Rising at 6:15 on a Saturday is tough. But when it’s to go skiing, you quickly get over it. Unfortunately Glen couldn’t come along today as he’s on call this weekend, a fact he’s very grumpy about. I barely got a kiss goodbye when I left.

I took the subway up to York Mills subway station, getting on the same carriage as Anna, Tim and Vaughan. We then met the rest of the crew, including two new additions, Rob and Adam, and boarded the quiet bus to Mount St. Louis Moonstone. This time we were on the Moonstone side of the mountain.

The ski rental process is getting quicker and I was soon outside and ready to go, joining a level three class. I did ok during the lesson, though I think there was a bit of a miscommunication somewhere.

I thought I was doing it right, the instructors didn’t, but apart from saying “more weight on the downhill ski” over and over, there wasn’t much to help put that in practice. I made it down the hill though, falling a couple of times, including once where I really hurt my groin. Luckily that was right at the end of the lesson and just before lunch.

This trip we all brought our own food instead of buying the fast food stuff from the cafeteria. We each brought our own lunch and then brought something to share (so net health benefit?). I made chewy tropical oat muesli bars and lamingtons.

The lamingtons went down a real treat with the Australians (you can’t get them here) and a few non-Aussies who’d never had them before (or only heard about them from Neighbours).
I was tempted not to go skiing in the afternoon as I didn’t want to make any injury I might have sustained worse, but really, I could push through and the thought of sitting out on another couple of hours of skiing was far worse than the pain. So off I went for another two hour lesson.

There were fewer people taking lessons in the afternoon so we had more instructors to students. (In the morning we had two instructors to about 12 of us). There were six of us in level three and we had three instructors, which worked out well. One instructor rubbed me up the wrong way within the first ten minutes, commenting on the apparent way I was standing or offering me condolences about being an Australian.

Just as an aside, I know it’s interesting for everybody else to comment about an “unusual” accent but, as Glen has said in a previous post of his, it’s getting bloody irritating. And yes, it helps break the ice, but it gets tired. I went to the dentist yesterday and spent longer talking to the receptionists about Australia than being seen by the dentist.

And another thing, I know Canadians don’t hear foreign accents all that often but how can so many be so bad at placing them? Australians, New Zealanders, British and South Africans don’t all sound the same. I can tell the difference between a Canadian and US accent, which is a lot harder than distinguishing between accents that don’t even share a continent. So when I hear, “oh, I can never tell any of them apart so I just say whatever comes into my head,” I’m not going to feel very respected, am I?

/end rant

Anyway, one instructor to two students, we did more turns, going on the lower slope then up to the top to do the longer ones around the back. More weight on the downhill ski. Less effort in your turns. I thought I was doing it right, still not sure if I was.

I got a bit confused when the instructor asked the other student to follow down behind him but says for me to stay further back and practice on something else. I had no idea if she was more advanced or I was. And again, not sure really if I was doing it right. You win some, you lose some, I suppose, and at least I got four hours of instruction out of the day.

We went down one particularly steep hill. I was rapidly picking up speed and knew I should have turned but my brain didn’t believe that putting weight on one of my legs to make me turn was actually going to help me slow down or stop. I thought I would either tumble over horribly or veer off and slam into a tree.

So I kept going, down, fast and only getting faster. I thought I was going to die and the only way I could think to stop myself with minimal risk was to basically sit down on my butt. Which I did and everything stopped. Lost a ski but no real injury (though I think I hurt my leg in the tumble, the opposite leg to the one where I hurt my groin).

Strangely though, that was probably the most fun part of the skiing that day. A good fall and a great laugh. There hadn’t been enough during the lessons.

So we finished, got our report cards filled out (I’m still in level three) and then I went out for one more run around the back slope at 4pm, with the GoPro attached to my helmet. That was a nice way to finish the day.

And it really was a beautiful day. We had light snowfall in the afternoon, which was just magical. And in the morning it was bright with freshly fallen snow resting on the branches. It was also bright enough to wear goggles, which came in handy when we got to the top of the mountain as there was quite a wind. We couldn’t have asked for a better day skiing really.

We got back on the bus at 5 and headed back to Toronto, then Tim, Vaughan, Rob, Adam and I went for all-you-can-eat Indian at the restaurant near our condo. Really filled a spot and was a nice debrief. We were all really exhausted so very much looked forward to getting home and soaking in the bath for a while.