Skiing the French Alps

A few weeks ago I went on a trip with the international student organisation to Risoul, France for ten days of skiing and fun! Students from all over the Netherlands went, and we had a blast.

We left on the Friday evening, and after spending about 14 hours on a bus, woke to a stunning day and the mountains!

Risoul is the red dot that says 'Risoul'

Cute wee ski village!
 I busted out my crappy French every morning
 buying a fresh baguette for lunch. 

The first day few of us skied, I hadn't booked gear for that day and so chilled out on the deck playing cards. That night I fiercely represented NZ at the 'represent your nation' party.

The next day we woke to SNOW SNOW. Over the next few days we had a preposterous amount of the white stuff. One of the days hardly any of the lifts were open because the staff couldn't get up the road. So turns out it is possible to have just too much snow! But we still got plenty of skiing in :)

The view from our room

Taking the time to dive into powder. Couldn't resist :)

 Then YAY the weather cleared! The manic ski switch was flipped. We skied in the trees, went over the hill to a sister field called VARS, found an awesome bumpy slope and skied it four times in a row...

Beautiful views

Once I'd figured out how to ski the powder, it was off piste for us!

Did I mention the weather cleared?

Sun! Everyone had evidence of the nice weather tanned into panda faces

Lunch in the sun!

It wasn't all hard work skiing however! Every afternoon was happy hour, with cheap beer and a DJ. I perfected the art of dancing on the tables in ski boots.

Being able to ski right to the bar :)

We stayed in apartments right on the field, with bars and a deck right below us. It made for easy mornings, and also easy nights when we had to go to the Yeti bars dressed whatever costume it was that night.

Toga party on the last night :)

More NZ repping!

Dinner with my lovely roommates!
Gwen's Dutch but has spent tons of time in Mexico
 and Nina and Nuri are from Kazakhstan,
so we had lots of multi-cultural convos.

Countering the effects of the elements with a facemask!
Taking rolling on the floor laughing literally as we did it :)

Last day! After skiing until visibility got horrendous,
a few of us snuck into one of the accommodation buildings
with a pool and sauna.  

 Then it was back on the bus for the long ride home. It was an epic, unforgettable week!