When all Else Fails, Go Eat Lunch (781 hits)
Category: Quotes & StoriesRating: 1.58 on 13 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by The Walrus (View user info) at 2004-08-29 01:03:29 EDT
First off, I'm a teenager. As I've told many of you before, I'm not some 30 year old who lives at home with their parents and plays video games all day as I've been mistaken for before.
Alright so, as the story goes: Last winter, with my sister away at NYU for her freshman year, my parents decided to, after years of speculation, actually take a trip to Europe. I had always wanted to sight see around Europe and when I first heard the news I was psyched to head out. Then my mom announced that it would be a skiing trip.
Now, I'm not by any means a bad skier, nor do I have anything against the sport. I simply don't enjoy it like I do exploring foreign cities.
So when February came around and I got a week off of school, we immediately hopped on a plane for a seven hour flight to Geneva.
While browsing through the plane's brochure before takeoff, I stumbled across a page which boasted "Arcade games, such as Tetris, will be available for onboard entertainment". Being an avid Tetris fan, my hopes were yet again higher than the plane I was in.
Ends up only first class passengers can play Tetris.
So I ate peanuts as the first class ate their home baked chocolate chip cookies and tried to sleep in my uncomfortable, legroom absent seat as first class lounged in their reclining, private sofas.
Finally we arrived at our destination. Feeling thoroughly undervalued and completely fatigued I collapsed into a bus at the airport exit.
Here I realized how little french I actually knew from my two years of studying the language in class. While I was perfectly able to chat unhindered about my favorite sports and/or hobbies, I had no idea how to ask "is this seat taken?" and so I followed my parents awkwardly through the french speaking world I now was forced to adapt to.
I don't remember much more of that first night, as I slept through the majority of it. My memory cuts back in the next morning, at our mountainside hotel in the heart of the alps.
The food there is spectacular. I don't know how else to describe it. And so I ate a lot.
That day my parents and I went to rent our equipment, the shop just a few minutes walk from our inn. The place was completely crowded, forcing us to wait for over an hour to get to the front.
When finally ordering my skis they asked me a couple basic questions.
"How tall are you? How much do you weigh? What's your shoe size?" (of course in French)
I began to answer as best I could.
"I'm 5'11....
All I got was awkward stares.
Not having a clue as to the metric system, and speaking very little french, the next few minutes were quite frustrating. It makes no sense to me why the U.S doesn't just adopt the metric system and eliminate all these unnecessary confusions, but I'll save that for another post.
And so I eventually did get my skis, and my poles, and my boots. Oh ya, and my stylish bright green helmet. I was like Leonardo, the Ninja turtle, except Leonardo didn't wear ridiculously puffy ski jackets and snow pants. So I guess I was more like the Michelin man.
So any ways, we got all our gear and headed off to the slopes for our first day of skiing. For the next few days that's basically what we did, skied and ate. I'm not sure which more.
The only thing really noticeable about those days was my Dad's spectacular ability to wipe out.
Imagine a 6'3, 50 year old man rolling down the alps.
Ya, It was funny.
But then on the 5th day, it got exciting.
It started out like any other day, we picked up our equipment, headed to the slopes, jumped on a lift and about five minutes later reached the top.
My Dad, of course, being my dad, opted to go on a easier, more gradual slope, which my mom agreed to run with him.
I on the other hand, after 4 days of skiing was ready for something a bit harder and chose to ride a tougher slope down, on a big map adjacent to the lift exit it was quite clear they would end up in the exact same spot.
So they went their way and I went mine.
The trail was a good one, especially because I didn't have to keep checking behind me to see if my Dad was headed anywhere in my vicinity. I reached the bottom relatively quickly, we hadn't gone up the mountain all that far yet. My parents were not in sight, but I had figured I would beat them down and so I waited patiently for them to arrive.
As you've all probably guessed right about now, they never showed up.
After about an hour of waiting and people watching (a few of them definitely checking out my hot skiing attire) I gave up and started walking around the bottom of the slope.
