Once in Rome, we had to wait three hours for our connecting flight. I know what your thinking... Why hop on the earlier flight even though we knew we would have to stay at Rome airport for so long? Simple really. Waiting in Rome is a lot better than waiting in Catania, that's for sure! Larger airport equals more shops, more places to get a snack, and more room to roam (pace, haha) in our excitement and anticipation for getting to the Alps.

About an hour after leaving Rome I looked out of the planes window and could see we had reached the boundary at which the plains of Italy ended, and the southern regions of the Alps began. "Absolutely gorgeous!" is all I could say to Darin sitting next to me. It's very possible I didn't say a word, but that's all I could think. The view put me in such an awestruck state of mind that I found myself filled with all sorts of emotions. Excitement, anxious, intrigued, and nervous, just to name a few. I was amazed at how far these massive mountains of rock just went on and on. There seemed to be no end to their magnificence.

Soon after entering the region I began scanning the horizon. Being 15,766 feet high (4,807 meters), I knew that Mt Blanc would be setting tall among it's peers. Sure enough, ten minutes later it came into sight. Standing there as if to say "here I am, come and be humbled!" Speechless is all that comes to mind when thinking back to what I felt as we began our decent into Geneva from 30,000ft, no more than five miles east of Mt Blanc. Looking down I could see an established community sprawling through the valley below. Not knowing it at the time, but I was looking down at out final destination, Chamonix, France.

Going through customs and gather our luggage at the Geneva airport wasn't too complicated. However, finding a car rental place with an available vehicle proved to be a bit more challenging. NO, we hadn't reserved one ahead of time! I was ok with that because I read on the web about buses that run almost constantly between Geneva and Chamonix, but Darin wasn't taking it too well. Thankfully, two minutes prior to him having a heart attack, we spoke with a Hertz representatives who had a vehicle that was within our allotted budget. Finally, we were in the final stretch...

Ten kilometers south of Geneva we entered France. Going through customs there was pretty simple. We just showed them our passports and we were through. What was really odd though was going through a toll booth a few kilometers down the road, paying the toll, then as we made our way out of the gate, we were flagged over by three French Customs Officers. Speaking in French, they want to know if we had anything to declare. Darin just kind of sat there, turned and looked at me, then showed the officers his passport. I tried to tell the officers "no, we have nothing to declare...we're just going to Chamonix to ski." But once the officers saw Darins passport, they began talking amongst themselves and wasn't paying attention to what I was trying to tell them in French. Then they waved up through...letting us go. After we pulled away Darin looked at me and asked "Did you hear them say Americans in French?" "Yes," I said, "but I didn't hear what they were talking about." Darin, still looking at me, said "they probably just saw my American passport and said {Oh, just dumb Americans, let them through...}." Haha. We just laughed and kept going.

Thanks to the directions we received from the Hertz Representative, we had no trouble finding Chamonix from Geneva. It was rather simple actually. What proved to be the biggest obstacle once arriving was locating the motel we had booked a room at for the week. It was a little complicated because the people we had booked a room with, Les Bec Rouge, didn't have any space available for our first three days there. So after asking them to do so, they were kind enough to find us lodging at a nearby motel called L'Olympique. We must have driven around downtown Chamonix for about an hour before deciding to ask someone, who looked local, if they knew where L'Olympique was located. Fortunately a shop keeper at a small ski rental place pointed us in the right direction. What I didn't like about his response was that the motel was approximately ten kilometers up the road...Meaning it was further away from Mt Blanc, currently over-towering us. Well, as usual, I got ahead of myself because what I thought would be a poor location to stay, turned out to be awesome! We could still see the "big hill," and had been given accommodations that we could not have dreamed better. L'Olympique turned out to be this small bed and breakfast kind of place that sets just a few yards away from the Le Tour lifts. We could literally step into our boards and slide down to the lift. It was great!

The wife of the owner greeted us as we walked in, and showed us up to our room. As small as the room was though, a mere 15X15sqft, I couldn't have been happier. Granted, the beds were no more than 2 and a half feet wide, the walls brown, the ceiling a pale green, and a mixture of both for a carpet, but it was cozy. Along the back wall were two doors that swung out on to a tiny balcony, looking out to a gorgeous mountain scene that seemed to keep watch over the chalet. I was very happy and content. For one thing, we had found it! Secondly was it's awesome location and beautiful scenery. 

After getting settled in, Darin and I made our way back down to the tiny city of Chamonix to explore a bit and find a good place to sample the local cuisine. I don't recall the name of the restaurant, but I do remember the food tasting great. All I had before that was some bad airline food and a few cookies Darin had brought with him for the trip. So far everything had fallen perfectly into place. We successfully made it to our destination without any serious headaches, managed to find our motel for the weekend, and filled out empty bellies with a good meal before turning in early. What's the saying, "Early to bed, early to rise"? Well...that was our intention...and so we did!

Even though he had admitted to being nervous earlier that morning, Darin was itching to get out and conquer the Le Tour resort, as was I. So, immediately after breakfast we headed out and began our quest.

It was apparent there hadn't been any new snow for a week or so, but there was still plenty to chew up and leave in our wake, as we descended those first few runs. In fact, it was awesome. It had been nearly a year since I'd last felt that freedom, and it didn't take more than 15 seconds for me to pick right back up were I'd left off.. The wind glided past me as I released all tension and began flowing to the winds beck and call. Bliss...

Four or five hours later Darin and I boarded down to the motel for a late lunch. Because of the sunny weather we were having, we sat outside and ate on the large patio extending from the front of the building. There were quite a few others there as well. It seemed to be a very popular place during the daylight hours. Nice and open with a magnificent view, yet cozy at the same time. Really nice...

We ended up calling it a day and never made it back up the mountain that afternoon. Instead we went back to downtown Chamonix looking around, exploring, sightseeing, and withdrawing our daily limit from our bank accounts at the ATM. You see, credit cards are nice and convenient (not really, there more like nasty little habits that are hard to break), but we wanted to be able to account for every dollar spent, so we paid cash for everything except the car. It was just easier that way...

So, our first day out on the slopes was a good one... Cut short, yes...but of course, we didn't want to exhaust ourselves the first day out either. All in all, it was a perfect day in the Alps! Absolutely wonderful... Lost in ecstasy... And like the night before, we went to bed early so we could get up early and continue our dream in the daylight.

Before actually heading out we stopped into the cafe bar to have a cappo (cappuccino). Jean Paul, the owner of L'Olympique, began talking to us about some of the better sites to see. He clued us in on how to get to the cable car that would whisk us up to the top of Mt Blanc, which of course was already our main points of interest for that day. The cable car really only goes as far as Aiguille Du Midi, which tops out at 3842 meters, but is more or less the highest point that gets as close to the summit of Mt Blanc without the need of climbing gear.

It wasn't too long afterwards we were headed out the door and on our way. But first, before getting too far, we decided to stop into Les Bec Rouge and check up when a good time would be to move in there Monday morning. Before noon, afternoon, etc... To our amazement, Peter and Helene told us there was an opening that morning and that we could begin moving in by noon that day! Holy Smokes! That was cool! Granted, I had become slightly attached to our first accommodation, but heck, this place seemed larger, had better service, and if we were ever going to meet some cool people (women), it would more than likely be here! That's what I thought anyway.

Given the good news, we postponed our trip to Aiguille Du Midi by a couple of hours and headed back up to L'Olympique and began packing. Jean Paul seemed a little sad to see us go, but we promised we would stop in and see him whenever we came up to Le Tour to board. He seemed content with that and bid us a fine French farewell.

Both Peter and Helene were extremely friendly and extended what seemed a huge amount of enthusiasm of our arrival. Before we knew it we had the key for our room in hand and were drooling at the view we had from the third floor double occupancy room. What we had thought couldn't be better turned out to be yet another pleasing step up from awesome to unbelievable. Darin and I just silently walked in with perm-a-grins, shifted our heads from side to side, and stood for a moment in amazement at an entire view of Mt Blanc outside of our medium-sized bay window. Seconds passed by in what seemed like eternity as we just stared at the enormity of it. Without a word and in-sync, Darin plumped down on the couch, on the left side of the room, while I chose a chair in the corner... Once again, we were home!

