Andorra and Turning 19

I hope I left you all hanging at the end of my last post : )

Well, after I got back from Dénia, I was having sort of a crappy week. I won’t bother going into details, but basically I was just feeling a little down. But then on Wednesday, I logged into Facebook and saw a message from Mika that said “It is important that you go on Skype right NOW.” So, I got on Skype and Mika immediately called me and asked “Paige, do you want to come to Andorra to ski?” Ummm….YES! What did she think I would say? The catch was that we would be leaving on Sunday, so I needed to get permission that night. After asking my host parents, and quickly calling my real parents and my tutor, it was all set.

Mika’s host parents are good friends with a man named Jesús, who is the principal of a school for students who want to be physical education teachers. Every year, they take a ski trip to Andorra, and since they had extra spots, Mika was invited even though she doesn’t go to that school. Lucky for me, Mika’s host parents thought of me and asked if I could go too : )

crossing the border from Spain to Andorra

We left for Andorra early Sunday morning, but I got to Dénia the day before. Since I obviously didn’t think to bring any ski apparel to Spain, I sported a borrowed assortment of ski clothes that included my host dad’s snow pants and Mika’s host dad’s XL ski jacket (that’s why I look so huge in all the pictures, haha). The bus ride to Andorra took about 9 hours including stops, but even though it was long, it was gorgeous. We drove along the coast for hours, and then started driving through the mountains of Cataluña, where all the street signs and shop names immediately switched to Catalan instead of Spanish. Several hours later we spotted the Pyrenees Mountains, and finally crossed the border into Andorra. (By the way, Andorra is classified as a “micro-country”, for those of you who didn’t know).

Me on the mountain

When we arrived to the ski resort (Arinsal in Vallnord), we got fitted for our ski gear and checked into the hotel. Mika and I shared a room with a girl from Bulgaria and her Belgian boyfriend. What was interesting was that Spanish was the only common language between all of us.

The next day, the skiing began. We had five full days of skiing, with 2 hours of classes included each day. Mika and I were in one of the more “advanced” groups since we had both skied before. Let me just say that our ski instructor, Juan, was certifiably insane. That week, I tried things that I would never in my life have attempted. Juan took us off jumps, down small cliffs, and through clusters of pine trees where we were told it was “cheating” to go down the actual groomed slope. One particularly memorable morning, we went down an extremely steep drop off through the trees, and the five people in front of me tumbled down like bowling pins. I followed suit a few seconds later.

Mika and I

Me in the city

We stopped at a random hotel downtown to use the internet so I could transfer money. It turned out to be the hotel where the Rotary Club of Andorra meets!

An exciting moment of the trip was that I celebrated my 19th birthday on February 2nd. We didn’t really do all that much for it, since we were tired from skiing, but we did go into the city to shop and buy candles, which I squished onto two tiny pieces of cake at dinner that night. The whole group came to sing to me, and overall it was wonderful. I can’t think of a better way to spend my birthday than a ski trip to Andorra.

My birthday!

Mika and I again

Our ski class "super paralelos" (super parallel) with crazy instructor Juan, who's wearing the sunglasses

Well, this is getting extremely long, so I’ll stop now, but I hope you enjoyed the pictures, and check out this video of the crazy wind we experienced one of the days skiing (you'll have to copy and paste it): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuEboHJsA-o


Love always,

Paige