Second Boarding Trip of the Year!
The day following the tortilla typhoon, about 20 of us convened at MAK 9er, Angie’s place. I was happy to see a lot more MAK 8s (my training group) than I expected and we were able to spend some quality time catching up. It seems that as I have become happier at my new site I have become less reliant the other volunteers. I have fallen out of touch with most of them, excluding Liz and Shaun (of course).
Afraid of having a repeat of New Years (some of you may recall I fell ill after my first slumber party of 2005), I resolved to not drink any alcohol, I took a Big ‘Ol Vitamin and then went to bed at about 10:00, while the rest of the party raged on for a few more hours. I am in my late 20s now; I must heed the warnings of an aging immune system.
We were told that the kombis (Macedonian mini-vans) would arrive at 8:30 (which in Macedonia means 9:00 at the earliest) to take us to the mountain. It was a pretty amusing site seeing 20 of us sitting in the living room exactly at 8:30 patiently waiting for the vans to arrive all decked out in our ski gear (and feeling extremely overheated).
We were all in the vans by 9:15 and we were on our way to Popova Shopka (that’s the name of the mountain in Tetovo). The group piled out of the vans and into the ski rental place. I however, bought a snowboard last year since I have ridiculously small feet and would not have been able to rent one. Plus I was living 6 kilometers away from a ski resort. Anyway, I proceeded to the run and my friend Hugo (the other boarder) went to the ticket booth and then to the first of many rope tows.
Oh, the pain of rope tows for a snowboarder. The first series of lifts were rope tows with some sort of a disc type thing on the end that skiers can just wedge between their legs. When Hugo and I tried it we were simply sent flying into the air and landed flat on our faces. Ouch. The line to get to the rope tow of humiliation was so wicked that Hugo and I decided we would just hike up the hill. Once I arrived at the top of the hill I was confident that I had already done my workout for the day.
From the first hill there were many other rope tows (and 2 chairlifts in sight, but neither were working) but these tows were the T-bar type, which are more forgiving to boarders. I made it a bit shy of ¾ of the way up and then I fell, Hugo told me he got about halfway up and was tossed, but hung on and was dragged up the remaining portion. Nice.
The abundant snow was perfect for boarding and I noticed a huge difference in my ability to link turns within the first few minutes of heading downhill. As I approached the T-bar lift for my third trip upward I noticed one of the chairlift was working. I changed course and steered in that direction. It made all the difference in the world.
In the middle of my third run I noticed my left binding started moving. I was able to make it down the hill without too much trouble and I headed over to chat with the lift operators.
Tetovo is predominantly populated by ethnic Albanians, and my Albanian language skills are not well developed. Asking for a screwdriver to fix my board is hard enough to do in Macedonian...but in Albanian? Good Lord!
I started out my first conversation with a friendly Mirëdita (good day) and then quickly switched into Macedonian to actually convey my point. I found out, in a short amount of time, that no one carries a screwdriver with them. After talking to 3 lift operators I headed toward a pack of Macedonian military boys who were apparently guarding the ski area (I don’t know a lot about it). I asked them if they had “something that will help me fix my board” and then demonstrated the problem with the slippy binding. They were all toolless and I made a little joke about how “since they were the military they were supposed to have things to fix other things.” I got a lot of laughs but I am pretty sure it wasn’t because of my witty comment and really I said something completely inappropriate, but I will never really know. Regardless, I was again without a solution to my problem and feared needing to scale yet another hill to get to the rental shack, where I know they had tools.
Then…out of nowhere a kid (probably about 15 or 16) came running at me with a screwdriver. I have never been so excited to see someone running at me with a screwdriver! He fixed my board and I gave him a big hug. I think we might be engaged now, but I am not certain.
After I got my board fixed I ate my lunch of balance bar (I am running low if anyone wants to send me a care package) and water and headed back to the lift. I got in 3 or 4 more runs and met a number of nice men on the lift. Interesting to note, I didn’t see a whole lot of women on the mountain. And I saw only one other girl snowboarding…and she quit much earlier when she was thrown off the T-bar 3 times in a row.
Most exciting moments of the day:
-Impromptu Albanian vocabulary lesson in line with relentless pushing children. I learned how to say “WAIT!” and “NO CULTURE!”
-Middle aged man asking me how old I was. When I responded with “27” he told me I looked 15 (Yippee, I LOVE IT!) and asked me to meet his 25 year old son who was at the hotel eating lunch (I graciously declined the offer).
-Another Albanian language lesson mid chair-lift from a 16 year old boy. I learned the words for snowboard and fall (but I promptly forgot them).
It was a great day, I can’t wait to return (hopefully in 2 weeks!)