I had to go back down to the lobby and collect one more bag that I had left down there. On my way back up to the room, as I was passing a wash room mid-stairs, I saw what seemed to be a woman whose qualities surpassed that of any one who might work there...but I couldn't be sure, or resist asking.

"M'excusez, a tu travaillez ici?" (bad French I know... haha. Hey, it's been awhile!).

"Oui," she answered.

I couldn't believe it. Not only was she gorgeous, she just stood there looking at me with these amazing eyes as if she was expecting some sincere question I might have. But, as any self-humiliating late-twenty-something year-old man in my position would have done, I simply and courteously replied "Bon,"(Good), tipped my head as if to say "good day to you," and continued walking up the stairs to my new "home". In truth, I couldn't wait to tell Darin the good news...we had angels as hosts! :-)

You see, as men always do, Darin and I had talked about it even before leaving Sicily. We discussed the greatness of our trip and possibilities that lay ahead in our adventures. In hopes of meeting other people, more specifically women, we psyched ourselves out about it. However, being the gentlemen we are, even just thinking of such things seemed out of place. But unmistakably those feelings were there. Like animalistic instincts, we roared with anticipation of it, as dreamers often do...

Trying to stick to some sort of schedule, we bailed out of the room and began walking down the hallway with intentions of conquering the top of Aiguille Du Midi by 2 O'clock that afternoon. Not surprisingly, we ran into two more beauties of the motel staff on our way out.

"Excuse me," Darin said.

"WHAT???" in a sarcastic tone the shorter one responded.

Ignoring the obvious harshness in her tone Darin asked, "Hey, by chance would you know of any good places in town to go for refreshments and fun?"

With about as much enthusiasm as the customs officers had as they waved us through customs Friday afternoon, the two young women just kind of looked at each other and responded with "The Office. It's a bar just down the road about 6 kilometers. There's usually a majority of English speaking people there and...I don't know...you might like that place."

"Cool!" Darin responded. "Thanks! Have a nice day, bye bye"

Walking out to the car we just kind of looked at each other and smiled. Optimism ran through our minds and kept us jolted as we made our way to the cable car ride of Aiguille Du Midi. It was going to be a great day! Haha. :-)

To get to the top of the mountain it didn't take just one, but two cable cars to get to where we were going. Each lift was a good ten-minute ride, and once we reached the switch point, it became pretty obvious why. The mountain had what I know to be a dead area. A flat spot if you will. For about 150 yards it went level, then headed straight up. Clenching to the side of the mountain were these huge slabs of ice that went up forever. Of course not perfect, the glaciers side showed many signs of deep crevasses just waiting for some unskilled climber to make a mistake and slip down it's throat.

Once to the top, we walked off the car following the crowd through a long narrow passageway carved in the rock. Some were carrying skis and poles, a few of which had climbing harness' wrapped around their waist, but most came along just for the same reason we did...to see the sites from way up there. It was discussed later on that the very next time it snowed, before we had to return to Sicily, Darin and I would come back up and board down from there. Unfortunately though, fate never dealt up that winning hand. :-(

We found stairs leading to a lookout point, and anxiously half-running, went up. Straight up and quick, two steps at a time... we had arrived! Breathless...YES! It became very clear that the air was thinner up here, and that we should pace ourselves when exerting a lot of energy at that altitude.

Darin broke out his camera and we took a few shots of the scenery, then of ourselves. Looking out over the rim was absolute heaven. Not only was I humbled, I was inspired! For miles and miles all we could see were the mountain tops of the surrounding Alps. Off to the west and northwest we could see where the range stopped and the northern plains began. But from the northeast to the south, it was all mountainous terrain. Absolute beauty!

Before leaving L'Olympique, Jean Paul had told us that there would probably be lots of Asian people up there, but we hadn't seen any on the way up. After getting our eyeful from the vista point though, and going back down to the main building for some coffee, there they were... Not too many, but enough to laugh just because Jean Paul had been right! All sitting at a couple of tables off in the corner they huddled, taking snapshots of each other and joking. It was cool!

We made it back to Les Bec Rouge around 5 o'clock and had a couple hours to kill before dinner. So, we decided to hang out in the cafe bar and talk to staff. I was especially happy when I saw the tall woman I had met on the stairs earlier that morning, come walking in to serve us. So graceful, and with a greeting smile, she took our order for two cappos.

She began asking questions about how we were doing, what we thought of the area, and all the other usual polite things one might do in her position. So, I answered her, and in return asked where she was from, how long she had been around Chamonix, and all the usual polite things one might do in my position. :-) Wanting to find out more about the lifts throughout the valley, I asked her which of them were her favorites, and which ones in her opinion were probably the best.

"Brevent," she answered. "It's the one that gets the most sunlight. Most of the others are on the south side of the valley where it's shady in the morning."

"I see...thank you. I said

Right about that time Darin leans over the bar and asks her, "Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?"

I just kind of leaned back, looked at Darin and thought "oh no, here it comes!"

"No, they're not real...these are colored contacts. I really have blue-gray eyes," she answered, assuming that's what Darin wanted to ask her.

Now I don't know about you, but something told me this woman received a lot of lines from men that started off this way...Duh!

Darin, still leaning over the bar looking deep into her eyes and said "no, that's not what I wanted to ask you. I wanted to ask you how much you get paid working here..."

OH MY GOD I thought!!! What the hell is he doing? As if assuming right along with what she was thinking he was going to ask her, I was totally blown away! Now this was embarrassing... Thankfully, she didn't take it in the insulted manner I thought she might. Instead, she just kind of tilted her head a bit and gave Darin a second look.

"We're not really supposed to discuss our wages with the guest here," she whispered.

"Oh I see," Darin responded.

Jokingly I added, "Well then, I guess we'll all just have to become friends...won't we?" :-) :::smiles all around:::

And that's how we met Elise... :-)

A few minutes later Darin told me about a pool table he had spotted downstairs, so I went to check it out. As the table came into focus, so didn't a little space in the corner that looked like a petite rec room for the staff. Sitting there on a nearby couch was one of the younger women we had talked to earlier, asking for a cool place to go.

"Is it ok to come down here and play pool," I asked.

"Yeah, sure...no problem" she answered.

"Cool, I'll be right back then."

I went up stairs to get Darin and when we returned, both her and the other woman we had met earlier that day were sitting there. It seemed kind of awkward at first, setting up the table and playing a game. It was as if we had entered a realm of taboo. Like even though it was said to be ok, hanging out with the staff was on the borderline of tolerable. It was neat though because this is what we wanted. We wanted to get to know these people and just hangout. The last thing we wanted was come all the way up here and only have each other to talk to...haha.

We continued to play game after game, acting like typical Americans I guess. "Hey Darin, it's so freaking boring here, man...What are we going to do tomorrow?"

"I don't know, man... I'll guess we'll just have to go (together in sarcastic harmony) SNOWBOARDING!!!!" Yeah babe'!

I guess the women, who were sitting there having their own conversation, got bored with it and bored watching up play. They got up and walked into one of the four doors around us marked "Private". Turns out, those were their quarters.

Dinnertime came and went. It was kind of funny because Elise, who was our waitress, told us that the menu for the evening was a tuna dish. Darin and I just looked at each other with out noses slightly curled and thought, ugh. But, when it arrived,  the Tuna looked more like a Salmon Fillet than anything else, so it was cool. Totally different than what we had suspected. Afterwards we lounged around the cafe bar and talked some more with Elise. We found out she's originally from Norway, and much like my typical self, just kind of slipped into dreamer mode, examining the potential of my future with a Norwegian woman. :-)

Darin brought me back to reality when bumping me with his elbow, and pointed out that the two women from earlier were standing out in front of the kitchen entryway. Obviously showing off the way they were dressed to someone in the kitchen, like an idiot I asked, "What the hell are they doing Darin?"

