I have never skied until I got to Canada. Poor me! I never knew how much fun that is! First time I skied was really terrible but a lot of fun, and the story is surely worthy of being told. Second time I skied in the US with all my friends, and on the third time there were four of us: two women from church, Timur and I. 

So, Canada... I was there visiting my sister and her family. My sister's friend with his daughter, my niece and I decided to have some fun  - to go skiing! Up to that day I've never skied. So here I am standing in those huge skiing boots with skis on them and... I cannot move! It took me nearly 20 minutes to get to the elevator! Actually, it wasn't an elevator - just a kind of rope-puller which was dragging people up the hill. While I was standing in line to the puller, I was causing tons of problems to those around me, as I tripped over my own skis like 5 times, and while falling pushed and grabbed others. Finally, came my turn when I was supposed to grab by-passing stick with my hands and legs. Well, it seemed easy when others were doing it, but in reality it was impossible for me! So here comes first one ... oops, couldn't hold it - it slipped out, now second one ... damn! why is it passing so fast!? third ... is it practically possible? People behind me were getting irritated! Thanks God, on fourth time I managed to grab the thing and stated moving up the hill. But... it didn't last long! I accidentally let the rope go and fell. Now I had to continue the rest of the way up by myself. Tell you what - that was no fun! Skis slid back down or to sides all the time! I guess that was a great show, because people who were watching me could hardly breathe from crazy laughing when I finally got to the top. But there was one girl, who I thought was just saint, because she came close to me and said: "Don't get disappointed now, give it a try - you'll like it." I am so grateful to her, because later I did like it a great deal! But before that I had to go through a lot of crushes. Just like in life, hah? 

Second time I skied in the US. Jane Jones (our coordinator) took all exchange students out to ski. Well, even second time was not less fun and, sure thing, not less challenge for me. The reason - this was a real skiing place with steep hills and turns. In comparison to this, that Canadian place was a tiny bunny hill. At the beginning I almost killed a few people because I didn't know how to turn while going down, so all that I was doing - just going straight down. Those of you, who have ever skied, know what crazy speed can be reached when you do not slow down with help of turns. Picture me shouting "Banzai" and flying down like a lightning! Thanks God, I did learn how to move and turn before I killed myself. That was when I began to get real pleasure from skiing. But there was not only me struggling: Timur got into trouble, hit a tree, and now he had a very cute redly-black eye; Marat was getting mad at the beginning because used to fall all the time, but later I saw him skiing pretty well and getting tons of pleasure; Lasha also seemed to have lots of fun, I wonder if he had done it before. Aliya got some extreme feelings not only from skiing but also from riding on mountain elevators, because they had no belts of security and one could easily fall out from a pretty big height. And Volodya did fall out (good thing, it wasn't too high at that point), which scared me to death, but not him, I do not know what can possibly scare this guy! We all skied all day long and even after skiing boots were off our feet and we were back at home we still felt skis on, all that we saw, when closing our eyes, were flying-by trees and we couldn't get rid of the feeling that we had to turn, turn and turn again.