Last day in the snow

We were up and at 'em on the slopes early today expecting that it would be quite busy because tomorrow is change over day so we were expecting that everyone, just like us, would be making the most of their last day.  As it turns out, this was not the case and it was significantly less crowded than yesterday which was a pleasant surprise and we spent the entire day on the two red and one blue runs quite close to our apartment.

The run down from Costaccia was where we spent most of the day and has a couple of awesome sections in the middle as well as the final hill down to the end of the run.  It's an amazing feeling carving and feeling the ski's bite the snow as one moves from side to side and the motion is a little like a slow walk as you have first the one foot and then then other in front.  There was one section of the run where it was really, really icy as in the ice was blue and slick as an ice rink; both Alistair and Carl had wipe outs on this section of ice during the day.

Carl is coming around to my opinion that the difference between the first and the third world is that the third world knows that it is the third world; the first world haven't figured out that they are actually third world as well.  Carl highly unimpressed by the european inability to queue to get onto gondola lifts and their general behaviour on the slopes.  Carl was so incensed by the one snow boards behaviour, first he went over the back of Carl's skis almost wiping him out, then he narrowly missed Megan at which point Carl just went straight down the slope to catch him and hit him with his ski pole to tell him to cut it out.  Although he apologised his behaviour didn't change because the very next run he almost ran over me. "Poles" has now become the general accepted term for boorish behaviour.

We stopped for our last lunch in the apartment which was, as always, delicious but I am very much looking forward to getting back to some less refined foods.  Foods that actually have roughage in them that is.  At lunch having made a roll I was just about to eat it and Kirsten pointed out that a hair had somehow made it into my roll so I pulled it out, all 18" of it so I offered it back to Megan since it was clearly hers.  She ungraciously declined to take it back.

At about 15:30 I felt it was time to move across to the blue slope because the sun was down over the horizon so it gets really difficult to see where one is skiing and Kirsten had already been floored by a mogul which appeared out of nowhere.  We had just started going down the blue slope and Alistair wiped out in spectacular fashion and landed really heavily on his shoulder which was the point at which we decided that this was it and skiing was now done.  Kirsten hadn't seen the wipe out so I went after her and really enjoyed the moguls on the steep section, there must have been at least a dozen in a row that I negotiated nicely.  Compared with some of the mogul fields I have seen that is nothing but for the first time ever I am actually skiing them as opposed to surviving them.

We met up the Keysers for a last bombardino around a blazing fire opposite the Bivio hotel and then a very relaxed supper at Focolare;  I have officially got to the point where pizza is no longer an option for supper so I had pasta instead.  A small difference I know but I just couldn't face another pizza.

Tomorrow is travel day which I am not looking particularly forward to although we are having lunch with Andre and Nicki which will be a highlight.