"Looks like their ready to head out to that bar." Darin answered.

No words were really spoken about it, but I sensed we both were thinking the same thing. We had planned to go down and scope out that bar the girls recommended to us, the Office. And now it seemed we might have someone there to talk to beside ourselves.

So, after finishing our cappos, and politely bidding Elise a good night, we headed up to our room and got ready to head out.

Walking into the almost full pub seemed somewhat encouraging, however after making an initial scan of the place, it became obvious that the two women hadn't come here for their night out. I guess I needn't mention it, but disappointment set in. I know we were both hoping to see them here, but it wasn't meant to be. So, not even finishing out first drink we walked out disgruntled and feeling somewhat betrayed. Granted, the signals we had received from the women could have very well gone both ways... They may have been interested, the might not have... No need to even think about it anymore, it seemed crystal clear that in their minds, we weren't even in the same solar system. Oh well...

We made it back to the motel in only a few minutes.

Upon entering the lobby, we ran into a couple more of the motel staff. Elise’s' Brother, Mindor, who was one of the chefs at the motel, his girlfriend Vibeke, and one other young girl who worked there, were sitting around, obviously waiting for someone.

While Darin didn't bother sticking around, and heading straight up to the room. I however, stopped and introduced myself and began chit chatting with them. Only a couple minutes had passed when Elise came down into the lobby. All peppy and seemingly excited about something.

"Tony, I can't believe it, one of my friends from Norway is in town this week and we're all headed downtown to meet. I'm so excited, I haven't seen this person in two years!" She declared.

I was like, "That's great! I hope you have have a nice time!" What I was really thinking though was :::damn, I doubt she's this excited about an old girlfriend. Must be an old boyfriend::: Needless to say, I foresaw the whole week; just me, Darin, and our snowboards...all alone with no one else to talk to...Totally NOT what we had planned.

Earlier that evening, while drinking my last cappo, Elise had said she would give me the directions for Brevent, so before she headed out the door, I got a map and the directions, then headed up to bed.

So many possibilities of adventure had fell through that day, I had trouble getting to sleep. It must have been 2am when I began hearing people shuffling around downstairs in the motel. It was so disturbing that the more I tried to ignore it and fall asleep, the louder it seemed to get. So, after lying there for another hour, I got up, dressed, and headed down to the lobby to read the previous days newspaper. Unfortunately, the room where the papers were kept seemed to be locked. Knowing it was pointless to head straight back up to the room, and lay back down waiting for insanity to sink in, I sat there on an old antique wood and cloth couch thinking of how to improve our situation. Eventually, I pulled my head out of my ass, went back up stairs to the room, and finally fell asleep.

We had our fill, collected our things, briefly looked at the directions I'd obtained from Elise the night before, and headed out the door.

The Brevent ski area was a little tricky at first. More interesting than LeTour in fact. The runs were spread out more and secretly held a few surprises in store for us. The snow was just as it had been at the Le Tour area, mostly groomed and hard packed, but all in all it provided a different flavor of runs, which we enjoyed.

During the first run I stayed with Darin. He was showing big improvements on his boarding-performance from Saturday, but after that we split up. We agreed to meet back up around noon for lunch, then went our seperate ways.

I had an itching to see what challenging terrain I could find. So, after taking a brief look at the area map, I chose to take on the Col Cornu run (see the map). What a ride! Off to the side of the red area was a straight-down-the-middle black run, consisting mostly of crusty hard snow, so I just stayed in the center and went "balls-to-the-wall!" It was great! There was one part, about halfway down, where even the skiers were having trouble getting up this little hill before a big drop. Most were just trying to keep their form under control by slowing to a stop before continuing their descent. But, the trick of it wasn't the drop, it was the little wrap-around hill where one needed precision to turn into, then quickly straighten out before going over. If I didn't get it just right, I'd fly over it with the bottom of my board looking straight out, and my body remaining horizontal. Ouch! I didn't want that. So, I did what the skiers were doing, and just eased up on it as I rounded the climbing corner and paused at the top before continuing on. The only other challenging portion of this peticular run came up soon after that drop. It narrowed to a mear 10-15ft across, and not that this is anything too challenging, it's just that on the right was a wall of snow (about 8ft high), and on the left side was an edge that if you happened to go over, would be a very interesting ride to say the least. If the conditions were better, for instance more fresh snow, it wouldn't have been too bad. But the icy and crusty stuff, like most snow-sport enthusiasts I know, is not something I'm a big fan of. Expecially on that 175 degree, 100+ft drop. Forgettaboutit! :-) The narrowness was ok to maneuver around a bit, but it was the slower inexperienced skiers and boarders crowding it that made it tricky. My second time down this part of it, two skier collided about twenty feet in front of me, and took up the entire width of the trail with their bodies, ski's, and poles. I had two choices. One, go left, and risk not being able to recover from a slight dip in and out over the edge, or two, take to the wall and climb it like a half-pipe. I chose right, going horizontal, using the centrifugal force to keep me up until I'd cleared the yardsale, I passed by the wreck without incident. To spell it out for you, that's why I don't like the narrow paths of some runs. It's like Murphy's Law, "What can go wrong, will go wrong!". The people in front always seem to get in the way. But, then again, any day spent boarding is better than any day at work, so I wasn't complaining!

I stayed up on Col Cornu for a few more decents, mastering it to my satisfaction, then make my way back to the Parsa run to find Darin. I was about halfway up the chairlift when I spotted him coming over a gradually descending hill. Despite falling once, as I spied on him from above, he looked like he was enjoying himself. Obvious frustration briefly set in, but like a trooper he was up and continuing down seconds later.

Once off the lift, and figuring I'd eventually catch up to him, I swooped down the run with little interference from the other boarders. The next time up the lift, I caught sight of him just a couple hundred yards before the hill I first spotted him on. Now I had a sense of his timing and figured it would take one more decent to catch up to him. I was right. I clipped my step-in bindings while getting on the chair-lift, so as to not waste any time once at the top, reached the lifts summit, and proceeded to divebomb down the run. Getting close to the bottom and nearing the lift, I scoured the landscape looking for him. No Luck! Then, focusing my attention to the lift, I saw him! He was just getting on a chair as I rounded the gate. He was only ten or so chairs ahead of me so I began thinking of some way to surprise him when I met up with him on the decent this time.

I watched him get off and step into his bindings. He stood there for a minute looking around making sure no one was going ski past him, then pointed his boards' nose down for another run. Already off the lift, I watched as he passed a few newbies on the bunny run, then watched his head disappear down the first slope. That was all the head start I was going to give him.

I reached the lip of where I had observed him disappear and saw he was just reaching the bottom of this 130 degree, 30 yard drop. Now, this first drop isn't what I would call a real toughy, but it was a challenge for those who weren't too confident in their skills just yet. Darin, being only his fourth or fifth time boarding, took it better than most I saw that day. But, he still lacked the finesse to head straight down it, controlling his rate of speed by using the fishtail technique.

Catching up to him before the next downgrade, I passed by him asking, "Hey stranger...you getting hungry yet?"

"Hey there. Yeah, you?"

"Yep Yep...Wanna take one more run then have lunch at the restaurant at the top of the lift?"

"Sounds good!" he said.

Sitting outside on large wooden deck, at a white plastic lawn-type table, we tried ordering something from a waitress that walked by us. She said that we weren't sitting in her area, so she couldn't serve us. Not seeing any other waiters or waitresses around, we moved to a clear table inbetween two tables she had just served, expecting we would be able to this time. Well, we must have sat there for about 15 minutes without getting any service. The waitress never did come back out. So, since both of us were famished, we decided to call it a day and head down to Chamonix, at the bottom of Brevent, and find someplace with better service.

Fifteen minutes later we were at the car, changed, then driving into the center of town. We parked the car and decided the first place we saw, we'd stop and eat. Well, wouldn't you know it, McDonalds came through for us! Hahaha. Yes, Mickey "D's", LOL.

