Too Much Fun

Two of my best friends in the world came to visit me and we had a great time. It took ages for me to blog about it because I wanted to wait for pics. Currently, I don't have a lot of motivation to write about it, so mostly I will summarize with the help of pictures.

Daniel, Mike, and I have been friends for roughly 17 years. I love them both dearly. Daniel just received his doctorate from Columbia University and subsequently just got a job at SpaceX. He's a rocket scientist. Mike works for an education company as a media/graphic design coordinator dealy. Daniel came to Ankara a few days before Mike. We spent some time hangin at my place while I had to work, and then we took a trip to Istanbul on Thursday and we all left on Sunday. We laughed a LOT. I love them to bits.

Picking up Mike AKA Jabronie, at the airport

So happy to be together again!

They're in my apartment! Squee!

 Actually the picture below could use some explaining. Daniel came to my class to talk to the kids about space. They loved it! I think they didn't believe me when I told them one of my best friends was a rocket scientist. Mike and Daniel also taught a lesson and designed an activity for the kids about circuits. They're amazing!

One of the few sights Ankara has to offer is the castle. The exact date of when it was built is unknown, but it was captured by some Turks in 1073. History!

Then on to Istanbul!

Having some laughs at Topkapi Palace!

Outside the Blue Mosque

Giggling in Aya Sofia

Being silly yet again in Aya Sofia

Outside the Blue Mosque

Daniel taking a quintessential Istanbul cat pic

Mike taking a picture of Daniel taking a picture of a cat

Silly glasses exchange while enjoying some tea

Basilica Cistern

When I was a kid I went to summer camp in Yosemite. Sometimes parents came to visit their kids while they were at camp. Once, a fellow camper announced, "someones parents are here!" and all my bunk mates ran to the window saying, "I hope it's mine!" "Mine said they might come!" I meanwhile, sat on the bunk, unmoving, muttering, "I know it's not mine." Not because my parents weren't caring and wonderful, but I was of the mind that my parents just wouldn't bother. When it turned out to be my parents, I FLIPPED OUT. "Mine? No! Mine, really? Oh my gosh!!!!" This has gone down in family history because I was SO SURE that it couldn't be my parents. That's exactly what it felt like when Mike and Daniel came, just for me. "My friends are here?! For me?! Seriously?!" I guess I just have the most fantastic people in my life. I know I'm corny, but I am one lucky woman. 

Now let's get to my Spring Break vacation in Val d'Isere, France. It was so much fun. I took VERY FEW pics because I was too busy boarding and socializing. 

The Hostel

I googled something like “winter sports tours” and found a website called Tour Radar, which has all kinds of tour sites operating in different locations with different activities and age groups. Here is the Val d’Isere description: “Holiday in the beautiful ski resort of Val D'Isere and ski/snowboard in the picturesque French Alps. The tour provides full time ski/ snowboard instruction for all levels (from beginner to expert). You will have 23 hours of instruction in total, from Monday to Friday.” I ended up staying at a place called the UCPA. I got asked by a lot of people, “so how did you find out about the UCPA?” I didn’t! I booked a tour and this is what happened! It turns out that the UCPA is a “non-profit French organization that makes outdoor sports holidays available for people of ages 7–39. Formed in 1965, it is a union of government bodies, sports federations and youth associations.” I booked it because a tour meant I’d meet people, and I paid less than $1,200 USD that included equipment rental, lift tickets for all 5 days, all meals, snowboarding instruction, and accommodation. That’s a steal! Next time I’ll book directly with the UCPA and it’ll be even cheaper.

That's the UCPA on the left

Waiting for our groups

My three roommates were all French and a bit older than me, so we didn’t talk much (although the UCPA cutoff age is supposed to be 39 there were clear exceptions- a woman in my room could not have been younger than 50). Also, I had a man in my room. I asked everyone I met at the UCPA if they had members of the opposite sex in their room and they were all shocked and said, “of course not.” Not sure how that happened and having to change in there was a little stressful at first, but then I just embraced the Frenchness of it and didn’t give a damn after the first day. He was one of the only men I interacted with that didn’t try to sleep with me so that helped.

Most people that I met at the UCPA had come alone. OMG me too! The population was about 70% French, 20% English, and 9% Swedish, and 1% in the “other” category. I was the only person from North America that I, or anyone else I spoke to, was aware of. This is generally how introductions went for me:

New buddy: Where are you from?

