A few days ago, we finally repeated the excursion to the ski resort.
The first experience was fun, but later on we didn't find a moment to repeat it. Basically, I was lazy. It's fun, but it requires your whole day, so several times when we had moments to go, I preferred to stay and do different things instead.
Anyway, in the end we decided to go one Monday that, because of the weird pattern of shifts I have, we had vacations. We went with a co-worker, Carlos Climent, to show him the way and how things were in the ski resort area. We knew that the station we were going to use was not the best one, but the idea was to show the way so later on he and the other people that has come from Spain to help us with shifts could know the way and go by themselves.
This time we didn't go very early, and instead we took the bus at around 10. We arrived without problems, and we got our equipment and pass quite fast, since we knew what to do now.
The start of the tracks had quite a good layer of snow, I believe it had snowed recently. It was more like powder, and the floor was harder than before, but smoother too. Carlos went on his way, since he had skied before. We asked for one more hour of training for later on, to practice my balance some more. Since I had one free hour before the training, I started to practice on the green track.
After a few tries, I managed to remember more or less the lessons of the last day. I still had lots of problems, but I practiced turning and stopping. I discovered that I was starting to easily turn to the left, but the right turn was hard for me, most of the times I tried that I ended on the floor. Still, I learned some more things, and I managed to stop at will, even if backwards instead of looking towards where I was moving.
Before the instruction we ate some little sandwiches we had with us, and then I went to meet the guy who would teach me. This one spoke English, even if with some mistakes, so it was easier to communicate with him. After asking what had I done before, I explained that I had trouble with balancing, so we went straight to practicing that. To do so, we went straight to a blue/red track.
Basically, we started to travel that track with the snowboard across the track, so we were not going fast. Still, the first moments were kind of scary...
I discovered that my forward balance had improved a lot in just these 2 days, and I managed to go down unassisted for a long period. Then he explain how to move from one side to the other, maintaining the position and just changing the weight distribution. It was possible to control it more or less, with some moments where I needed to adjust the weight because I was sliding too much or too little. After these exercises, we did the same but backwards.
This time it was harder for me to control the backwards movement, for some reason. I think it was just a muscle issue: This simple exercise requires you to use your leg muscles and put tension in them for long periods. I'm not in good shape, and muscles started to ache quite fast after a while of this. It was quite tiring.
Anyway, we managed to go down to the end of the track, but it took a long while, almost an hour. At the bottom, I finally used the ski pass, and we took one of the chairs to go up. This in theory is easier than the other type of lifts, but since it was my first time using it I though it was harder. Sure, you only needed to keep the balance a the beginning and at the end, but these were the most crucial parts.
After this hour, the instructor's time was over, so I went to practice some more on the green track. I had improved a little bit more, and even if I was not able to turn right correctly, the last time I went down I managed to stop at will and looking to the front. At least now I knew how to stop....
On our way back we had one last adventure. Everything was going fine, until we got close to Adler: There was a huge traffic jam. First, the bus driver asked if someone wanted to use a number of stops that were in the middle of the mess. Since nobody wanted to use them, he changed the route and used a different way. We managed to advance quite a lot more, but eventually we arrived to the traffic jam again.
After a while, and after receiving calls that were explaining to us that this was a massive traffic jam affecting everybody around the Adler area, we started to see people walking on the highway. Several passengers decided to imitate them, and went down the bus.
It was weird to walk in the highway, but it's true that no car was moving at all, and the people walking were covering ground faster than us. Besides, we noticed that the buildings where we live were visible. After checking the map, we calculated to be 2-3 km away from home.
Seeing that the traffic jam was not getting better, we decided to imitate other people and we went down in the middle of the highway to walk home.
It took us around 50 minutes, and there were lots of smoke and bad roads in the way, but we managed to get home, and clearly we managed to do so faster than the bus. It was still a weird experience, seeing how people just said "fuck it" and left the car or bus in the middle of the highway....but well, we're in Russia after all^^
The first experience was fun, but later on we didn't find a moment to repeat it. Basically, I was lazy. It's fun, but it requires your whole day, so several times when we had moments to go, I preferred to stay and do different things instead.
