Megève, Monsieur!

Hot on the heals of El Birthday en Madrid, the adventure continued northeast via Spain's national and not so impressive airline, Iberia. Not to complain though, as the staff ticket from Madrid to Geneva cost in the region of NZ$40 for a 2½hr flight, to the lakeside Swiss city.

Yes, there are mountains in Switzerland. Yes, we could have skied on them. But no, we weren't stopping here: We were crossing the boarder vehicularly into French territory, to the alpine village of Megève. Just 50mins by car from GVA airport, we passed Mont Blanc and Sallanches, arriving in the flurrying of fresh snow in the late afternoon. This town is straight from the pages of every wintery fairy tale. Icicles hanging from the chalet rooves, star-lights twinkling from them leaveless trees, sleighs being drawn by, what I imagine are, very cold hooved horses. This paradise was our home for the next couple of days to enjoy some dreamy European skiing on the French Alps.

With the local Boulangerie throwing its doors open in the stupidly early and cold hours of the morning, we happily layered as many clothes as we could rustle together each day to buy the fresh baguettes, croissants, and pan au chocolat that were required to see us through breakfast. I admire the bakers, beginning their day at the horrendous time that they do, simply to fill the tummies of the needy and hungry. Our dietery requirements satisfied (perhaps calorifically not so pleasing), we were all ready to head to the slopes and hook ourselves up with a lift pass and a set of clumsy, cumbersome, but adrenaline inducing skis!

Just a 5 minute walk from where we were staying, the ski lodge had everything we could ever need. Buying eChip ski-passes was slightly more advanced than the last time I skied at Mt Hutt, Canterbury, back in 2000, but all the more convenient to scan your self onto the chairlifts, without evening lifting a barcoded tag. I'm not a rubbish skier, but by no means am I about to race back in time to Nagano's Winter Olympics either, but having progressed from only knowing how to stop via the knee-knocking snowplough move to now gracefully gliding down the mountain from side to side like a swan would do (should you ever see a swan on a mountain) and stopping abruptly with a spraying of frosty ice!

Beginning on a few of the easier Green and Blue runs, by the end of Day One we had successfully completed a Red run, thrown tantrums from falling over too many times, drunk Vin Chaud (hot red wine) mid-ski, and broken a rib (Adrian, not me), we happily called it a day. It was time for a hot shower, an application of deep-heat and a journey back to the village for CRÊPES! Mmmmmm.

Two days worth of alpine bliss was all it was meant to be, and so the journey back to Dubai began. Leaving bright and early from Megève back to Geneva by road, then zipping up to Frankfurt and onwards to Dubai with our friends at Lufthansa. Business Class! (We had to finish off how the journey began...) It was confirmed upon our return that Adrian had, in fact, broken his rib, and he is currently convalescing back in New Zealand. That boy will do anything to get a week at home. Wink wink! To all of you budding skiers out there, may I urge you to take out Travel Insurance prior to embarking on the kind of adventures that alpine excursions specifically entail... You never know when your goggles might fog up, and you go scooting down the mountain into a not-so-conveniently placed mound of powder! Head over heals, ski over ski, ribs, evidently, are quite precious parts of the human anatomy!