So in the February half term, I visited Andorra which is a small country between the borders of Spain and France, for eight days on a holiday with the school and my friends. We travelled by coach which took a massive 25 hours but it wasn't that bad as we had fun and slept for a lot of it, but the ferry over was very windy and I didn't enjoy that part of it! The hotel we were staying in was great and we had lovely rooms that we shared in groups of four or six, there was a lounge area downstairs where we could all meet to chat and have fun. By the evening we were very excited and ready to ski the next day!
On the Sunday we had to wake up early for breakfast as it was our first day of skiing so there was a lot to sort out, the food wasn't too bad but I missed it back home! I was in a group of skiers who were also my friends and I made friends with the others as well, we had lots of fun learning new skills and creating bonds. Our instructor was really fun and we learnt that he only had one dread, and that the rest of his hair was cut short haha! When we came back from five hours of skiing that day, my best friend had blood down her salopettes, she had a very deep cut in her leg and had to go to hospital and have three stitches! The rest of us went on the coach again as we were all going bowling that evening, it was in a town about half an hour away and it was great fun, we got into seven teams and got to know the group a little better. I won out of my group but our team lost against the other teams as we were so bad.
Monday was a more chilled day where we got to get up a little later (only a little!) and went skiing for the day, we had lunch in the canteen up in the mountains which made it a very nice view to sit and eat lunch! Throughout the week, I sometimes would ski in just the morning and not the afternoon because of my injured knee that I explained about in my first blog post, I really wanted to ski but the teachers wouldn't let me, it was definitely the right decision though :) In the evening we were allowed to sign out and walk down in small groups to the local village where there was a supermarket and a few souvenir shops, it was a very scenic town which I loved.
Tuesday was by far my favourite day as once we had skied, in the evening we travelled by coach for about an hour to do tubing and igloo building! It was the best experience ever and very enjoyable, we split the group in two, and we went and did tubing first. Tubing was so much fun, we were eventually allowed to go down in the rubber rings in groups of three or four which made us go much faster with our friends and spin each other around! Then we went for the other hour do learn how to build an igloo, they taught us how to cut and carve blocks of ice out of the snow and create the shape of a normal igloo, but they also taught us how to build a simple igloo where there are no blocks because of limited resources. The evening was just as fun as the day and we returned to the hotel for dinner and chill out time, overall a great day.
Throughout the week, the weather and views were absolutely incredible, better than I ever imagined. For the first few days it was very cold (apparently -13 one day!) and the slopes were sometimes hard to see because of the amount of wind pushing the snow down it, but for the rest of the week, it was really sunny with beautiful views of the slopes and really nice snow to ski on. The slopes were magnificent and on a few of the days, our instructors skied over to Pal in Spain with us to ski in their resort for the morning, it was lovely with different types of slopes, we were also able to go off piste through forests with jumps, which made a great change.
At the end of the week, all the ski groups had to create a song to perform to our instructor, we based ours on snoop dog as we thought that he looked like him, he found it hilarious :) We had an awards ceremony for everyone and the teachers made a little award up for everyone - no matter how silly which was really nice as it made everyone feel like they had a purpose for being there. This was definitely the best night, and it actually got quite emotional as we all didn't want to leave :( We were playing music outside our rooms, and in the space of 5 minutes, there were about 15 of us singing and dancing to music, it was hilarious, we started to gather an audience until the restaurant came out, people in the lounge area, people in the rooms above us came to watch and they found it very funny, we were having such a great time. We also made friends with some french boys who came with another school, they invited us to there disco that the school were organising later that night, we ended up going with a lot of the year group and a few teachers, it was such a great way to end an absolutely fantastic ski trip and make lasting memories. I wish I could go back! We went to bed late, skied the next day and then at 4pm we got back onto the coach to do the coach ride all over again, we managed to get an early ferry so we were back by lunchtime the next time.
Surprisingly, I didn't actually miss home as much as I thought I would and if I could have stayed for just a little bit longer, then I definitely would have done :) It was such an incredible experience with many memorable moments that will stay with me until I grow up, and I urge anybody who is given the opportunity to go on a ski trip with a community to do it as you make so many new bonds with people you never thought that you would get along with! Down below I have shared some photos of my time in Andorra and the views that we had there, enjoy.
Alex Lauren ♥
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