Maeva Le Hameau Du Sauget La Plagne

... in terms of getting free wine in the chalet so far so got pretty drunk - went out to a bar which had opened up specially for us lot and got pretty hammered. it closed at 12 so went back to the chalet and finished off the rest of the wine.

did our food hygiene level 2 today, sitting in a bar now having a few beers, still snowing a little bit. got cleaning training tomorrow...... hmmm....

anyway, enough for now - will try and update towards the end ...

Rainy and cold has replaced sunny and warm in France but it has not curbed ambitions... Well, I guess any ambition to exercise has been exhausted but we saw that one coming.

Travel is still high priority. Last week the GEP cohort was treated to a day trip to Mt. Blanc in Chamonix. A three hour bus ride west took us into the steep peaked, deep valley-ed Rhône-Alpes. The landscapes only got more impressive as we wove through the valleys and eventually reached the base of Mt. Blanc. We ...

... was a Golden in the corner and then
a some kind of terrier arrived and they were introduced to each
other. Then about a half hour later, a Bernese Mountain dog made a
grand entrance, all 180 pounds of him. He immediately headed to the
open arms of the chef and assistant in the rear near the kitchen and
was slobbering over everyone. Next he was invited into the kitchen
for what I don't know, although my decision was now made about eating
dinner that evening. As I ...

... up to
me and I was ready for the bed.



Wednesday 10-21



I got up to a cloudy day and
headed to the town center to go to the Tourist Information (TI)
office to pick up some maps for my travels in the area. The wind was
howling and the TI rep told me that all the lifts were closed due to
the winds, so no travels up the mountain today. I picked up the
maps, headed to the town center to pick up a sandwich and then
headed back to ...

... 20 off we went.
The route was via motorways, we did turn off for a Lidl, getting some more money and petrol. We also sat outside the Maccas in the carpark to use the free internet to book accomodation. Our hotel is the number one ranked on Tripadvisor for great views and good service. Hopefully a very nice view of Mont Blanc, so we can see what the pens are trying to achieve on the top of the lids..hehe. I do remember selling Mont Blanc pens at David Jones during Uni..they were ...

... half bottle of wine at dinner, so realistically, we barely drank anything. I told them we had 1 glass of wine each at dinner ( to make things simple), but they still made Jon blow into this gimmicky balloon and it showed that Jon was over the 0.025 limit. That kind of freaked us out, because we had no idea that the limit was a lot more strict in France. So they say that Jon needs to go back to the station with them to do a real ...

As we were next to the Alps, we decided to go trekking around Chamonix for a couple of days, and get some fresh mountain air. Nats felt at home as the place we stayed in Chamonix was the exact same as where she stayed 4 years ago when she came skiing here!!

We were very lucky wih the weather on the first day, and the views over the mountain range was magnificent. We walked from Vallorcine up to the lac ...

... Plan Bois) to do our first run on the slopes. I had enquired about boarding lessons, but unfortunately every place I asked at was fully booked for the days ahead and the first available would've been on Tuesday. Rather disappointed as I didn't want to be the completely useless boarder holding everyone else up, I left and decided to join the group anyways as despite not being totally able to join in the excitement, I was not going to be the one sitting at home ...

... is because it's so easy to travel to different places, with all the delays it took us the same time to get from Cambridge to La Plagne as it did from Adelaide to Falls Creek. It was a depressing thought. Nevertheless, we'd arrived finally, and we were going to have Ian's first ever French meal! We went to leave our apartment and the lock wouldn't work. We then discovered the phone line to reception written everywhere didn't work. After a fair amount of swearing ...

The reason I went to France was to go skiing at chamonix/Mont Blanc, which i did and it was fantastic and i will be doing again very soon before i get tied up.. while i was there i did the world famous ski run Valley de blanche you ski over a glacier. which is amazing, the veiws you get on theis run are spectacular. definately take a camera.
to start this run however you take a gondola up to the summit of Aguille de medie (i'm unsure of the correct ...