Dicks Pee Bar

Clean down week was LONG. I pulled a disgusting amount of hair out of plug holes and I have never done so much polishing in my life. We weren't given our ski passes until our chalets were signed off as complete so to compensate for our lack of fun during the day we spent pretty much every evening frequenting the various drinking holes around town.

On Friday we were finally given our ski passes and headed out early for a big day on the slopes. It was snowing pretty heavy so it was a really tough first day but great to finally be out there. Obviously I spent a lot of the day teaching A how to ski because she wanted to know how someone can get to look as good as me on the slopes...she is getting there slowly.



Sunday was arrival day for our first set of guests so after a big night out on Saturday and a bit of a lie in on Sunday morning we began to prepare everything for the evening arrival of our guests. I put up a Christmas tree for the first time, it made me feel quite manly, even if it is about 2 feet tall. Unfortunately, due to the fact that a couple of inches of snow pretty much shuts down the entire UK, plane delays meant our guests got in at 2.30 in the morning. They are lovely though, 2 families who stayed in our chalet last christmas so they know how everything works already. So we served them up a 3 course meal in the early hours and crashed hard for the night.

Monday was the young lad (the baby of the group) I mentioned before's 19th birthday so we all went out and had it in a big way. It was a special night and our young boy showed signs of becoming the ladies man he so longs to be by getting off with one of his guests and leaning over her shoulder whilst dancing and high fiveing the other guys and making 'GET IN THERE' motions with his fist when she wasn't looking. It was quite charming. She didn't come down for breakfast the next morning.


Today was our first day off. Last night we followed the pub crawl in town organised by our company for the guests. It was a messy night that ended up in the cramped, sweaty cave that is Dick's Tea Bar. It's pretty horrible and they punish smokers by making them all stand in a tiny cupboard and blow smoke in eachothers faces. There was all sorts of interesting goings on, the much maligned seasonnaire incest that is so rife got into full swing with many staff members exchanging bodily fluids throughout the night (making for a fun day of skiing around and catching up on the different slices of gossip around the slopes) but my favourite story of the night was a different exchange of bodily fluids... between my Welsh roommate and the bedroom floor of one of the girls next door.


He's a lovely chap my Welsh friend but when he drinks, he tends not to stop until he is in a horrific state. Last nights horrific state consisted of him singing (shouting) the Welsh national anthem for 2 hours, crashing out in the girls apartment next door, waking up at about 5 in the morning and taking a pee in the corner of their bedroom and then crawling on the floor through the snow outside back to our place. I think it must be a Welsh thing, I worked with one last year that couldn't control his bladder either and ended up peeing on his managers X Box in the middle of the night.

Chalet Prep Week

Wednesday – 8pm

A here, finally writing from resort!

Training week was ace, a quite drunken affair as every evening meal was accompanied by unlimited wine, but also bloody hard work, starting most days at half 6 and not finishing until 11pm. On Thursday we had a fake Christmas, I was cooking so I couldn’t get very involved, but after the meal was finished J sang his ‘Chalet Host’ song which went down a treat. He didn’t want to do it, on one ‘team bonding night’ (aka ‘lets all go to a bar and drink ourselves silly’) I revealed to our chalet manager that J played the ukulele and had written a very explicit song based on his previous ski season, and so he was effectively bullied into doing it but I think he’s happy he did it now, as it did make him the coolest cat around for a while.

On Saturday we all moved to our resort, and saw our accommodation and chalets for the first time. I’m sharing an apartment with three amazing females, one of whom I share a bedroom with which I’m happy about as she is hilarious, basically a crazy aunt who is mental and maternal in equal doses so I feel pretty lucky! We’ve made our bedroom very homely, mainly because whilst deep cleaning my chalet I discovered a secret supply of blankets hidden in the eaves of the attic, so I’ve ‘borrowed’ them for the season. We also have a spare bedroom!! And J has 2 spare beds! So come one, come all, come visit!

This week we have been deep cleaning our chalets, this has been fun as we have been unsupervised, and so we can plug in the ipod speakers and pump out some tunes whilst cleaning. Also, we have all been given chalet phones, so we have been making lots of unnecessary calls to our friends in the other chalets. Yesterday J’s welsh roommate, who was still drunk at breakfast, decided to spend the day wooing the Essex Girl over the phone, so every break from cleaning was spent thinking up obscene things for him to say to her.

