Chalets and Bananas

Vicki's Cook-off was a success, although the head chef of course suggested some improvements that she could make. But that was always going to be the way! Breakfast was probably the trickier affair, as she had to coordinate the three different types of eggs, the porridge and the rest of the fry-ups to land on the table around the same time, whilst making sure the ladies got served first... A good practice run, but things will only improve as a routine gets established.

Fresh off the back of these cook-offs, the chalets were announced on Wednesday. Vicki has been given..... (drum roll please)..... Astoria! It caters for up to 6 people and is right by the main ski lift. So Vic is going to try and get a deal going whereby she can keep her skis and ski stuff up there rather than traipsing down the 15 minutes to our flat and heading all the way back up the hill to get up the mountain! For those with a curious streak, check out the Ski Verbier website page on her chalet at http://www.skiverbier.com/index/315/1. As you will see, most weeks are already sold out, so she won't be getting too much time off! And for those with a spare 5 or 7 grand, feel free to book - whilst availability lasts!

To cap things off, her first guests arrived today, Friday. They actually arrived in Verbier yesterday but stayed in a local hotel until the chalet was ready for them. This meant that Vicki had to clean the place from top to bottom, get everything set up (Wii, TV, iPod docking stations, DVD player, hi-fis, etc), plan the menus, do the shopping AND get a meal ready for them to eat tonight. Especially as the chalet which had supposedly been thoroughly cleaned by the SV team required quite a deep clean throughout. So a tough week has been made even tougher due to lack of time at the start of it. But she is off and running and will be looking forward with glee to her first day off on Wednesday!

I have almost finished my training weeks, and we even picked up our uniforms today - bright yellow with some blue piping. Very fetching. I will get some photos to put up on here at some point. For those who have been trying to see my cheeky grin on the Adrenaline website, the photos won't be updated for some time yet. I will keep you posted! So far I don't have any lessons booked in for next week, but the snow conditions have been so good that the general consensus is that quite a few people will start their holidays early! So you never know.

In general though we have pretty much settled in to our flat. I am slowly mastering cooking on two electric hobs (did I mention I HATE electric hobs?!?!?!) and catering for myself, all the while keeping the flat spotless. We pretty much agreed at the start that cooking and cleaning would be my domain... which is fair enough I think.
Internet connection is still sporadic but it does provide me with an excuse to come down to the bar and buy a beer so that I can connect to their free WiFi!

Further to the previous photo of the view from our window, below is the same shot but with slightly more snow around! It has been snowing on and off for a good week now and the snow base is so good up top that we are taking routes only usually tracked at the end of January! Powder skiing is definitely underrated - I must admit I wasn't that big a fan (I would rather have taken my board up) but I am 100% a convert now! It helps that one of our trainers appears to have something against taking the pistes... Not that any of us are complaining!

From snowy Verbier, until next time, Ciao!