Afraid of having a repeat of New Years (some of you may recall I fell ill after my first slumber party of 2005), I resolved to not drink any alcohol, I took a Big ‘Ol Vitamin and then went to bed at about 10:00, while the rest of the party raged on for a few more hours. I am in my late 20s now; I must heed the warnings of an aging immune system.
We were told that the kombis (Macedonian mini-vans) would arrive at 8:30 (which in Macedonia means 9:00 at the earliest) to take us to the mountain. It was a pretty amusing site seeing 20 of us sitting in the living room exactly at 8:30 patiently waiting for the vans to arrive all decked out in our ski gear (and feeling extremely overheated).
We were all in the vans by 9:15 and we were on our way to Popova Shopka (that’s the name of the mountain in Tetovo). The group piled out of the vans and into the ski rental place. I however, bought a snowboard last year since I have ridiculously small feet and would not have been able to rent one. Plus I was living 6 kilometers away from a ski resort. Anyway, I proceeded to the run and my friend Hugo (the other boarder) went to the ticket booth and then to the first of many rope tows.
Oh, the pain of rope tows for a snowboarder. The first series of lifts were rope tows with some sort of a disc type thing on the end that skiers can just wedge between their legs. When Hugo and I tried it we were simply sent flying into the air and landed flat on our faces. Ouch. The line to get to the rope tow of humiliation was so wicked that Hugo and I decided we would just hike up the hill. Once I arrived at the top of the hill I was confident that I had already done my workout for the day.
From the first hill there were many other rope tows (and 2 chairlifts in sight, but neither were working) but these tows were the T-bar type, which are more forgiving to boarders. I made it a bit shy of ¾ of the way up and then I fell, Hugo told me he got about halfway up and was tossed, but hung on and was dragged up the remaining portion. Nice.
The abundant snow was perfect for boarding and I noticed a huge difference in my ability to link turns within the first few minutes of heading downhill. As I approached the T-bar lift for my third trip upward I noticed one of the chairlift was working. I changed course and steered in that direction. It made all the difference in the world.
In the middle of my third run I noticed my left binding started moving. I was able to make it down the hill without too much trouble and I headed over to chat with the lift operators.
Tetovo is predominantly populated by ethnic Albanians, and my Albanian language skills are not well developed. Asking for a screwdriver to fix my board is hard enough to do in Macedonian...but in Albanian? Good Lord!
I started out my first conversation with a friendly Mirëdita (good day) and then quickly switched into Macedonian to actually convey my point. I found out, in a short amount of time, that no one carries a screwdriver with them. After talking to 3 lift operators I headed toward a pack of Macedonian military boys who were apparently guarding the ski area (I don’t know a lot about it). I asked them if they had “something that will help me fix my board” and then demonstrated the problem with the slippy binding. They were all toolless and I made a little joke about how “since they were the military they were supposed to have things to fix other things.” I got a lot of laughs but I am pretty sure it wasn’t because of my witty comment and really I said something completely inappropriate, but I will never really know. Regardless, I was again without a solution to my problem and feared needing to scale yet another hill to get to the rental shack, where I know they had tools.
Then…out of nowhere a kid (probably about 15 or 16) came running at me with a screwdriver. I have never been so excited to see someone running at me with a screwdriver! He fixed my board and I gave him a big hug. I think we might be engaged now, but I am not certain.
After I got my board fixed I ate my lunch of balance bar (I am running low if anyone wants to send me a care package) and water and headed back to the lift. I got in 3 or 4 more runs and met a number of nice men on the lift. Interesting to note, I didn’t see a whole lot of women on the mountain. And I saw only one other girl snowboarding…and she quit much earlier when she was thrown off the T-bar 3 times in a row.
Most exciting moments of the day:
-Impromptu Albanian vocabulary lesson in line with relentless pushing children. I learned how to say “WAIT!” and “NO CULTURE!”
-Middle aged man asking me how old I was. When I responded with “27” he told me I looked 15 (Yippee, I LOVE IT!) and asked me to meet his 25 year old son who was at the hotel eating lunch (I graciously declined the offer).
-Another Albanian language lesson mid chair-lift from a 16 year old boy. I learned the words for snowboard and fall (but I promptly forgot them).
It was a great day, I can’t wait to return (hopefully in 2 weeks!)
This is the view from Popova Shopka, the ski resort outside of Tetovo.
posted by MinimumWager @ 12:55 AM
1 Comments:
At 9:25 PM,
Anonymous said…
With a lack of anything truly whitty to say, I'll just say that I want to come play in the snow! (way more fun than working here in my dark, dank little windowless office).
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