Me: California.

NB: California?!

Me:… but I live in Turkey.

NB: You live in TURKEY?!

That exact conversation happened with almost everyone I talked to. Then they’d think their story was very boring, being from London or Paris. YAWN.

 I made so many friends so quickly, it was fantastic. Something interesting was that I split my time between French friends and English friends. The first night, I met a nice Englishman (and gorgeous, but that’s beside the point) named Adam and sat with him and his French roommates for dinner. I liked them immediately because they offered me wine. The French always had wine.

On the last night I was chatting with my English friends and had this conversation with one of the guys:

Ben: Why do you hang out with those French people?

Me: They’re fun and they always give me wine!

Ben: You know they’re talking to you because they’re all trying to sleep with you, right?

Me: Is that why you’re talking to me?

Ben: … No.

Me: So you don’t think I’m cute?

Ben: Of course I think you’re attractive, but I can also enjoy just having a chat.

Me: And they can’t enjoy chatting with me?

Ben: Well… they’re French.

It was a little strange, the underlying animosity between the English and the French. Another thing that I liked about my French friends was practicing my French. It came back to me little by little and by the last night I was having actual (if broken and horribly constructed) conversations! In fact while I was sitting with the Frenchies, I turned to one and asked, “Qu'est-ce que tu fais ce soir?” and the whole table erupted with shouting “OOOOOHHHHHHH!” and one of them yelled, “C’est progrès!” I found that as long as I made any kind of effort to speak, the French ate it up.

The Snowboarding

Let me just say: I suck at snowboarding. My motivation to go on this trip was to get a lot better and really push myself. I did get a bit better so I consider the trip a great success. I still suck, but I suck less. Next year I plan on going snowboarding more often and when I go back (because I HAVE to go back) I’ll suck even less and maybe move up a snowboarding group.

There were 7 of us in the snowboarding group, and we were at the lowest level, beginner/intermediate. 4 of us spoke English, and 4 of us spoke French. The instructor was French and spoke very little English to the consternation of my fellow English speakers. Mostly what he said to me was, “Kim-bear-lee!* Behnd mohr your knees!” He was 19, had only been boarding for 3 years, and trying to earn some kind of teaching certificate, so he was not what I would call an experienced teacher. He was okay, though. The times where he seemed the most French were when he would roll cigarettes while riding the lifts.

Me and my instructor, Nathan

The conditions were excellent- it had snowed during the week before I arrived and it snowed for the first 2 days I was there. Lots of fresh powder, but not enough that you’d get stuck- unless, bien sur, you went “off piste.” Off piste is a term I learned that just means off the trail. I did this exactly twice with my group. The first time my board got a bit buried, but I made it down and we went through this neat canyon. The second time was a complete disaster. Three of us fell in the snow, which was waste deep, and it took us about 30 minutes just to take off our boards and stand up so we could walk back to the safe, groomed piste. It seemed impossible to get up because if you try to put a hand or foot down there was no resistance, it just sunk. At one point I was simply rolling around, almost in tears, saying, “what do I do? How do I get out?!”

I fell. A lot. I got a bump on my noggin after the first day and learned my lesson. That night I bought a helmet and knee pads. I didn’t know helmets were all the rage now, but everyone wears them. Thank goodness because I hit my head SO MUCH. I also hurt my hand by landing on my thumb and it’s still quite swollen. In addition, I have a multitude of bruises mostly concentrated on my bum.

Normal hand

Swollen, injured, fat hand

*Side note tangent: When I go abroad, I often introduce myself as “Kimberly” for a few different reasons. Firstly, I like the way it sounds in an accent. “Kim” sounds pretty much the same with every accent, but “Kimberly” sounds different and exotic coming from different people. In Australian, it sounds like “Kim-buh-lee” but in French it sounds more like “Kim-bear-lee.” Second, I like my full name. “Kim” is all well and good, but “Kimberly” is something that I’m growing into and liking more and more as I get older. So when I meet new people I like to start as “Kimberly,” since they don’t already know me as “Kim.” It’s also fun trying out a new-ish name with new people.

