ABS - always be skiing.

That is not photo editing, that is whiteout fog, which we spent our last two days in.



Everyone has those yearly, winter traditions - things that we do with our loved ones, that create lasting memories and give us something to look forward to every year.

For me these traditions include, but are not limited to: snow fort building; carol singing; ice skating; baking copious amounts of cookies; chatting over cucumber slices, pasta with home-made sauce, and braunschweiger balls; watching (and quoting along to) the film, The Wedding Singer and every year, EVERY YEAR refusing to join my family at the local ski hill.

I say "hill" because we have a distinct lack of altitude in Michigan. Despite this fact, people are so enticed by the ski season thrill that they will fling themselves off of any bump and, ignoring everything they learned in geography, call it a "mountain". 

Every year, I was invited to go skiing and every year I turned it down. At first, I think, I was a little nervous (the people who I would have learned with have a pretty rough-and-tumble, no pain, no gain kind of attitude towards life, which, frankly, I avoided at all costs), but as time went on I sincerely just stopped caring. 

I would go ice skating and sledding and put myself in all manner of precarious positions involving a moderate risk of bodily harm, but for whatever reason skiing never held any interest for me. As I got older, I became busier with other activities and the fact that skiing doesn't come cheap became yet another reason to just not even bother. 

In all of my 27 years of life, I have never been motivated to break with this winterly tradition....until this year. 

I don't know whether it happened because the offer of a ski holiday was extended during our honeymoon travels, when we were free and roving and wanderlust drunk, or simply because the notion of a whole week spent in fabulous company, surrounded by the-hills-are-alive-worthy scenery was just too much to pass up. 

I really don't know what happened, but somehow, someway, someone convinced me that I needed to go on a ski holiday.







And I luuuuurved it! 

Obviously.

It probably helped that I took to the actual skiing bit pretty readily. A few of us chipped in for a personal instructor, which really eased the learning curve. We were doing red runs by the end of our third day, which I could never have even visualized on our first.

I fell down a whole lot too, but weirdly, while I originally thought I would feel embarrassed about it, in the end I didn't mind. It was such a normal and happy feeling to be stacking it in the snow, something that I haven't really had the chance to do since my university days - it reminded me of my childhood. 



Immediately before falling most of the way down a red run. Loving life!

I'm not sure what my favorite part was - learning a new skill, eating Currywurst, or the ridiculous souvenir I took away from a disagreement with t-lift.



Looks not unlike an upside-down pickaxe attached to a stretchy rope.


Look, how easy!
Even a child can do it!


Expectation: 



(that's Wills and Kate, by the way)


Reality:





What actually happened was not that I fell over while riding the t-lift, but that I attempted to retrieve my dropped poles and was hit by a flinging bar as my friend exited the lift. 

Oddly, no one seems to have actually seen what happened, although I can 100% assure you that it did hit me. I have proof. Thank goodness for my sunglasses and helmet (always wear a helmet, people), which took the brunt of the hit and left me with an intact, albeit amusingly bruised cheek bone, which I took great pleasure in documenting for the rest of the trip.



Day 1
Day 2

Day 3
Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Day 7


Basically a bruise model.


Honestly, it didn't hurt that badly and after a couple of days I sort of forgot that I even had it, and would only remember when people would do a double take or stare just a little too long. I am getting a little bored of it now, though, because it's going through the yellowish phase, leaving me with a look that is a little less badass and a little more sickly. 

My real luck lies in the fact that we have another week until school starts up again, which means plenty of time to chill and get stuff done, but also plenty of time for this thing to heal up a bit more before I have to present myself as a respectable adult in front of a bunch of merciless, image-obsessed teenagers...

Fingers crossed, people. Fingers crossed.



Love and a request for ultra healing vibes.



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