Skiing on Mud

My office yet again is amazing and set up one more office trip for the year. It was a skiing trip in Glenshee, Scotland for 30 of us. Thursday morning we all met at the airport to fly to Aberdeen where the debauchery began. Since we got paid mid December, it has been over 5 weeks without pay, and I was broke. I came with my fist full of euros and once I exchanged them in to pounds, I had a fist full of change. We checked out bags into the Train station and walked around the city. Catherine had been a college student there so she gave us a great tour, and we ended up at the local students pub where we began drinking for cheap. We got to check out some local boys in their kilts, which was a treat and just have the craic. At 8pm we met up with our drivers to take us to the lodge, about 2 hours from the city. We had the quiet lame bus, where everyone else sang all the way up there. I think our bus driver was quite happy to have the sleepy group. The rain began on the way where and we were all hoping it would turn to snow! We arrived about 10pm to Gulabin Lodge and we found our rooms which were all named after birds. The wild boys all ended up in Eagle and they came up with names for each one of them. There were six of us girls in our room, Curlew, but the rooms ranged from 2 to a room, to 8 to a room. The rooms were about 15' high, with a single bed, a bunch bed and a sink right when you open the door, and then when you climb up the scary ladder, there were two sets of bunk beds up above on the mezzanine. I took the upper floor with Claire and Catherine, and had Karen, Emer and a different Jaqui on the bottom floor. We took over the whole lodge which was perfect, because if we had had anyone else there, we would have driven them mental. It was just a large house that had tall ceilings so they could convert normal sized rooms into the 'suites' they were. There was a piano in the main living room and one the lads brought his guitar so we had a sing along next to our roaring fire. I just wish I knew how to play either of those instruments, or had an amazing good voice. Just because I have the same name as a famous singer does not automatically make me a good singer. I hit the sack about 4 since I wanted some sleep before my first day skiing on snow and we had a 7am breakfast call, but that did not stop most from staying up all night.

I should have just stayed up with the group since the storm did not let up all night, and the rain washed a lot of the snow away. There were 100mph winds so even though we all got up for the 7am breakfast, there was to be no skiing that day. Most of us went back to bed for a few hours and got up for a hike. I am so glad I bought some wellies since we were trudging through mud, sheep poo, small creeks and huge puddles. We climbed halfway up one of the hills too get a good look of our surroundings. It was such a tranquil place and very picturesque. The hills just rolled and were covered in lush grass and craggy outcroppings with small streams winding down them. After our walk, most of use got back into the vans and headed into a local town, Dundee. We grabbed some lunch, hit all the local pubs and picked up some treats and spirits for later, since there is no bar in our lodge. We had a hot cottage pie dinner waiting for us when we got back and ate until we were stuffed. We did find out that there was a local pub about a 5 minute walk from place so we headed there. We played some pool which I did amazing at because I had that perfect balance of confidence fueled by beer and what talent I do have. We headed home after the pub closed and I decided to hit the sack since we were going to go skiing that next morning!

After a full breakfast of eggs, rashers, sausage, hash browns, cereal, juice, tea and toast, we were back on the buses to drive to the Glenshee ski resort. When we got off, I was amazed! Amazed of how little snow where was. There is 100 times more snow on Mt Hood during a drought season in the middle of July then there was there, and it was packed with people. I have had a few lessons so 5 of us girls and 2 overly confident boys headed off to the advanced beginner classes. We got on the button lifts and I happened to be in the back, so the first 7 up kept falling and I was the only one to make it up on the button lift the whole time and never fell. I was quite proud of that. All of the advanced people were waiting at the top of the lift so they cheered as I got off, I looked more advanced then I really was. It was so windy up at the top that although it was not snowing it was blowing around what snow there was. Our class was an hour and a half with most of it just doing little turns in the snow plow. The girls were the stars of the bunch as he took us down the large main hills. I stayed in my snow plow, leaned forward and headed down the hill falling every 5 or 6 turns since I would pick up so much speed that was the only way to stop. Claire is ultra competitive which is great for me, because we push each other to do better and go faster. She had been skiing before, so I tried my hardest to keep up. We skied over grass, heather, mud, ice and maybe a little snow. Let me tell you, it is impossible to ski over mud, you just stick into it and the top half of your body still wants to go forward while the lower half has stopped. I had a huge 8" round black bruise on my hip that took about 2 weeks to heal from landing on rock and ice, it was a beauty! We exhausted ourselves and headed back to the lodge for a nap and a shower before heading into yet another town. We had to split up in groups of around 10 to eat dinner since no place was big enough to hold the whole lot of us. We went to all the pubs ending up in the one dance club. We were definitely the outsiders, and it was so obvious that we were also outnumbering the locals in the club. There was a small dance floor all of us girls took over and we had quite the night. By the time we left we were finally outnumbered and we were all surprised that we did not end up in a scuffle since they were all eyeballing us, but we were all on our best behaviour and headed back on our buses.

The next morning we were back up at the mountain and it was even warmer so there was even less snow and more sunshine. We had yet another lesson which was great since it was just the four of us girls, Claire, Ruth, Catherine, and me. By the end of our lesson most of us could parallel ski down the mountain. I could almost keep up with some of the other girls since I got so good at getting up so fast and could keep going. We had a race by the end of the day and I came in third. I just wish we had one more day since I started getting decent at it! It was a lot of fun once I got the hang of it. Our last night we spent at the local pub where we had a great dinner all of us and a final night of pints. We were all exhausted and after partying way too much and skiing way to hard, we were looking forward to going home. At six in the morning we all had to be one the buses back to Aberdeen. It was a great trip and one I will never forget!