We got back to the motel around four-ish and grabbed a cappo to sooth our souls. Nightlight was setting in, and by 5:30pm Darin was up in the room crashed out. He'd had a pretty exhastive time up on Brevent that day. I too laid down for a quick nap, but was back up and down in the cafe having another cappo an hour later.

I have to admit, I had Elise on the brain, and wanted to talk to her some more. I liked the way she spoke, her smile was becoming more sincere, and listening as she spoke about 'her' life was very interesting to me. After awhile, she began getting busy with a few other guests at the motel, so I stepped out of the cafe and into the reading room and picked up the latest newspaper. Shortly thereafter, Elise came in and asked if I was ok, meaning did I want anything else, and I said no, I was ok. She stayed in the room for a couple minutes telling me about her friend that she had gone to meet the other day. Appearently, her friend, Marit (female ;-)), came to town to ski, and that they had gotten together to reminse the ol' days. Then, she asked something I really hasn't expected...she asked if I would like to join them tonight at a club downtown. I was like, "Yeah...duh...Of course!!!" :-) I couldn't turn this down!

I woke up Darin to tell him about the invitation and ask if he was going to have dinner that night in the motel, then come out with us. He said no, he was just going to stay sleeping and take it easy. I couldn't believe it! Oh well... I got over it and got ready to go out. :-)

Rasmus, a seemingly cool guy who also worked at the motel as a dishwasher, and Elise rode with me, while Vibeke, Mette, and one other young girl (sorry, I don't recall her name) rode with Mindor in his car. As we made our way up into Marits motel, Elise's' friend, we found her waiting for us in the bar with a few Swedish gentlemen whom she had met while staying there. We all just took off out jackets and made ourselves comfortable at the table directly behind them. Marit came over and socialized with us for awhile, then, trying not to be too unsociable with her other friends, began switching back and forth between tables.

About twenty minutes after we had arrived, Marit came back over to our table and asked me to come with her to the other table so she could introduce me to her Swedish friends. I was like, "Why?" Thinking what's up with this? She responded, "I want to introduce them to my American friend!" So, not wanting to disappointed her, I casually got up and walked over. Feeling like a complete idiot who was being put on display at a kindergarten Show and Tell event, I just simply stood there looking at all six of them, shaking their hands, while she introduced me.

Now, I had heard stories about what the Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish people all think about each other, from all of my new friends. Kind of like each one is a joke to the other. But, it's a weird relationship. I say this only because this is how I understood it: If a group of Norwegian and Danish people are sitting in a bar, they will jokingly make fun of each other. However, if a Swedish person or group comes into that same bar, the Norwegian and Danish people will reconcile their differences and proceed to make jokes about the Swedes. Weird I know, but potentially fun I guess.

Anyway, getting back to the introduction. At that moment, the most predominant recollection of those stories, were of how all the Swedish men really cared about, or liked to do, was to sit around drinking beer. Kind of a fitting picture, wouldn't you agree? :-) So, after my few minutes of complete embarrassment, I sat back down at the other table.

We ended up not staying there too much longer, and walked down the street to another quaint pub hidden down a back alley-sorta-street. It was kind of cool though because we had to walk down into it from the sidewalk. But after walking through the busy, but not too crowded bar, we reached the back wall and turned in and walked up a flight of stairs, bringing us up to an empty street-level bar. To my knowledge, it was an extention of the one downstairs. I though it was really cool actually. Neither the pub downstairs or upstairs was very big, so with all eight of us, soon to be more after the Swedes arrived, it was very comfortable.

We sat around discussing everything from work to world peace, and basically just enjoying each others company. It was nice! As the night rolled on, and the beers went down, I just couldn't help stepping beside myself a couple of times and think, "Wow, this is so cool!" The trip was finally beginning to unravel into everything I had hoped it would be...

With the exception of Elise and I, who had been drinking cokes all night because we were driving the two cars back, everyone had drunk themselves into a hunger. So, before heading back to the cars, we all stopped at this little hole-in-the-wall called Poco Loco. Everyone, except me because I wasn't hungry, ordered some variant of the Poco Loco Special, which looked like a three patty hamburger, on a humungous bun, and layered in all sorts of condiments, including a garlic sauce.

Getting back to Les Bec Rouge around 3:30am, I went to my room and fell into a deep content sleep. I dreamt of the days ahead and, even though nearly impossible, hoped they were only going to get better. :-)

I think he was being sympathetic because he knew I got in late, and didn't bother asking me if I was going to eat breakfast. Before he came back up to the room though, I had finally dragged my tired butt out of bed and into the shower, dressed, and was getting ready for another awesome day on the slopes. He came in just as I was leaving the room, and said he was going to get ready too, and that we'd meet down in the lobby. "KewlKewl bro!" I answered.

I wasn't really in the mood for breakfast and just sat at the cafebar drinking a cappo. Elise was there and we began talking a bit about the days possibilities. Good thing too because she said her brother, Mindor, his girlfriend Vibeke, and friends Karen Marie and Rasmus were going up to Le Tour that day to go skiing. I was like "Cool!, maybe we all could head up there together and make a day of it!"

"Ok," she said. "I'll call and wake him up and see if that's what he wants to do."

"No, no, that's ok... Let him sleep. I can wait a little while and we'll talk to him when he comes down, no biggie..." I didn't feel right waking him up, so opted to just wait it out. So, after my cappo, I went up to the room to see if Darin was interesting in doing that...waiting around a bit and going up with a whole group instead of just us two again.

"Yeah sure, man. That will be really cool!" he answered. So, we went back downstairs and sat around till Mindor came down. However, despite my request otherwise, Elise did call and wake him up, haha. Oh well. So much for trying... :-)

After a brief discussion of the prospect, Mindor ate, got ready, and all of us headed up to Le Tour for another great day.

For the first hour we stayed on front of the resort, doing run after run, never getting tired. It was really cool being there with them. Rasmus was the only other boarder in the group, besides Darin and I, and we would often scream down the mountain in almost a race-like fashion, testing our limits. He was like me and often grew impatient waiting for the others, so we stuck together and rode up the lift with whomever out of our group was at the chair lift from the last run. He had a cool sense of humor, loved talking about boarding, and had a very interesting life-thusfar story that I enjoyed listening to. We got along great.

After awhile, we all met at the top and talked about going around to the backside, where there were endless trails that went all the way down to a train station at the bottom. From there, we could hop on it and ride to a little drop off point not too far down the road from the motel. It sounded really neat so of course I was in. So, after a short break, we where all going around to the back side. About half way we stopped and waiting for those behind us to catch up. Counting heads we came up one short. Darin was missing! Vibeke and I agreed to stay behind waiting for him while the others continued on. A few minutes had passed and Vibeke turned around, skiing back about one-hundred feet to look around the last bend we had come around. She couldn't see him. So, we waited another minute or so, scanning the bare mountainside, and finally came to the conclusion that he didn't come with us as we thought. Surely we would be able to see him if something had have happened to him. The entire length we had just come across was clear and unobstructed. Content with our conclusion, we turned and went to meet up with the rest of the group.

The backside trail we choose was long and curvy. Nearly two kilometers I'd guess. There were steep slopes ending in long level grounds that carried us to the next steep decent. And totally different from the front side of the mountain, the entire back was encompassed in forest. It was great! I was sorry that Darin hadn't made it back here with us, but surely would tell him of what he missed..

Once reaching a split point, where we could either continue down to the train station or hop back on a lift to do this run again, we chose the latter. It was so smooth and relaxing, it was a nice change from the spirited runs of the front side. We continued down it once more, but then our hunger set in, and we set out for the restaurant on the front side.

While eating, we dicussed going down to the train station, and decided that we would save that as our last run of the day. So, till 3 o'clock we sculptured the front side, having a sweet time enjoying each others companys, but still unable to locate Darin.