 I am now a pro at making beds and the art of towel folding. My hand had some sort of reaction to the cleaning chemicals though and has got all swollen and red and cracked. I think I’ll return home in 5 months with the hands of an 80 year old woman. We also had to do an inventory of everything in the chalet, we are missing loads so I’ve written a massive list which I’ve given to our manager,  fingers crossed we will get it all before our first guests arrive on Sunday. Also, lots of things were broken, ie: bunk bed ladder wasn’t secured, plug sockets hanging off the wall, so I compiled another list which I gave to the maintenance man. I get more joy from list making than anything else in life, so you can imagine my delight at getting to do it all day every day!

Speaking of things I get delight from, I got to do the online shopping the other night! I did it with my manager and afterwards when I saw how much I had spent, she said ‘well done, that’s very good for the first week’ so I thought I had done pretty well in sticking to the budget. But she just popped into the apartment now to give me the shopping list, so I can cross reference it when its all delivered tomorrow and I have spent more money than any other chalet! Including one which has nearly double the number of guests than ours! I spent 53 euros on a weeks worth of butter…I bought 6 bags of lemons… I have 15 litres of apple juice and 15 litres of orange juice… I have 3 kilos of grated cheese.. My flatmates found this hilarious. It seems even when shopping for food I can’t control my spending.

J is happy though as I ordered him some ‘Herbs de Provence’, which apparently make everything taste better.

Very excited for when it all arrives tomorrow and I can put it away in my newly organised kitchen!

Today we are very hungover. Last night was the staff welcome party; Up till now the other half of our resorts staff had been working in the evenings as their chalets opened to guests earlier than ours, but as today was their first day off we all went a little bit overboard, but it was great to have everyone in one place, all getting to know each, in some cases getting possibly a little bit too friendly with each other. I can imagine that in a ski resort, between colleagues, it all gets a bit incestuous towards the end of the season!

Anyway, this is super long so I’m going to cut it short. I am having a wicked time, I feel like I am in a little ski-season bubble! Hopefully by the end of tomorrow we will have had our chalet signed off by our manager and can FINALLY get on the mountain! 

Update - This was written on wednesday at 8pm, it is now Friday at 7pm and I just wanted to clarify that our chalet was signed off (the cleanest one our manager had seen!!) and we just had a full day on the mountain which was wicked :)

Training week...

Apologies for not posting in such a long time. We have been ridiculously busy. On Saturday we caught the train to Victoria Station where we jumped onto a bus, 22 hours later we jumped back off in Val d'Isere, France for our training week. The train journey went surprisingly fast, A and I were quite anti social and did a lot of sleeping. A made me watch the 2nd Twilight movie... It was shit. So shit. Nothing happened in it. There was lots of moaning and a couple of wolves who I suppose were cool but my god, what a long, boring film! It did make me sleepy though...every cloud!

The first day was basically spent meeting everybody else, moving into our rooms and getting settled. There were 13 of us in total. One of the first people we met was a young 18 year old lad fresh out of school. He is brilliant. On the first night he woke up at 3 in the morning and got everyone else up to start cooking the breakfast because he thought it was 7. Throughout the week he has continually solidified his role as the baby of the group but on Wednesday night he drunkenly told me that he is not happy with this title and would prefer to be known as the 'ladies man'.

There is also a girl from Essex who tells many stories that end in the word 'DISGUSTING'. She is great value for money and says some horrendous things, all in good fun though. The other night she lowered the tone of a harmless dance off by miming an indecent act on one of the other guys here when he bent over on the dance floor.

Yesterday we finally arrived in the resort we will be working in for the rest of the season and moved into our accommodation. It's very nice, A shares with 3 girls next door and has
 a spare room and a nice kitchen. I am sharing with the token Welsh man and another guy, both are very cool, we've got a good living room. The Welsh chap is from Barry Island so there has been a bit of Gavin and Stacey banter. Everything is infinitely more enjoyable when said in a Welsh accent.

First guests arrive in a weeks time, this week will be spend cleaning the chalet and doing an inventory. Also hitting the town for a few beers hopefully. Last night we hit the town, it was a lot of fun but it could end up being pretty expensive as we live a little way away and have to get a taxi home. We made friends with the driver though (somehow spent the whole journey trying to describe to him what banana boating was, he seemed very confused) and plan to bribe him with cakes and other delightful treats as the season goes on.


That is all I have time for for now. We're off for dinner at one of the larger chalets and then heading out for a few beers. Hopefully will be able to update more regularly after guests arrive and we get in the swing of things but for now.. a plus don la bus.

Dinner Party Take Two

J's already updated on our massive pisste-up (my very witty, very original pun, thank you very much) so I'll just add my own two cents: It was amazing! Lovely to see everyone, and lovely to dance the night away. At midnight we got out a fairy cake an ingenius friend had smuggled into the club, and all sang happy birthday to J, of course he doesnt remember that at all, but it was a magical moment.