Still no sign of the parents.
When all else fails, go eat lunch.
And that's what I did. Probably the best damn ham sandwich I've ever had.
When I had finished devouring my lunch, I realized I was hopelessly lost in the alps while knowing only a few basic phrases in the language. Obviously not a great spot to be in.
But I could atleast enjoy myself while I was at it, so I went back to find the lift I had came from and hopped into line. Slowly fighting and cutting my way to the front (for that is the French way!) I got to the lift, which took me back to where I had started the day earlier.
Here I decided to take the easier run my parents had taken before me, hoping to figure out what had gone wrong.
About halfway down, the trail split into two, all common sense pointed to this being the cause of the problem, it was obviously not hard to confuse my parents.
So I went down the "wrong way" to see where they would have ended up, I could see the trail merge up ahead with a steeper slope going down to a different lift. Ok, so if nothing else it makes sense now.
I gained some speed and headed out towards the trail head, running briefly horizontally across the trail before turning downwards.
Not too briefly to avoid a collision I'm afraid.
SMACK.
Apparently I tumbled nearly halfway down the slope unconcious. I don't remember much from here so I'll go on what I was told.
I awoke suddenly in the middle of the run, surrounded by people asking if I was Ok in a language I barely understood.
"Ca, va? Ca, va?"
"uhhhh....oui....."
So then from somewhere my Dad appears and takes me over to the ski patrol lodge, luckily for us postioned just a little ways away.
Here I tried to explain as best I could what was hurting.
They decided on putting me in a sled and having one of them pull me down. Considering how close we were to the bottom it made no sense to me, later I was told the sled cost us $500. It made a bit more sense from there on out.
I was put in the ambulance, escorted by my father and we pulled out of the parking lot, headed to the emergency room (they suspected I had a pretty decent concussion and a broken nose) situated just a few miles from the slope.
"Are you sure you feel OK" my dad asked?
"Ya, I'm fine," and then it hit me to ask "who did I crash into anyways?"
"No, It was more my fault," my dad replied "I really snowplowed the shit out of you didn't I"
And so by some crazy coincidence, or simply because my Dad can't ski, I spent the rest of my trip in bed, watching rugby. Which is an awesome sport by the way.
User Reviews
Submitted by The_Walrus (user info) at 2004-08-29 20:50:26 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
You bastard don't leave -2's without even a reason, go die you worthless piece of shit
Submitted by fartmilfone (user info) at 2004-08-29 19:03:32 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
No Comment
Submitted by sparkle_pink (user info) at 2004-08-29 18:59:12 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by charger (user info) at 2004-08-29 10:43:44 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Excellent.
Submitted by ThatOneGirl (user info) at 2004-08-29 08:55:00 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Nicely written! Yay, you can spell!
Skiing adventures often make good stories.
Submitted by Shank (user info) at 2004-08-29 04:46:36 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Nice very dtailed and quite the relatable anecdote.
Submitted by Disektor (user info) at 2004-08-29 04:26:25 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Michelin Man kicks ass.
Submitted by jack11058 (user info) at 2004-08-29 04:25:56 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Nicely done.
Submitted by oxanar (user info) at 2004-08-29 04:13:31 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
SMACK, Ce va?
Submitted by PWNstar (user info) at 2004-08-29 02:54:46 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
lmao at sublimes response because it sounds like "boo boo bajoo means i love you"
Submitted by electrictoothsyndrome (user info) at 2004-08-29 02:24:24 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I see you took my advise, Eggman! Shorter paragraphs (maybe a little too short, but an improvement), actual storyline, but most importantly still very well written for a writer your age. I look for you to kick ass for years and years to come!
Stick around dude.
Submitted by EvrenWasHere (user info) at 2004-08-29 02:06:20 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Well written and entertaining. Plus two for you!
Submitted by sublime (user info) at 2004-08-29 01:06:52 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
goo goo ka choo