Skiing in Jasna!

So here is the picture tour of the trip we took to Jasna, a ski resort in Chopok, Slovakia, which is a part of the Low Tatra Mountains! (http://www.jasna.sk/)





The trip was definitely something I will always remember. It will probably take me a REALLY long time to write this blog entry because there are so many details that I don't want to leave out.

So I guess the whole trip started on the train. We were scheduled to depart at 3:21 on Friday. I got Hlavna Stanica (the main train station) at around 2:45 because I was having bad luck with transportation that day, and didn't want to risk anything. One by one, people started to trickle in until we were a group of about 13. All together, we ended up having 18 people on our trip, but some people drove up to the mountain, and others met us on the next day. The whole trip was planned to celebrate the birthdays of Dominic (British guy) and Maxime (French guy). 4 of Dominic's friends from the UK joined us as well.

The train experience is interesting. There are normal tickets, and then tickets that you can buy that give you a seat reservation. The seat costs about 40 Sk extra, TOTALLY worth it since our trip was going to take about 4 hours, and I'm not a huge fan of standing for that long.

The corridor of the train is only about 4 feet wide. This means, if people are already standing there with their luggage, it is nearly impossible for you to get past them in order to get to your carriage. Then, when you finally make it down the corridor, you find that there are people already sitting in YOUR seat, because the rule is, if the seat is not claimed within 10 minutes of the train leaving the station, it is forfeited. People who buy normal tickets just filter into random carriages and hope that no one shows up. So, then those people have to move out of the carriage and into the already crowded corridor while you wait until they are out of the way, and then you move your stuff in. The whole thing includes a lot of "I'm sorry!" and "Excuse me please!" The last thing you want is to get left behind on the platform because you couldn't get onto the train because the line was so long out the corridor.

The ride was pretty uneventful. We tried to busy ourselves with snacks, sudoku, sleeping, and just chatting. There was one point where we weren't sure if a particluar stop was ours, so we almost got off the train, which would have been an issue because it wasn't our stop (and the next train wasn't for another hour). The issue is that there are multiple stops with similar names. Our stop was Banska Bystrica, but we stopped at another Banska platform before that one, so we got confused. Luckily, we had Peter, a Slovak native, in our group. He made sure we didn't make a BIG mistake.

Here is a picture of Sarp and Vaida on the second train.

Once we were in Brezno, we needed to take a chartered bus to Jasna, because the last bus had already gone. We ordered it ahead of time, so it wasn't an issue. The issue was the drivers skills on the road. I've experienced European driving many times, and this instance was no different. That means: the guy was a MANIAC. We were obviously driving up a very steep and winding road because we were heading for the MOUNTAINS. You would think that would mean we would take it slowly and carefully, especially when the snow started showing up on the road. No. That would be too much to ask for. At one point, we lost traction with the road and fishtailed up the hill. This sent many of the passengers into a frenzy because they don't have a lot of experience driving in snowy conditions. I assured them that there was enough weight distribution in the vehicle that we would be ok. We were. The guy slowed down after that.

When we got there, it was dark, but you could still see a lot of the slopes. I was in awe. I'd been stuck in a city for a month, and I haven't really seen mountaines in awhile, so the whole experience was entralling. Getting our rooms together turned into a little bit of an issue because there were supposed to be 3 people to a room, but there were couples in our group, and the singles didn't want to stay with the couples (OBVIOUSLY) so there was some shuffling.

This is a picture of where Vaida and I passed out once we had everything situated

The whole weekend was filled with fun in the form of skiing, eating , partying, hiking, sleeping, you name it. This is one of my favorite pictures: Maxime's ski hat! (A Moose for the Roo)
This is the view outside my window. When I woke up in the morning, around 8am in order to get a good breakfast and then haggle with the rental guys and the lift pass guys, this is what I saw. I immediately grabbed my camera, even though my roomie was still sleeping :)

Breakfast was great. I had sausage, french toast and honey, cereal, juice, and yogurt. I needed to load up for the day...it was going to be a long one.

This is the picture of Steve, one of Dom's friends, trying to get his boots on and off. It took an extra 3 people to help! For many of my fellow adventurers, it was their first time skiing...ever. I knew that was going to make the experience interesting, especially when we found out that there was only 1 "beginner" hill on our side of the mountain, and that it was really for beginners. I told them to come to Peak n Peek and I'd introduce them to the bunny hill.

After helping people with their equipment and giving them some rudimentary lessons on how to turn and make the pizza in order to stop ("PIZZA! PIZZA! TURN! HOLY S**T! STOP!) Jheni, another one of Dom's friends, Maxime and I decided to tackle the other slopes. They are divided into 3 categories: Blue, Red, and Black Circles. We thought that the reds and blacks were calling our names....later I was screaming theirs.

This is me looking tranquil. I was still on a high from being in a such a beautiful place. Little did I know what awaited me. If it wasn't enough that it was my first time on a drag lift (it took me a couple times to finally get it right without falling off halfway up the hill), I then had to quickly shift my knowlege of snow from packed to powder.

Yeah, I skiied down this hill. I don't know how, and I don't want to think about it. It involved a lot of sweat, unknown muscle groups, expert reflexes, praying, and coaching from Jheni.

Here is the group! We had a nice dinner in the restaurant in the hotel. Again the service left a bit to be desired, but we've gotten used to that. After all, I do know how difficult it can be to get 18 different orders correct and to the right people.

We also celebrated Dominic's birthday!!!! Obviously this called for a silly costume (?) So, he chose a chicken suit!!! We told him to ski in it the next day, but we were also afraid that it would soak up too much of the snow because he was a newbie, and tended to fall in order to stop himself at the bottom of the slope, so we scrapped that idea. The other people in the hotel loved this costume. We sang crass British songs (I'm in love with the girl next door! Smell my.....) until the wee hours of the morning and then decided if we were ever going to wake up the next day, we should go to sleep.

We all woke up early the next day because we had to be out of the rooms by 10am. This presented a slight problem since our bus wasn't coming until 5pm, but we just loaded all of our stuff into one room and then tried to occupy ourselves.

I decided NOT to ski the next day. My muscles were sore in places that I had never known could hold lactic acid, so I decided to hike around and go up the slope to the restaurants and such. It was a another beautiful day, full of sun and clear skys, so we sold our ski passes, took our books, and went on up the chair lift. Justina and Vaida thought it was a good idea to actually hike UP the actual SLOPE. It took them about an hour, and I have a new respect for them. I may have actually joined them if I had better shoes. Hiking boots wouldn't have fit in my luggage from the States to Bratislava. This next picture is of us struggling to get up a little hill that goes from one restaurant to another. People are allowed to ski EVERYWHERE (you have no idea how literal that is. I'm talking up the hills, down the hills, off the track, in the middle of a walkway, wherever there is snow essentially), so the snow was packed down pretty well, making it quite slippery. I tried to show everyone the dig method for the way up and the shuffle method for the way down. We endured a couple of falls. They were funny. I'm sure it didn't help that some people had serious hangovers. Not me though.

The bus/train ride back was another interesting one. This time we were going straight from Brezno to Bratislava, so we didn't have to worry about missing our stop, but the bus driver was another Cavalier on the road. This time, the guy sped DOWN the hill at unsafe speeds, passing another charter bus on a curve, and then getting WAY TO CLOSE to others, making us all very nervous, because I could have reached out and given a passenger on the other bus a high-five. We made it though, with no serious injuries, and were able to make it through the shuffle of the train-dance knows as "Get out of my Seat"

I'm sure there will be more, but I've been working on this one for awhile and need a break. Hope you all enjoy!