When 3 o'clock came, we all made our way to the back side of Le Tour to the last lift we had taken before, and took a quick break before decenting down all the way to the station. Sitting there on their asses, about twelve snowboarders waited for the remainder of their group to strap in, then stood up before going down toward the bottom. They all seemed hesitant at first, but looked more than capable, so I told Rasmus to hold up. I thought it would be best to let these guys to go down first, give them a couple minutes head start, then we'd all go down after them. Well, what seemed like a good idea, turned out to be a less than perfect plan.

Just to give you a feel for the run, its a zig zag pattern all the way down. Kind of narrow yes, but very easy to accomplish nonetheless. However, we hadn't even rounded the first zig before having to slow down because two of the boarders had fallen, and were taken up nearly the whole width of the trail. Gliding passed the fallen boarders, I glanced back at Rasmus and we both just kind of smiled.

Now, thinking "Ok, these two must be the inexperienced of the bunch..." But no, that wasn't to be proven true. As we rounded the second zag, three more had fallen, entangled in each others board somehow, and looking really stupid in the process of trying to free themselves. As we continued down, we passed by three or four more of them as they appeared to be having difficulty. Getting sick of it all, and not too surprised to see two more had collided around the next corner, I took to the high road to pass by them. Rasmus was only a few feet behind me and followed suit. As we came back level, Rasmus was directly to my left and on the edge facing down the mountain. Having little room to maneuver, or slow down in the narrowness of the trail, Rasmus tried turning in to slow down a bit, allowing me to continue on without incident. Well, that was the subliminal plan anyway, haha. His board caught mine, bringing my board in towards his, then we both fell back over the steep edge down the mountainside. Luckily, Rasmus' board-front got caught on a tiny sprouting tree, and grabbed it in time with his hand, so as to stop our tumbling fall down. We just kind of lay there upside down for a minute, looking up at the others who had stopped to help where they could, and began laughing. It was a pretty horrendous crash, but unpreventable and slightly humbling, I guess. All in good fun though! Haha.

Since we had already passed all the downed snowboarders, we made it to the bottom without any further incidents. Once at the station we discovered we had just missed the 3:45 train and had a 45 minute wait till the next one. So, we purchased our tickets, sat down in an ajoining pub, and joked about the latest mishap.

The train dropped up off only a couple hundred yards down the road from the Les Bec Rouge, just as Rasmus had descibed it would. I was pretty happy when we entered the parking lot and spotted the rental car Darin and I had rented, signaling his safe return.

That night we all were pretty beat and tired. We ended up staying in that night and didn't go anywhere. We played pool in the basement for awhile, joking around, then went to bed early.

At 9am, as I entered the lobby of the motel looking for her, I spotted the soon-to-be-sore-boarder-wannabe sitting in the kitchen eating breakfast. :-) I kind of signaled off to her the time, meaning I was ready to go, and she acknowledged with a shy grin. I just chuckled and went into the cafe bar for my morning cappo while waiting for her. Darin came in and asked if I was ready... "Just waiting on Mette," I said.

As we walked up onto the bunny slopes, Mette mentioned something about being nervous. I was like, "Ah, don't worry about it, you'll be fine..." Words of encouragement always seem to help. But, at the sametime, I couldn't help but think of the first year I had started boarding. I remembered riding up to the mountain, and the closer we would get to the resort, the more my stomach would cringe. Not in a bad way of course, just with the feeling of butterflies all around inside my stomach. I would remember my last time up and thinking about how good and how bad I had been....hoping that this time I would be better. Usually everything just clicked and I would have a good day. Needless-to-say, I was hoping Mette would have a similar experience and enjoy the learning curve.

Two hours into her lesson, it became appearent she was becoming frustrated with the whole thing. We would walk up slope, strap her in, and I'd guide her step-by-step on what to do. I continued to tell her what to expect, and kept feeding her compliments...regardless of her progress. To me, whether she had made it twenty feet without falling or two hundred, just being there and having the courage to try something new was a feat in itself. I respected that! I respected her.

Seeing the frustration in her eyes, I knew it was time to take a break. Being lunch time anyway. We walked over to L'Olympique, sat outside on the porch in the sunshine, and ordered a couple cokes and some fries. We talked about the things she needed to work on, mostly just letting go of the fear of pointing the board directly down the hill, and discussed her life in general.

"There were times, when listening to everything you were saying, then me falling again...I just wanted to take my board and hit you over the head with it!" she said.

"What do you mean, why?" I asked.

"Because...no matter how bad I was really doing, you'd always tell me, 'that's ok, you're looking good...getting better!', and I just didn't think so."

I couldn't help laughing, it was funny! I remember feeling a similar feeling when I was learning. Not that I had someone teaching me, but I remembered feeling really bad because I could barely stand up, not to mention go forward any great distance. :-)

After a bite to eat we headed back over to the bunny slopes to get in some more practice. Taking a break himself, Darin came walking over looking pretty happy.

"Hey dude, you'll never guess what I've found out today!" He said.

"What's that Bro?"

"Well, I went and switched my bindings to 'goofy' and now I can carve a lot better and everything!!!"

"Right on, dude! And all this time you've been boarding 'regular'... Well, at least now whenever you get yourself in a jam you can pull a switch to safe your ass!" I said. Haha.

You see, for boarders who go screaming down a mountain at Mach 2, sometimes a hard piece of ice or something might knock the board outta whack, causing the rider to lose control and lay the wrong edge down, resulting in a crash. And when I say switch, I mean he'll literally be able to keep the rhythm by just letting the board continue rotating, shifting his weight, and ride it out....backwards. Imagine doing that on skis! I DON'T THINK SO! Hahahaha. Anyway, he was thrilled about this new discovery, and I was happy for him. He had been having a good time, but I knew he wanted to do better and now he'd be able to. :-)

I continued working with Mette and finally began making some progress. She was able to go quite far now without falling, and had good control over slowing down and stopping. Now, if I could just get her past the fear of letting the board go straight down, and get enough speed to control her turns. This is usually the most difficult thing to do for newbies. Of course, then there are those that just start out with no fear and go 'balls-to-the-walls' the first few runs till they either hurt themselves, or it clicks how to control their direction and speed. Regardless, it still beats work, any day!

Nearing three o'clock, she was getting pretty good. We had moved to a wider, more level spread, where she appeared more comfortable. Even though a considerable amount of progress had been made, Mette's legs were showing signs of fatigue, and I knew she was ready to call it a day.

"Ok, how about we call it a day AFTER you show me one short, straight run. Where you go down the hill, turn in, then stop. And all without falling. Ok?" I asked.

"Alright. I'll try."

We walked up the slope about 50 yards, stepped into our boards, and I went first. Slowing I went down, demonstrating exactly what I wanted her to do. I pointed my board straight down, gaining some momentum as I reached the bottom, then turned inward and stopped. I looked up and signaled to her to come on down. Obviously cautious, she stood up and began plowing her way down. When she was comfortable, she pointed her board towards me and let the fear go. I could see the anxiety rising. Her eyes grew larger and a little smile creeped across her face. She kept glancing up at me in spurts, but nervously kept her main focus on the ground passing beneath her. Twenty feet infront of me was a little dip that leveled out to where I was standing. As she reached and came down it, her body twitched and she almost lost it then. But, it wasn't till she rounded in a turn, coming almost to a complete stop, before she fell. She looked up at me obviously happy about her near perfect descent, but still a little frustrated about finishing it with a fall.

"One more?" I asked.

"Sure, ok! Just let me sit here a minute though, ok?"

"Alright, but remember, one short perfect run before we go! Ok?"

"Ok," she answered, while taking off her board.

We hiked back up the slope to where we were before, stepped into our boards, and I took off down the hill first again. Completeing a duplicate run, I turned and watched Mette as she came down. Slightly more confident than the last time, she descended the small hill, made it past the dip, and completed the turn coming to a complete stop. Beautiful run!

"Great! Everything feel good that time?" I asked.

"Yeah, it did. I'm still a little unsure of myself, but I did it!"

