First Days

Tree in our room

F and L 

Harumi-san 

view from hotel

A few photos of the first days. All is well. Snow was great one day but now it rained and there is very little to do but go on the groomed runs or practice finding avalanche beepers. H looked mildly alarmed when she saw how inept I was at finding her backpack in the snow and suggested we practice again tomorrow. If an avalanche falls on her with me as her only rescuer, she is a goner-san.
F had his first day of ski school today, but he and L came with me and Harumi yesterday when the snow was deep and fluffy and the sun came out. Lovely. The picture above is when she gave us chocolate mid way. Luis showed up with tiny little narrow skis his things dropping all over the place poles everywhere helmet half way on..glasses askew, and then proceeded to shred the powder like he was on proper skis. He reminds me so much of Charlie.....looks disorganized but get down to business. F can keep up, but it requires every ounce of mental concentration, and he is far from relaxed. Kept mumbling that he would like to go to the race course...a place he enjoys greatly with all that hard snow and order. In fact he beat thomas for the first time! Unfortunately Thomas proceeded to wake up and the next time really skimmed those gates...got his boot caught on one of them, spun around and banged his head quite hard. The rest of us were watching in total confusion- we could not understand who this person was who was in a crumple on the slope. It seems he will not go down without a fight...it might kill him but he will not hand over the reigns.
I have Harumi until the 28th and then she has someone else for me named, alarmingly, Lukas. meaning male and Austrian which are two characteristics I avoid when picking a ski partner....the only thing scarier is if his name were Schneider.