I knew that this year’s trip would surpass all others, when interestingly enough I found a drunken bearded guy, easily mistaken for a tramp, asleep on the backseats of our coach. After persuading him to move over to allow me to take the last available seat, he informed me that he had every intention of having anal sex with whoever was sitting on his right or his left. I happened to be sitting on his right.
I then found out the guys sitting in front of me didn’t even go to LSE and never had. They were recent graduates from Bournemouth. I wasn’t sure if I was on the right coach, wasn’t Bournemouth LSE’s sworn enemy on the past two trips? Nevertheless, I was thankful when I heard ‘a load’ of Americans and I was assured that I was indeed on the LSE coach.
After spending most of last year’s trip in bed from the flu; or in the bathroom battling the after effects of alcohol; or on the only open ski slope weaving around the “gapers”, the ice, the moguls and the boarders; I decided that this year that I would get the most out of the ski trip. I would be out on the slopes from the moment the lifts opened to the minute they closed. I would be out every night and on top of that I wouldn’t be affected by hangovers. In fact, I wouldn’t even have hangovers and I would not get ill.
So, naturally, I caught a cold off my flatmate before I had even left London and although I had an early morning start on the first day, I never made it onto the slopes before noon for the rest of the week. But, besides that, this ski trip was by far the best so far.
Following my oath, I decided to find a group of skiers, who, well, could actually ski and would encourage me to take skiing a bit more seriously (I assure you I do). So serious in fact, we managed to pretty much ski every slope in the resort on the first day, only stopping for food until I complained of feeling faint. That level of dedication lasted all about a whole day. Due to the social side of the trip taking a toll on our sleep, I managed to make it out onto the slopes later and later every day,
My favourite night was the “King of the Jungle” theme, with some brave enough to go out in the cold with nothing but an off-the-shoulder piece of leopard skin material.
Another of the more memorable nights was the mountain meal. After trekking up an icy slope in complete darkness, we made it to a nice quaint chalet, complete with a fire place in the middle, home-made absinthe (apparently) and a bottomless supply of wine. We then went and threw ourselves down the icy slope on our bums to find an ambulance waiting for us at the bottom. Good night.
The journey back was pretty quiet- what else would you expect from a sleep deprived, hungover group of students? In order to make it onto our scheduled ferry, the coach drivers sped their way through the Alps’ snow blizzards and were very reluctant to give us toilet breaks, even though the onboard toilet was frozen and thus unusable. In the end, it didn’t matter whether we were on time or not as all the previous night’s ferries had been cancelled and we had to wait in a 5-hour-long queue at Calais. I heard rumours of icebergs floating in the Channel but in the end it was just the British panicking at the first sight of snow. Nevertheless, we got home safely. I think so anyway, last I heard, two of our coaches only just made it onto their ferry by the time we got back to LSE.
I was one member of the “load’ of Americans! Thanks for the acknowledgement.