Right on! How about just one more time for closure, huh?"

"Alright, just one more time..." she answered, looking at me almost as if I was chancing her great finish. I just smiled and headed back up the hill for our final descent. Everything was perfect.

We met up with Darin by L'Olympique, packed our gear in the car, and drove down to the motel.

For the rest of the afternoon we all sat around the pool table playing teams, bragged about Mette's successful first day at snowboarding, and made plans to go out that night to the Office Pub for a little celebration. When 6pm rolled around, Mette, Karen Marie, Elise, Mindor, Vibeke, and a couple others who worked there, went up to eat dinner in the kitchen. Meanwhile, Darin and stayed downstairs and continued playing pool till dinner was served for the guests in the dining room.

We had only played one or two games when I accidentally send the cue ball flying off the table while breaking. Unfortunately, the only thing to stop it was two glass-framed doors leading to the outside. The ball flew off the table, bouncing off the concrete floor once, then shattered the lower left hand pane on the left door. It didn't make too much noise, but Darin and I just looked at the door, then looked at each other. My heart sunk and a bead of sweat skirt my brow.

"Oh no! God damn it!" I said. "So much for another perfect day."

Darin just kind of looked at me with his boyish grin and shrugged his shoulders.

We talked about it for a minute, trying to place blame on any inanimate object, as us humans always do, but then wisened up and found some clear wide-tape and patched it up. The owners of the motel had already departed for the day, so we just told the manager who was working, and left it at that. I said to put it on our bill and I told Darin I'd cover it. No biggie. :-) However, at one point, the grandfather of Hanne and Peter, the owners, came down and inspected the window. I didn't know what he was saying at the time, because he was speaking Dutch or something, but when he turned around, little old me sitting on the couch at the other end of the room had my hand raised up signaling that it was I who had broken the window. He just walked back through the room and up the stairs, back to the lobby. I asked Rasmus what the old man was saying and he told me, "He kept repeating 'Who did this, Who did this?'" Now, I don't know about you, but I had suspicions that if it had been one of the staff, the old man would have went off on whomever it had been. But, since it was me, one of the guests in the motel, he just clamped his jaws and held it in.

I could tell that this old man had put some pretty dark spots on the staffs minds in the past. I could literally feel the tension in the air when he came down into the room. Everyone just sort of cringed, and I swear I could almost see their skin crawl. Now I began understanding the sarcastic 'line' "Grandpa's Watching!" Just something they would often repeat. Boy, was I glad I didn't work there!

A couple minutes after he had left the room, everyone finally began to relax and talk 'normal'.

While Darin went up to eat dinner, I stayed down below chatting with everyone. Now, maybe it's just me, but over the past couple days, we - meaning the staff and I (and darin)- had become pretty good friends. I think we had each others trust, etc. So, it just didn't feel right for me to go eat in the dining room anymore. Having Elise and one other girl, Debbie, wait on us as if we were strangers felt kind of odd. I'd rather have been able to eat with all of them in the kitchen than anything else. So, instead of satisfying my hunger, I enjoyed their company and stayed down where the pool table was.

When Darin was finished eating, Mette, Karen Marie, Rasmus, Darin and I headed out to the Office. Everyone else either had to work the next day, or was too tired to join us. So, off we went.

It was kind of neat hanging out with these three because they were noticably close. A tight group of individuals in their early twenties only wanting to experience life to it's fullest, yet there to protect each other incase something ever went wrong while doing so.

We grabbed ourselves a table and I just sat back and listened to them joke around, letting them talk about their lives, and soaking in the atmosphere. It was pretty funny. Every now and then someone would make a comment that would sound as if were from a popular movie, for instance Austin Powers, and Darin and I would ramble on a few lines of our own that we had memorized from watching it so many times. Well, of course none of them knew what in the heck we were talking about and just looked at us like we were out of our minds. Mette however had seen the first Austin Powers movie, so she kind of knew what we were talking about. But Rasmus and Karen Marie were lost. :-)

We were even able to teach them a few American jokes here and there. For example, whenever Darin and I would make a joke and no one understood it, like the Austin Powers jokes, we taught them 'the deer looking in the headlights sign'. That's where you raise your hands up, placing your thumbs on your temples, and spreading your fingers out while looking dazed and confused. Another one was the "L" on the forehead look. You know the one, where you create a "L" shape with your right thumb and index finger, placing it on the forehead, signaling who ever is talking is a 'loser'. Well, that backfired once. Rasmus had asked a question about boarding or something, and I began explaining whatever it was to him. I was looking down at the table I guess, when all of a sudden Mette put the "L" on her forehead. Everyone started laughing! I looked up but it was too late. She had already put her hand down and I didn't see it, so then I was like the 'deer in the headlights'. Duh, Double whammy! Boy ol' boy, what a dork I am! Hahaha. We had fun though.

Karen Marie had gotten up to get another drink when Mette let out an "Oh No!"

"What is it Mette?" I asked.

"Over on the chalkboard by the bar, it says Karen Marie's favorite soccer team is playing on TV tonight and it started ten minutes ago." She said.

"Yeah, so…?" I asked.

"Well if she sees it, we won't see her again until the game is over. I think they're playing it on a TV downstairs." She explained.

I was thinking to myself, 'Ok, what's the big deal, it's just a soccer game!' I know all kinds of people who are die-hard sport fans, but that doesn't necessarily mean they'll just take off and leave the rest of the group hanging. Not just for one game anyway. It wasn't a championship match or anything.

Karen Marie came back to the table and sat down after getting another drink and we just picked up the conversation where we had left off. No more than five minutes after that, she jumped up, not saying a word, and ran around the corner where the stairs lead downstairs.

"Well, there she goes. She must have just noticed the sign." Mette said.

So, as the night rolled on, we would all checked in to see how she was fairing from time to time. Whenever we'd go down to the toilet we would bring her a beer, and making sure she wasn't killing whomever was sitting next to her during the game. I was a little amazed because she was absolutely nuts about the game. I think to say she was a fanatic about 'her' team would best describe it, really. She was practically bouncing off the walls whenever the team she was rooting for would get close to making a goal, or smash her chair with her fists whenever they made a mistake. The rest of the world was forgotten and the only thing that mattered at that moment was 'her' team winning. Unfortunately, when the game finished, the score was 0-1. It just wasn't their night. And boy did we know it! She came back upstairs, sat at the table looking like she had just found out her family had been blown up, and continued to curse the world as if it was everyone's fault she was mad. Slightly barbaric, but attractive at the same time too. Odd.

I loved listening to Mette. She had a sense of 'real' to her that none of the others had. Standing a good six-feet tall without heals, she was the type of woman you just know had to have played basketball and volleyball at some point in her life. The other night when we had all gone to the other bar, I asked her where she had learned to speak English so well. She simply said at home, but that her sister had gone to America, Minnesota I think, and that she had picked up a lot from her. In order to hear an audible accent from her, I had to pay really close attention to what she was saying; otherwise I couldn't distinguish if she was from California or her native country of Denmark. It was remarkable.

By then it was getting pretty late, and Mette had to work in the morning, so we headed back to the motel and called it another perfect day in the Alps. Of course, that one mishap with the cue ball was the only thing stopping it from being absolutely perfect…but if you won't bring it up, neither will I.J Haha.

Terribly contradicting though was that this day was one of those days I had been looking forward to. Simply because of one reason and one reason only. Elise was coming with us. After asking her to accompany us last Sunday or Monday, she finally was able to get a day off from work and join us on the mountain. Every bone in my body was saying today would be a wonderful day.

When I walked down and entered the lobby, I glanced over and saw Helene sitting at the front desk. Hesitantly, but anxious to get it past me, I walk over to discuss the details of how the window down stairs had been broken, and how I would make good on the accident.

I'm terribly sorry about the window." I said.

"Yes, well, it does create a bit of a problem for us. Mainly because we have a conference to host beginning this Friday, but I just got off the telephone with a repair man who should be able to come up here this morning and fix it." She explained.

