Skiing in Italy!

UNBELIEVABLE! Sunday December 11 at midnight 43 other students, 6 teachers and I left from Debrecen heading to Italy! My school put on a ski trip to Bellamonte Italy. After 16 hours of driving through the beautiful mountains of Austria, Sloveina, and Italy we arrived to our little hotel San Celso. We stayed in a little village that was in a valley with two other villages. These were the bases of a group of ski resorts.  Through out the week we went the the largest of the three resorts three days and the second biggest twice. We skiied from about 9:30 to 3:30 for five days. It was a 100 % different kind of skiing for me! Starting with the ski lifts! We had a ticket that we could keep in our jacket and before every lift there would be a reader

that would scan our passes, not people. Then before the lifts they had a gate that would open right before the chair came, and then you would ski on to this magic-carpet type thing that would take you forward until the chair came around and you would sit down. They had mostly four person chairs, alot of chairs with bubbles, a 6 person chair, and several gonolas! Here it is like a stricked rule that you must put the bar down and I did not see one person not put the bar down! The next thing that was different was the runs! The easiest was blue, then green and then black. Every single run was groomed and was similar to a green or blue at home. They did not have any black runs open because there was not enough snow. The interesting thing about the runs, was that they were all made by snow cats. The first thing I asked was if there were any good tree runs. I got a blank look like   I was talking in another language or something, and found out that I pretty much was!

They told me that in Europe no one skiis in Europe and it is not allowed. The only places they ski is on the runs that the snowcats make! I was so confused and did not understand this! I soon figured out also that since they only ski on groomers their way of skiing is different than the way I ski. They were really good at carving and to me it looked like everyone around me were racers! They all went as fast as the could making huge GS turns or small and fast quick turns! Also the crazy thing was that skiers stopped everywhere in the middle of the runs! Since so many kids came on this ski trip we broke into four groups based on how well you could see. I was in the best group with 11 other kids. Every day we had a new teacher from our

school who skiied with us and would teach us how to be better skiiers. It was funny cause we got assignments like ski on one ski, or make quick fast turns or some weird things. Everyone in my group and all the people that were skiing here looked like the turists that I make fun of back home! Everyone had small googles, gaper gaps, used skiny racing skis and did that racer style tuck where their poles go strait up in the air! :) I wish I could say that I looked as stylish as I do back home but I to was using racing skis, unmaching blue pants that had suspenders- which of course I wore! The whole time I was there I only saw very few snowboarders, and only a few "freestyle" looking people. They looked just like the skiiers at home with twin tip skis, small poles, Electric, DC, and other american brands. I do not know what they were doing cause there was no park here.

It snowed on the drive there, and then again on Friday but not enough to notice that it was snowing. The weather was similar to at home but defintaly not as pretty as the Colorado blue skys! During the nights we played pingpong, cards, and fosball! They have fun different pingpong game, a different fosbal table, and they also play BS and mophyia! I shaired a room with two girls and made lots of new friends, again! I had a new and great experience this week and got back Sunday night at midnight and did not have to go to school today!! This week I also realized how lucky I am go to skiing every weekend, in the trees, in powered, in truly the best ski resort in the world!