Travels With Brian

We're Going Where?

"Yes, I can ski a bit. Definitely up for a ski trip. Where the heck is Andorra*?"

* - Andorra is an independent principality situated between France and Spain in the Pyrenees mountains. It's tiny, but very beautiful.

I've operated as spare wheel on a couple of ski trips over the years; the first was in France back in 1997 when an old school friend invited me along to make up numbers and a very kind Canadian lady taught me how to ski, and the second was a few years later when a colleague invited me to join a small group he was putting together to go to Andorra. And I had to look it up on the internet then too.

So, within two weeks of the question, five of us were sat on a flight to France after picking up a last minute deal at a local travel agent.

If I'm brutally honest I don't remember much about two of the lads other than to note that they were good company and easy going. They were both good friends with the chap I worked with and the three had known each other for years and been away together many times. I was one spare wheel, the other was a lad I shall call Troy who was a friend of one of the other guys and likeable but somewhat hyperactive.

In real life Troy was a semi-pro water skier. He'd never gone skiing on snow before but, needless to say, he took to it like a duck to water and his balance was phenomenal. So, once we'd all taken a day or so to get used to being on two planks of wood again we were soon doing the red runs and my colleague was limbering up to get on the black slopes some of which were full of moguls**.

** - Not newspaper tycoons, very difficult terrain consisting of many dips and bumps in the snow, and usually blooming steep.

Andorra was beautiful and we were blessed with good weather for a few days, then a massive dump of snow, then good weather again, so pretty much perfect for skiing. The only thing that marred the resort we were in was the people, who were mostly British.

I know this is a sweeping generalization but I'm prone to them occasionally, particularly when it comes to my countrymen and women on holiday. Most Europeans speak a couple of languages, and that usually includes English. This means that most English folks don't bother to even try when they go to another country. The place was full of young, loud, drunken Brits demanding a morning fry up, pizza and copious amounts of schnapps.***

*** - This stuff was not the schnapps I'd grown up tasting due to having a Swedish grandfather, this was alcoholic, tasted sickly sweet and fruity, and was probably able to remove paint. It was awful. Proper schnapps warms you from the inside out and actually tastes kinda nice. This stuff was just designed to get you hammered and spending more money. I suspect that was exactly the intent, but I stuck to the beer.

Here's another stereotype for you. You can often spot a Brit on holiday as they tend to be the ones speaking slowly and very loudly in the hope that the local person they're speaking to will understand them better if they talk and enunciate very clearly with excessive volume.****

**** - probably turned up to 'moron' on the guitar amp, which is one level above 11. (And if you've not seen it, go watch This is Spinal Tap)

Thankfully, once you got onto the slopes, you could leave the hungover numpties behind and venture out over seven mountain ranges. The variation in skiing was wonderful, tricky black runs, technically challenging reds, sweeping blues through pine forests, and easygoing greens where you could glide serenely along and have a chat with the rest of the group.