Later on in the week J and I cooked another 3 course meal, this time at my house, which was a bit of  nightmare as there are small children and animals EVERYWHERE. Every time i turned around there was a cat/dog/younger brother sniffing around. I got very stressed. But fortunately the only person I didnt blow my top at was J which I think bodes well for our future chalet-hosting gig! We had our good friend, who shall be known only as Pilot Harris, sitting in the kitchen with us. He's currently heartbroken, having recently broken up with his long-term girlfriend, and so we tried to keep him amused with our kitchen banter. Ultimately though, he kept us more amused, by dissapearing midway through the cooking process, then returning with lots of beer and cider, which is always welcome in my house.


The starter, which was Js work was: Fondue with Croutons and Side Salad 

 The father christmas table cloth was a leftover from my festive celebrations on saturday night. The fondue was delicious, despite a minor burning incident when J left it on the hob too long - never mind, it is good to make these mistakes now rather than later when we are feeding actual paying guests! He got very cross when he realised it had burnt, and spent a good few minutes moaning, then I told him to add milk, and voila, it was saved. I'm a genius.


Main course was: Roast Duck, with a dark port sauce, carrot ribbons, buttered cabbage and Dauphinoise Potatos.  This was a split jobby, myself taking care of the duck, sauce and cabbage, and J handling the carrots and potatos. 

Dessert was a banana tart tatin; this was all my doing, and having never made one before, I wasnt entirely sure what was going to happen; when I took it out of the oven it kind of looked like a giant naan bread. J recorded the monumentous moment that I turned it over. Adding a new element to the blog... video!! I'm very excited. I hope it works.

Piste off my head and doing the J-Shuffle.

I apologise for the pun, too easy. As the hilarious title loosely suggests, A and myself hit the town over the weekend to say goodbye to our friends as come next Sunday we will not be seeing them for 6 months. Sunday was also my birthday so it was a double celebration, for this reason I ended up twice as smashed as everybody else and for the latter part of the night could be seen with a dopey grin on my face somehow managing to sway in at least 7 directions at once and not fall over. This is a manoeuvre that has taken me a long time to perfect and adapt. I can now do 'the J-shuffle' whilst simultaneously sipping a pint, smoking a cigarette and feigning interest in what somebody is saying to me.

In response to the previous blog entry, I am not some sort of creepy facebook pervert, I am just interested in who I may be spending the next 6 months with. This is just A's way of taking the light away from her own facebook stalking habits, last night she mentioned something to me about our resort reps mum living in the same town as her aunt or something...weird.

I had a lovely birthday on Sunday, I recieved many ski related gifts including goggles, socks a hat and some WeSC headphones. I've not recieved a gift from A, she forgot it was my birthday, that's all the way back on page 1 out of 8 on her to do list. I did, however, recieve a birthday card from her with a picture of Jonathan Creek and his assistant on the front with mine and her heads superimposed over theirs. This is the sort of creative ingenuity that allows me to forgive a friend for letting my birthday slip their mind.


We cooked another practice dinner last night, this time for A's family. I think it went quite well, her Dad had about 4 extra portions which is surely a good sign. A has photos so I will let her give you the details. In the meantime, I am going to complete page 2, item 4 of the list my friend has kindly written for me and get my suitcase out of the loft. Salutations.

Onesie Envy.

Today I tried on Js all-in-one.

 

It was extremely comfortable.

In other news:

* J and I have been facebook stalking our future co-workers; J is getting very frustrated as one of the female members of the group has several people in her profile photo so he can't work out if she's a slamming hottie or not. 

* I have written J a list so he can get organised, I also thought it might convince him to come shopping with me, instead of sitting in his room working his way through the Jonathan Creek box set. It didnt make him take me shopping, but it did make him suddenly feel super stressed, so it was a part success. 

* I applied to university! Not ski-related but definately me-related! I will update with any offers I get, as I know our (two) readers will be crossing their fingers for me!

 

The Influence of J

I went on the Snow and Rock website this morning. A had told me about some special stuff you can buy that you chuck in the washing machine with your ski gear and it reseals the seams and makes it all nice and waterproof again. A bottle of this stuff would make me and my vintage onesie unstoppable!

Anyway, I got onto the website and the first thing that struck me was this...

Coincidence you say? I think not. Trendsetter you say? Maybe.

The Guinea Pig Dinner Party

It's been a productive week for myself and A preparing for our season. It was A's final week of work so she will now be joining me as an unemployed bum for 2 weeks before we leave. Hopefully it will give her enough time to get through her 'to-do book'.

