chamoniX
“when life is sOOOO busy
and paCked full of action....
you bloG about winter
as a summer reAction.”
ZALA We step out of the gondola and the crisp fresh mountain air hits us as if it was trying to knock us over. We are in Chamonix, France on top of a ski area called Le Grand Montet. We take in the view for a few long moments and decide where to ski. We are set on going to the left of the ski area boundary for some awesome backcountry runs. We get to the edge of the run and look down, below us is a huge and steep expanse of untouched powder. The only things separating us from it are a few big rocks. We drop in and make our way through the rocks. Andrej goes first screaming wildly and enjoying himself! I am next. I start skiing and it feels like all of the snow swirls up around me! It was the first awesome powder that I have skied since we came to Slovenia! I turn around just in time to see Mami and Luka do a few turns and then stop and shower me with snow!
ANDA To say that Zala was ready for the school break it would be a total understatement. She was not only soooo ready, she really needed it. School here in Slovenia proved to be a big challenge in many different ways for Z, some she expected and others she did not. Not at all. Way different school system, reading and writing in Slovene at a really high level, understanding all nuances that you don’t get even if you speak the language fluently… it’s complex to simply understand what an undertaking this year in Slovenia has been, let alone explain it. Oh, and did we mention that Zala has math, physics, biology, chemistry…. all in the 8th grade, the equivalent of her 7th grade in US? Yeah. All of this sounds pretty bad already (just ask Z!) but we didn’t even mention the hardest part yet - FRIENDS. Missing all of her buddies back in Atown. For real. Trying hard to make friends here at school… but then her friends came from where one would expect, her ski life here with ASK Branik (Alpine Ski Club Branik - my ski club growing up here). But even that needed some time and by the end of December Zala just needed to get away from it all. This holiday break was well needed. And Luka? He fell into the best school situation we could have imagined. 5th grade with ga. Ivačič at the Maribor Waldorf school. Just right in so many ways. But still, school is school and Luka always loves doing something other than that!
No snow at home in Maribor only meant we needed to get creative and find it somewhere else. For so many years we heard from Grmeki (Tanja, Andrej, Tara) about their epic holidays in Chamonix, France and it always sounded so exotic. We must go there we always said, and so we did.
It wasn’t the epic Cham conditions we heard about but compared to what we had so far this winter, it was awesome! We packed Modrček (our blue van here) and Grmeki packed their Sivček (thier Silver van). Babi Inge joined us for some skiing but even more so for celebrating Xmas and New Year’s together again!