The Partying

Here is the schedule for Val d’Isere:

·       Wake up

·       Eat breakfast

·       Snowboard

·       Eat lunch

·       Snowboard

·       Apres ski party

·       Eat dinner

·       Party

·       Sleep

·       Repeat

Dancing and drinking, drinking and dancing, the essential elements of Spring Break. Of course everyone else was on a random break from work and when I said, “it’s spring break” they would all sort of make fun of the American stereotype and yell, “SPRING BREAK WOOOOOO!” I heard and said so many, “Ohmygod I’m SO TIRED” and then “Let’s go out! Allez!” The endorphins were flowing and everyone simply put off their pain and suffering in order to party, party, party.

“Apres ski” means the party after skiing/boarding. For example, “what are you doing apres ski?” or “where are you going for apres ski?” Each day had a different best place for apres ski, and the best one I went to was at La Folie Douce. This is a bar on the actual mountain. It opens at 3pm and closes at 4:45pm, so it’s specifically for the small window of apres ski. You can take a lift down afterwards if you’re too drunk or tired or you can ski/board down. People dancing on tables, champagne showers, live sax, and everyone dancing their asses off in their gear- it was astounding.

This is my new English mate, Elliot

I did crash, hard. Thursday night I stayed out until 3am and woke up at 7am on Friday to go snowboarding. I didn’t even think for a second about not going- I came here to snowboard, dammit! I was pushing my board and getting onto the lift and I turned to my snowboard buddy Andy and remarked, “huh. That’s funny. I seem to have barely enough strength to push my snowboard. This should be an interesting day.” When we got to the top and I started snowboarding I immediately started BAWLING. I wasn’t sad, my body was just so exhausted that it decided I needed to cry. I don’t know when the last time I cried out of sheer exhaustion was other than when I was a little kid. I made my way, painfully and slowly, down the mountain and went back to bed. I saw Andy at lunch and he asked me if I was going out in the afternoon. I started to push away from the table and was shaking and he said, “ummm if you’re having trouble getting up from the table maybe you shouldn’t.” It was with a heavy heart that I did not make it the last day. I was a little sad about it, but the fact of the matter was that I tried to push past it and my body just COULDN’T. So back to bed I went, and I met up with people for the apres ski partying (hey, I already missed a day of boarding I wasn’t going to miss the partying too).

Poker night with the French

French Lucas sporting a nice wig

Before the party got goin'

The Men

In typical Spring Break fashion, in addition to the drinking and the dancing, it was a meat market and the men were aggressive, to say the least. I was constantly hit on. This isn’t me trying to brag and say, “good lord I am so gorgeous and amazing men cannot stop hitting on me,” it’s more, “jeez I’m not that young or cute why are all these men all over me?!” Mostly I enjoyed the free drinks and flirty conversations, but sometimes it did get a bit tiresome. I would stand with a friend, turn around for one minute, get a drink thrust at me with a “where are you from?”  and some smiling man would be in my face. The men were generally quite good looking (you have to be reasonably athletic after all) and successful (because they’re taking time off work to do an expensive sport), but not exactly marriage material since they were looking for flings. I’m all about the positive side of things so my approach to the whole situation was “it’s all in good fun.”

DISCLAIMER: Before you view these pictures some might find incriminating, you should know that I did NOT engage in any lewd activities with these men. That being said, apparently stripping now counts as flirting because THE MEN KEPT DOING IT.

Frenchman stripping in the street

English "I'll just change my shirt real quick then we can go to the bar" Adam. It wasn't sexy see there's a guy next to him!

In Conclusion

When I was there on the chairlift, looking at the gorgeous French Alps, I thought to myself, “this is one of the best trips I’ve ever had.” And then I thought, “wait, my friends just came and visited me and we went to Istanbul- that was one of the best too! Also Germany for Winter Break! I can’t forget how wonderful that was! Cappadocia for my birthday was AMAZING! AND I WAS IN HAWAII BEFORE I CAME HERE.” I guess the conclusion I came to was that my life is this ridiculous fantasy world where I get to experience these incredible things with fun, intelligent, fantastic people. The best part (the best for real this time) is that there is no end in sight. This summer I have a lot of plans coming together: I’m going to take a sailing cruise through some Croatian islands, visit friends in London, and come home for a few weeks for family/beach/Disneyland time. Not too shabby.