On Tuesday night we hosted a dinner party for a group of friends and family. We cooked one of the menus that we will be cooking for our chalet guests and if the praise we recieved was genuine rather than mere politeness I think we did pretty darn well.

Our starter was 'Mushroom en Cocotte' which were little individual mushroom bakes with a creamy garlic sauce, topped with puff pastry. I think they looked rather good!

 The main course was Chorizo Pork with Almond and Courgette Rice and Green beans. This was also very nice but we were too busy to remember to take a photograph. I'm not lying, honest! And finally for dessert, A did an excellent job creating a pear and cinnamon tart which recieved rave reviews.

We didn't poison anyone, everyone was very pleased with the meal and many second helpings were dealt so I'm going to write this one off as a success.

And finally, my other success of the week was made at a local charity shop. After searching far and wide for quite some time, my quest is over. I have managed to find myself the perfect, retro, garish, lurid, over the top, out of date, mismatched (but actually very cosy and comfortable) vintage 1980s onesie ski suit! It is beautiful (in a horrendous kind of way)! I definitely won't be too hard to track down on the slopes in this...

Snow time like the present... (Are the ski puns getting old yet?)

Good evening. I don't need to introduce myself again because I have stuck to my guns and am continuing with my 'trebuchet' font choice. We are well into November and there are only 23 days until A and myself jump on a bus to France. We are both very excited and one of us (the one who isn't me) is spending every spare minute getting organised for the trip. And I mean getting SERIOUSLY organised. I'm usually very laid back and don't tend to worry about things like this until they are just a couple of days away but just recently I have found myself quite on edge about the impending adventure. I think it could be something to do with the 5 A4 page long to do list (I'm serious, it's 5 pages) that A keeps shoving in my face. I think I just have 5 items on mine.

Calculator? Really?

This isn't to say I've been doing nothing though. As A said we went along to the Metro Snow Show. I managed to blag some free tickets and I was very glad of this because it turns out the 'Show' is pretty much a giant market that people pay £16 to look around whilst people wearing gilets carrying clipboards jump out at you and try and get to to join a mailing list. There was also a large perspex slide in the middle which some crazy cats were skiing and boarding down. Mental. It was a good day, but mainly because of the free wine and cheese.


A was pleased with the snow show because she came away with a ski suit and a gaping hole in her previously quite healthy bank balance. I'm not going to say how much it was but lets just say my ski suit last year, including goggles, thermals and socks, cost me less than a third of what A paid. Silly girl has gone and bought snowboarding gear too...don't have the heart to tell her how ridiculous she is going to look on skis. I jest.

This weeks big news is that it is my last day at work tomorrow. Probably should have stayed on an extra week for the money but I got a little bit over excited and just handed in my notice without really thinking about it! Still, can't wait to be free.


Next week A and I are planning on cooking one of the meals from our companys chalet menu for a group of friends and family to brush up our skills and get used to working with eachother a little bit. Will let you know how that one goes if we are still speaking afterwards!

Toffee Vodka

Hey y'all, 'A' here, giving 'Georgia' a whirl, because I like the name.


J and I paid a visit to the Metro Ski & Snowboard show a couple of weeks ago, where we had lots of fun, paying many visits to the little stalls giving away free shots of red wine, free shots of champagne and free shots of toffee vodka. Truth be told, we got a bit drunk.


Then I spent an extortionate amount on a jacket and ski pants I had been eyeing up in Snow and Rock for quite a while, then I got said jacket and pants home and read the tag and realised they were 'snowboarding' clothes rather than ski clothes... which has worried me slightly and I am debating whether to return them. J has told me this is a ridiculous thing to do, because noones going to look at me and judge me for skiing whilst wearing snowboarding gear BUT he doesnt know what I know..


From more browsing of the Natives chatrooms, I have learnt that there is a difference between dressing like a 'Seasonnaire' and dressing like a 'Punter' and if your dress like a punter people will judge you, and pity you for your lack of insider knowledge. Seasonnaires wear bright, uncoordinated, really baggy clothes.
My jacket is black, because I like the colour black, and tightly fitted, because i'm comfier that way (and also, I have a banging body and want to show it off!)


Furthermore, apparently it's the done thing to take a second jacket - a 'pub jacket'. So you wear your fancy expensive jacket on the slopes, and then wear a second jacket, a cheaper one, to the pub, so you can dance/smoke to your hearts content, and it doesnt matter so much if you drink a bit too much and leave it behind. So I have another dilemma!! What sort of jacket does one wear to the pub?