Anyway, in the end we decided to go one Monday that, because of the weird pattern of shifts I have, we had vacations. We went with a co-worker, Carlos Climent, to show him the way and how things were in the ski resort area. We knew that the station we were going to use was not the best one, but the idea was to show the way so later on he and the other people that has come from Spain to help us with shifts could know the way and go by themselves.
This time we didn't go very early, and instead we took the bus at around 10. We arrived without problems, and we got our equipment and pass quite fast, since we knew what to do now.
The start of the tracks had quite a good layer of snow, I believe it had snowed recently. It was more like powder, and the floor was harder than before, but smoother too. Carlos went on his way, since he had skied before. We asked for one more hour of training for later on, to practice my balance some more. Since I had one free hour before the training, I started to practice on the green track.
After a few tries, I managed to remember more or less the lessons of the last day. I still had lots of problems, but I practiced turning and stopping. I discovered that I was starting to easily turn to the left, but the right turn was hard for me, most of the times I tried that I ended on the floor. Still, I learned some more things, and I managed to stop at will, even if backwards instead of looking towards where I was moving.
Before the instruction we ate some little sandwiches we had with us, and then I went to meet the guy who would teach me. This one spoke English, even if with some mistakes, so it was easier to communicate with him. After asking what had I done before, I explained that I had trouble with balancing, so we went straight to practicing that. To do so, we went straight to a blue/red track.
Basically, we started to travel that track with the snowboard across the track, so we were not going fast. Still, the first moments were kind of scary...
I discovered that my forward balance had improved a lot in just these 2 days, and I managed to go down unassisted for a long period. Then he explain how to move from one side to the other, maintaining the position and just changing the weight distribution. It was possible to control it more or less, with some moments where I needed to adjust the weight because I was sliding too much or too little. After these exercises, we did the same but backwards.
This time it was harder for me to control the backwards movement, for some reason. I think it was just a muscle issue: This simple exercise requires you to use your leg muscles and put tension in them for long periods. I'm not in good shape, and muscles started to ache quite fast after a while of this. It was quite tiring.
Anyway, we managed to go down to the end of the track, but it took a long while, almost an hour. At the bottom, I finally used the ski pass, and we took one of the chairs to go up. This in theory is easier than the other type of lifts, but since it was my first time using it I though it was harder. Sure, you only needed to keep the balance a the beginning and at the end, but these were the most crucial parts.
After this hour, the instructor's time was over, so I went to practice some more on the green track. I had improved a little bit more, and even if I was not able to turn right correctly, the last time I went down I managed to stop at will and looking to the front. At least now I knew how to stop....
On our way back we had one last adventure. Everything was going fine, until we got close to Adler: There was a huge traffic jam. First, the bus driver asked if someone wanted to use a number of stops that were in the middle of the mess. Since nobody wanted to use them, he changed the route and used a different way. We managed to advance quite a lot more, but eventually we arrived to the traffic jam again.
After a while, and after receiving calls that were explaining to us that this was a massive traffic jam affecting everybody around the Adler area, we started to see people walking on the highway. Several passengers decided to imitate them, and went down the bus.
It was weird to walk in the highway, but it's true that no car was moving at all, and the people walking were covering ground faster than us. Besides, we noticed that the buildings where we live were visible. After checking the map, we calculated to be 2-3 km away from home.
Seeing that the traffic jam was not getting better, we decided to imitate other people and we went down in the middle of the highway to walk home.
It took us around 50 minutes, and there were lots of smoke and bad roads in the way, but we managed to get home, and clearly we managed to do so faster than the bus. It was still a weird experience, seeing how people just said "fuck it" and left the car or bus in the middle of the highway....but well, we're in Russia after all^^
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