"That's great! Would you prefer I pay you for it now, or would you rather just putting it on our bill?" I asked.

"Just adding it to you're bill will be fine. If you would, could you please clarify something for me?" She asked.

"Of course, what is it?" I asked.

Are you sure it was YOU who broke the window, and your not just trying to cover it up for one of our staff members here who really might have?" She asked.

I was in shock! This woman thought I was trying to save one of my new friends whatever, by taking the blame for him or her. "Of course I AM SURE! The only two people down there at the time when it happened was myself and Darin. We had begun a new game when I broke, the ball flew off the table, then bounced off the floor and broke the window!"

"Oh ok" she said. "I just wanted to make sure you hadn't been asked to cover for one of their mistakes..."

"No, of course not... I broke it, it's my fault, and I'm here to accept the blame and responsibility for it. That's all! Thank you for your time, good day!" I said then walked away.

I couldn't believe the audacity of that woman. What a witch! No wonder none of the staff was happy working there. Anyway...Moving right along...

Two's company but three's a crowd is certainly a true statement at times, however, get five, six, or even more, and you've got yourself a blast in the making!

Elise's friend, Marit, came to the motel that morning, along with one other female friend of hers, to join us for our last day on the slopes. Mindor and his girlfriend Vibeke were all set and ready to head out with us too. So, ensuring we got a full day in, we were all set, out the door, and on our way to Brevent by 9:30am.

I admit I was curious to see how well Elise could ski. We had known each other for almost a week now, and it seemed that every time I would compliment her on something, she would simply dismiss it as a kind gesture. When in fact it was an honest and sincere comment. She was very modest that way. When I had asked her how good of a skier she was, she had given me her typical, very simple, and modest answer. "Oh, not very good actually, I'm still just learning." Well, that was almost the identical answer she had given me about her French not too long ago, which to me meant she was pretty good because she spoke French rather well.

Because I didn't get a chance to earlier, please let me explain to you what Elise really looks like through my eyes. She is a slender woman, standing close to, or a bit more than 5'11", with long chestnut brown hair, and intrigingly soulful blue-gray eyes. A stong woman by heart and mind, but fragile at first appearance, her face reflects the many experiences she has thus far accomplished, with a look of tranquility I seldom witness. It's sculptured in the way I usually only see on the cover of womens magazines; perfectly porportioned, long yet narrow, with cheek bones touched by the hand of god himself. At first I was seduced by her beauty, but had since found an equal librium we both could accept. I rid myself of the animalistic instincts I first made reference to at the beginning of this adventure, and replaced them with the gentleman curtousy that often goes unnoticed.

We reached the mountain and paid for our passes, then boarded the gondola that took us to the middle of the mountain, the base of the resort. Everyone seemed to be used to this type of transportation with one exception, Elise. She was afraid of heights. So anytime the cable would jerk, making the gondola shift, she would tense up, close her eyes, then open them with a sign of hope shining out. Darin and I would instinctively talk to her about something other than the ride, obviously trying to occupy her mind with something else, but I doubted it was helping very much.

Finally we reached the top of the gondola ride and boarded a short chair lift ride that brought us up over one final hill, to a place where we had our choice of runs.

Brevent, as described in my Day Four (Monday) memoirs, is a good sized resort with lots of choices for terrain. For starters, we all stayed on the initial blue runs, allowing everyone to become reacquainted with it, and get into the groove of things. Darin headed down first, obviously enjoying his newly discovered 'goofy' talents, and disappeared over the first down-grade. Mindor and Vibeke were next, followed by Marit and her friend. I waited briefly until after Elise had shoved off, but quickly passed by her just before the first slope where I had watched Darins head disappear. I caught up to Marit, who was probably the most finessed skier in the group, and we both stopped a couple hundred yard down to observe the rest of the groups progress. We waited there till everyone caught up to us, then turned and continued down to the lift.

On our third descent, I had thought it was agreed we would all go up to Col Cornu for something more challenging. However, after stopping at the lift that would bring us there, I found myself alone. Five minutes passed and still no sign of them. I could see down to the other lift that we had been taking, and thought for just a second that I had spotted Elise, but wasn't sure. So, since I was already there, I decided to hop on the lift and continue up without them.

My first time down Col Cornu was interesting, to say the least. I was quickly thrown back in time to when I had come down it Monday, and suddenly realized I needed to proceed with a little more than the usual caution. My second descent was with more control, but still after no sign of the rest of the group, I continued past the fork, staying right, so as to go to previous lift.

Once at the top, I met up with Darin again. He told me that we were all to meet at the very top of Brevent at 1pm, which we had to take a cable car to reach, and we'd have lunch together. It was only 12:20pm then, so Darin and I took two more runs on the blue runs before heading up. I took note that he had make a considerable amount of progress in his boarding abilities since our first time here, and let him know by telling him so.

When we reached the restaurant at the top of Brevent, the pinnacle of a towering cliff face, we stood in awe at the scenery. All of the Alps surrounded us and we could see for miles and miles, just as we could at Aiguille Du Midi. We weren't quite as high up as we were then, but is was magnificent nonetheless.

We strolled around the outter deck of the place insearch of our friends. No luck. Thinking they might have thought it too coold to eat outside, we searched the inside. Still, no luck.

"Huh, must be they haven't come up yet." I said.

"Nope. Do you want grab a table out on the deck so we can see them when they get off the cable car?" Darin asked.

"Sure, sounds good. A lot better views out there anyway!, Haha." I answered.

Sure enough, Mindor, Vibeke, Marit and her friend showed up as the next car unloaded. Since there were only four seats per table, Mindor and Vibeke sat with Darin and I, while Marit and her friend chose a table two down from ours. We would have placed them together, only there was a few people sitting at the table inbetween us, and the rest of the padio was full. So, we had to sit seperately.

"Where's Elise?" I asked Mindor.

Looking at me with a humorous smile, he said "She's down at the bottom looking for you. We thought that you might still be boarding so she stayed down there looking to see if she could spot you, then tell you we were all up here. She'll be up on the next car though." He explained.

"Oh, ok." I said. But what I was thinking was '****, I missed it!' You see, a couple days earlier I had asked Elise if at sometime in the near future I could take just a few minutes of her time to talk to her about something that was on my mind. This would have been one of those perfect moments, but I missed it! Damn, I was running out of time!

Sure enough she walked off the next car up, and took a seat at Marit's table. Soon after, the couple between us left, and we swapped tables and brought the two together. We ate, took pictures (of which I still have to get developed), and had a good time joking and laughing. Marit and I hit it off pretty good too. We would sit there staring at each other as though in contempt, sometimes making rude but tasteful comments about the other, till finally one of us would give in and smile. It was almost flirtatious like, and all in good fun. She was cool! :-)

After finishing lunch, Darin, Elise, and Marit's Friend, took the cable car down, while the rest of us took the black run down the back side of the cliff. The first few turns seemed really calm, but about one third of the way down we stopped at what looked to be close to a 170 degree drop. It was pure ice and smoothed from skiers who had been going down it all day. On the sides of this 15-20ft wide drop was the only snow, simply residue scrapped from the ice layer, that lay ahead of us. I stood there for a moment watching the others descend, letting them get far enough ahead of me so as not to hit them if I lost control, then I began plowing the first few feet of it. Suddenly the edge of my board lost grip and I found myself sliding down on my ass. I tried desperately to dig my boards edge into the ice, but to no avail. I was gaining quite a bit of speed and had to do something quicky, so I just kept my boards edge scrapping along the ice, angling it towards the left side of the run, and began getting closer to the only snow available. Finally I reached it, popped up with what little traction I had, and proceeded to go down 'balls-to-the-wall' the rest of it till I reached better snow. It didn't take but a second to catch up and pass the others. I slowed down and stopped about 100 feet ahead of them, then continued down the rest of it in a controlled and stable manner. :-) :::whew:::

We caught up with Darin and Elise who had stayed on the blue runs, and after a couple of runs there, all of us except Darin went up to Col Cornu. The sun had worked it's magic on the snow, softening it up a bit, and we took a good four or five runs there before calling it quits. We met back up with Darin, and a couple of the others who didn't stay up on Col Cornu after the first run, and headed back down the mountain in the Gondola. I really wanted to just keep going down the mountain, off-piste, but reluctantly remained with the group.