In addition to this little pickle I have gotten myself into, I have started making 3 lists. They as as follows
1) Things to pack
2) Things to buy
3) Things to do before I go away


These lists are all really, really long. I have so much to do, and I didn't realise until now!
For example, I need to pack things like a calculator, various medicines incase I get sick whilst I'm out there, enough clothes to see me through for the next six months (scary thought... what if I get bored of the clothes I take? I really hope I end up sharing a room with a girl just like me, who will be totally up for sharing wardrobes!) Before I go away I must remember to get all my friends addresses, have lots of farewell drinks, practise my cooking a bit more and work out whether it is better to withdraw from a Natwest or Nationwide account whilst abroad.


This seems like a lot of work, so I'm going to not think about it just yet. I should also probably avoid the Natives chatrooms for a while. Im going to send my brother down the shop to buy me some chocolate and watch The Apprentice instead.

J here, Piste to meet you.

Hello, J here. I'm writing in Trebuchet. A nice, clear font, easy on the eye that is rather agreeable and that up until now I had no idea existed. I like it, it's quite nice to look at, and far less pretentious than writing in Italics. Italics, so desperate to look sexy but in actual fact, it just looks slightly wonky. For these reasons I think mine and A's font choices suit us both to the ground.

 

So with just over 6 weeks to go until we leave there are many things that need to be done between now and our departure date. For me that means working a boring temp job day in day out so that I will have enough money to keep up with A's hedonistic party lifestyle once we arrive. For her that means sitting at home with her dog watching Americas Next Top Model, eating cheese toasties whilst trying to decide which overpriced ski suit to spend her dollar on.

 

We will also be brushing up on our cooking skills and I am going to attempt to help A speed up her dish washing. She is a good washer I'll give her that, she just takes a very casual approach to the chore whereas I'm more of a bish-bash-bosh kind of guy.

 

Anyway, this is me checking in. I have contributed. The 2 of us were quite useless when it came to deciding what to call this blog so the witty and hilarious blog name was thought up by our good friend who for the sake of continuity I will call 'G'. Hope you like it.

Post Number One!

Hello as of yet, non existent readers! 

To differentiate between when I write, and when J writes, I will write in Italic. Because it makes me look clever, innit! If it were possible, J would write in comic sans or something childish, or maybe 'bold' to represent his 'bold' personality, whereas I am more quiet and retiring (and intellectual.)

Ok so it all started back in June, when we both decided to defer university for one (more) year and go be wild and free and cold in the mountains. J had just come back from doing his first ski season and I, having never done one, thought it sounded super fun, he didnt take much persuading to do another so thats how we ended up scouring natives.co.uk for job adverts and applying to every company that asked for chalet hosts.
 This was quite a long process, which meant firstly taking my CV and modifying it so it was aimed at ski tour operators (or TOs if you're down with the lingo). So instead of bigging up all my 'data-inputting', 'phone-answering' and 'meeting organising' experience, suddenly all the focus is on the month I spent waitressing, where I learnt such mad skillz which would be useful when cooking and cleaning for a chalet of 15 people. Similarly, my 'interests' changed from reading and writing, to throwing lavish dinner parties for my nearest and dearest. 
(Protecting myself here - I would never ever lie on my cv, I'm far too good for that. Out of the two of us J is the bad one. I shall spend the next 6 months telling him off and trying to stop him getting involved in semi-illegal adventures, and he shall spend the next 6 months getting me in trouble.)


 This is probably a good moment to mention that whilst J is a great cook, and can happily whip up a beef bourgignon, I am not and cannot. 
Dont get me wrong, I make fabulous cheese toasties, I can put together a perfect gin and tonic, and chocolate covered strawberries are my speciality, but cooking is not my strong point, I'm more one of those people who watches and comments and dances around in an apron, and I'm great at washing up, but thats about it.

After a couple of interviews that left me feeling physically sick and smoking like a chimney (I dont deal well with interviews, find them very stressful.) we eventually accepted a job with a TO I had decided was the best after whiling away many hours at work flicking between a spreadsheet (for appearances' sake) and the Natives Chatroom, reading up on peoples experiences of working for different operators.


And this is where I decided that I wanted to keep a blog. During the application/interview process I looked all over the internet for blogs on working a ski season as a chalet host, to give me a better idea of what to expect. I wanted to know about tricky guests, good guests, crazy nights, horrendous mornings, celebrating christmas with your guests but not your family, tips (or lack of them), making new friends, hopefully not falling out with your co-worker ... etc. 


So thats what myself and J are doing, creating this blog, to document all these things, and also to keep everyone at home up to date with our goings-on.