Les Alpes

Today I went snowboarding in the Alps. Dear God they're huge.

But first, let me tell the story of my morning. There's a website, skimania.com, where you pay 30 euros or so, and they bus you from lyon to the mountains and give you a lift ticket for the day. Pretty sweet deal. On Monday a coworker in my office said they were going skiing this weekend, and said I should get a ticket and come along. I didn't get paid until Weds, so I waited to get the ticket. Well, they were sold out on Weds for the day they were going. Crap.

Friday rolls around, and I'm working late, and the coworker was still around (we'll call him MV for short) and said one of his friends who bought a ticket couldn't go, and asked if I wanted his ticket. Of course! Apparently, they normally give you a confirmation number, and then when you show up for the bus, you just give them the number, and your last name. For the day today, I was to be Teodore Dachev. The buses leave at 6AM, so I had to get up at 4:15, down 4 cups of coffee, then take two trains to where the buses picked us up. Well, I got on the bus, no problem. Told them the name and the number (after asking MV how to say zero), and walked right on. Unfortunately, MV and his girlfriend were on another bus. No big deal though. The bus pulls away to go pick up people at another stop, and on the way I start thinking about how I don't know anyone, nor can I communicate in any way, with anyone on this bus. So I was a little nervous.

At the next stop, some people get on, then the guy running the show makes an announcement, and I thought I heard the name Dachev in there somewhere. Then, the guy starts going person to person checking their names and numbers again. When he gets to me, I say Dachev, and he gets me to follow him. Apparently some friends (one of which speaks English) of Dachev who knew he wasnt coming saw that his name had been checked on the guy's list, and said something about it. So I had three people (guy running the show, and two of Dachev's friends) asking me if I'm Dachev. I keep insisting that I am, because at this point I have no idea where we are in Lyon, or how to get home. The two friends are insisting that I'm not him, I'm telling them I am, and me and the guy running the thing are glaring at each other when someone finally asked to see an ID. So at that point, I knew it was over, and I explained to the English speaking guy what happened, how I was a friend of MV, I knew Dachev couldn't come, so I'm here in his place, etc. Somehow, the guy had heard that an American was supposedly taking Dachev's place, and he had forgotten about it. So this reminded him, and he told the guy running the show all was good, and the whole bus (including me) had a good laugh at me.

All that by about 6:20 in the morning. Now its about 9:00PM, and I'm tired and going to bed. I'll write about the snowboarding tomorrow, but here's a picture from near the top of the mountain in the meantime.