We made plans for all of us to go out to dinner that night, to a restaurant Elise highly recommended, but first stopped off at Marits motel while we waited for her to shower and freshen up. We waited in the bar of course, and who do you think we saw upon entering. Yep, the Swede's were in there! Doing just what I had hear they do best...drinking! Haha.

When the girls were ready, we departed and made out way to the restaurant. It turned out to be a quaint little establishment, with the decore of an older time. Soon after receiving our meal, the staff, all dressed out in an old French/Swiss fashion, began dancing in the center of the place. It was similar to folk dancing, but the best way I can describe it is to call it 'foreign square dancing'. You get the picture I'm sure.

Marit and I continued our squabbling, and the rest of the group sat and talked. We were enjoying ourselves immensily. And why shouldn't we? This was certainly the best vacation I had ever been on, and I was getting that same vibe from Darin. It was a great day, one of the best, and I tried with all my might not to think about having to leave the following morning.

Unfortunately, the moment had to come to an end, and we said our goodbye's to Marit and her friend outside, who were going back to their motel. We strolled through the streets of Chamonix for a bit, on our way back to where we had parked the cars, then drove to Les Bec Rouge.

We all put our stuff away, then gathered down around the pool table for a little while before bed.

I looked over and notice that the window had been fixed, and then we set up to play a few games of pool. Of course, whenever someone would break, another person would go and stand in front of the doorway windows so as to avoid breaking it a second time, :-).

Looking around the room at Darin, Mindor, Elise, and Vibeke, they all looked completely drained of any energy and sat there like zombies. It was kind of funny because I felt that same way, but didn't want this day to end for anything. Unfortunately, it was useless thinking about it, and Elise was the first to excuse herself.

I was so disapponted then. I had wanted so badly to have a private conversation with her, but my time was almost up and I couldn't think of any good reason to go and disturb her.

Finally, five minutes after she had left, I faked a yawn and excused myself. I walked up to the first floor where her room was and paced around for what seemed like an hour. Very slowly I creeped up to her door and listened for a moment. I could see a light was on, as it shined from underneath the door, but there was no noise coming from within. Finally, I lightly knocked on the door.

Dressed only in a long t-shirt that stopped a few inches above her knees, she stood there looking at me with her tired eyes.

"Elise, I'm really sorry to come and intrude on your privacy like this. I realize it may be somewhat unacceptable, but I would really like to talk to you about what I've had on my mind these past few days. Is this alright?" I asked

"Yes, sure. Come in." she answered, then shut the door behind me.

"Look, I apologize for this. It's just that I've been wanting to talked to you alone now for awhile, but never got the opportunity. Tonight is our last night here, and I just couldn't leave without telling you something."

"Ok..." She answered, then sitting down on her bed, slid her legs underneath the covers and leant back against the wall.

"Well, the main thing that's been bothering me is the fact that we haven't been completely honest with you. Yes, a couple nights ago Darin told you that we work for the Navy. And we do. He is as he's stated, a construction man of sorts, while I am as we've stated, involved a lot with computers. However, the truth is that we are IN the navy, not just working with them. We didn't want to talk about it, or let you all know about it, mainly because more often than not, where ever we go in the world, when someone finds out we're in the navy, their first reaction is like 'Oh, ok... and how do I forget we ever met?' So you see, we only wanted you all to get to know us for who we are, and not what we do. Do you understand what I'm saying?" I explained.

"Yes, I do. And I don't think that's anything you should be afraid to tell anyone." She answered.

"No, no, of course not. We're not afraid to talk about it, we just thought it best to leave it on the back burner and not discuss it at all. That way we could all just talk about each others lifes and not about each others work. For me, other times when I go somewhere and happen to meet new people, once they find out I'm in the navy, that's all they want to talk about. There are the times when we meet new people, and when they find out we're in the U.S. military, all they want to do is start trouble and pick a fight. It's difficult to explain, but that's all I really wanted to say. You all have been so nice to us and I just couldn't leave without telling you the whole truth. I wanted to tell you a few days ago because it was troubling me, but we never got the chance to be alone."

"Oh, I see." She said, looking at me curiously.

"You look like you were expecting me to tell you something else?" I asked.

"Well, yes...kind of. I thought you wanted to tell me to watch out for Darin. Like he might try something if we were ever alone or something." She answered.

"What? You thought what?" I said in disbelief. I was confused. "Darin is like one of the most gentlemanly guys I know! Why would you think that?" I asked.

"Oh, I don't know. Nevermind." She said.

"Ok." I said. I decided to let that one go. But, in the back of my mind I was thinking 'Ok, maybe she thinks I was going to try and persuade her not to persue Darin or something, as if to act maliciously in my own interest.' Huh, Interesting...

I quickly changed the subject, tried reemphizing why I had come to her room in the first place, then moved on to more personal topics such as her life before Chamonix and such.

We sat there in her room and talked for quite awhile, till 3:30am actually, but then I could tell I was over staying my welcome. And regardless how much I was enjoying her company, when she mentioned having to wake up early in the morning for work, that was all the signaling I needed that it was time to go. I thanked her for staying up so late and talking with me, and gracefully snuck back into my room where Darin was fast asleep.

I laid in my bed wide awake for awhile thinking about all we had just discussed. I wished there was something I could do to rid her from the misery of working there, and hoped that there would come a day when we could continue where we had left off. However, I did get the closure I needed from her, yet wanted to no ends, another opening that would allow me the time to get to know who this woman really is. Finally, my drowsiness won the battle in my mind, and I drifted off to sleep.

"Good morning." I said.

"Good Morning to you too." he answered.

"I don't want to leave!" I grumbled.

"Haha, yeah I know what you mean." He said.

"So where did you disappear to last night?" He asked me, with a long grin, as if expecting to hear somethin he wasn't going to.

"Oh, well I couldn't sleep and went for a long walk." I answered.

"Yeah...sure you did!" He answered, in obvious disbelief.

I got up, took a shower, then got ready to go down and join Darin for breakfast. When I got down there though, Darin informed me that there wasn't a table with our number on it. I guess since we weren't staying there that night, breakfast wasn't included for the morning of our departure. Oh well. We had to go downtown to the ATM anyway, so we'd make our first stop at the McDonalds for something to eat, haha.

When we arrived back to the motel, we finished packing up our things, put them in the car, and went back in to pay our bill. I saw Elise was in the dining room so I gave Darin my share of the money, including my accidental funds :-), and went in to say goodbye to her for the last time. With the will and grace as I had seen in her the first time we met, she leant over and gave me nice European kiss fairwell.

"Thank you so much for everything. You are so kind and I'll never forget that about you." I said in all sincereity.

I don't recall if she had said anything after that or not. I was too involved in tracing her face in my mind so I would never forget it. There wasn't lust, and it definately wasn't love. Just a feeling of sincereness, longing, and a sense that I could identify with her and who she is.

Mette and Karen Marie came upstairs, and soon after, so did Mindor and Vibeke. We exchanges goodbyes, handshakes and hugs, and began walking out the door.

I stopped just outside the front door, before continuing on down the steps, and looked back inside to see if I could capture one last image of Elise. She wasn't there.

Mette and Karen Marie were the only ones that followed us outside. The walked with us to the car as we talked about a possible future rendevous. We had already exchanged email address' and invited them down to Sicily. They looked pretty enthused about the idea of it, but I can't any predictions on if they will or not.

Turning one final time, before getting in the car, I looked to see if Elise was there somewhere... She was not. Waving to Mette and Karen Marie as we left, Darin pulled out of the driveway, and we were on our way back to Geneva to catch our plane back to reality.

I hope you enjoyed my story. THE END :-)