even in the red pistes. Soon she'll be better than Carl, yes, we all realise this.
Christmas Eve tomorrow, off work for two days, weather report says snow - fingers crossed for some ski action on Christmas Day. If not, we're all chipping in with some Chistmas buffet smorgasbord fillers and secret Santa for Christmas Day, so we'll have mulled wine and mince pies to keep us amused.
Merry Christmas
Carl and Sally
PS. This is the company website, check it out. If you're planning a ski trip this winter or spring, contact us, we get discount on accommodation for family and friends!
www.alpsaccommodation.com
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