Bulgaria Ski discussion board

Hi to all

Got back from a week's stay in Borovets... what a holiday..

We arrived on Saturday evening at the Samokov - believe them when they say that its not worth booking half board.. the food is something to behold. Breakfast is not quite as awful tho, and the hotel rooms and bathrooms are spotless.

Don't try to take a shower tho - the curtain doesn't reach the bath and there is no seal around any of the baths - makes for a lot of water on the floor - which can be quite treacherous if (like my partner Kev) you end up in a full leg cast - more later....

Sunday was our first day of skiing (EVER) and we trundled ourselves down to Hunters to get our gear sorted out. You need to really pull on the boots at the front to get your foot in - something I learned to do later in the week after wearing size 28.5 for a couple of days - Kev bought me new boots - aw bless!!! - and I find that I'm only a size 25!!!! So do persevere in trying to stuff your tootsies in and make sure that the boots are a snug fit.

Kev managed to break his bindings on the end of the first day of (gruelling) trips up and down the nursery slopes.. Hunters were great about it and changed them that evening. Sadly, the bindings weren't fitted properly and he found that once on the slopes his feet 'wiggled' in them. Our instructor - Ivan (great guy), thought that he was doing Kev a favour by swapping and taking his skis, little did we know that we really should have gone and sorted this out at Hunters.

We traversed our first long run on the second day.... wonderful except for the fact that my son (10) thought that he was in a race to the bottom and flew past us at a rate of knotts hitherto unknown in beginners terms.... I skied like a loon to try to catch him and found him flat on his face further down the mountain. Many admonishments later, the rest of the group caught up with us. They consisted of Kev - beginner, Graham - Intermediate, Katie - beginner and James - Graham's six year old son who was sleeping over Ivan's poles.. On our second run down that day, Kev came a cropper in Ivan's skis, going round a 'hairpin' bend like something out of a formula one racetrack, he ploughed into the side and only saved himself from plunging down the mountain to certain death (well = it seemed that way to us) by hurtling headlong into the nearest snowdrift. Looking like something from 'wacky races' meets 'come dancing on ice' I hurtled past him - my screams of 'are you alright' dancing on the wind caused by my swift descent.

His bindings hadn't released, and he twisted his knee a bit, still... my action hero got back up and skied the rest of the way down, barely stopping for breath, with only the slightest murmurs of 'jeez, emmitted occasionally as he turned left....

That night was spent in the Karaoke bar - we became regulars there! Kev decided to stay on after I went to bed.. to drown the pain... hmmmmm. On his return to the room at 4am he was 'ooching' and 'ouching', wincing and sucking in his breath. Being the good nurse that I am, I lauched the nearest pack of parecetamol at his head and covered mine with the pillow so that I could get back to sleep.

We went down to Hunters for breakfast on Christmas morning.. mmmm... hot wine and chocolate because it was Christo's name day. Kev was somewhat uncomfortable with his poor injured leg so he decided to give skiing a miss... Christo told him to put a vinegar compress on it and that everything would be ok the next day. Off we went.. skiing.. heavenly... and on our return were greeted by a slightly petulant 'I told you so..', looking Kev who was plastered... LITERALLY... from toe to hip, having taken himself off to the docs and been sent to the hospital for x rays.. only to find that he had snapped one ligament and torn another... the hospital trip will be another story...

Things went from bad to worse for poor Kev, who insisted that we carry on skiing... and was gutted every time we came down the mountain red cheeked and sparkling, to find him cold, miserable and in pain. He tried his best to soak away any twinges he experienced in his knee by visiting every bar he could find... but the sheer loneliness of not having me there next to him sliding under the table as he ordered 'just one more'... was just too much... he had to resort to making friends with all the bar touts in the place. In his words 'it was a nightmare for us...'

Now to the point of this ridiculously long=winded message.... someone, somewhere should get together a 'WALKING WOUNDED' club... where all these poor, non-skiing invalids can swap stories, plan their drinking in a sensible way, compare scrawling on their plaster and generally moan for a bit before the drink takes hold....

I would suggest meeting between 10 and 12 in a bar close to the slopes so that they can wave to their loved ones with a suitably 'pissed off' expression, garnered especially for the 5 minutes before said families make their way back up the mountain...

On a less 'tongue in cheek' note - there really doesn't seem to be an awful lot to do for people who are injured... maybe the reps can suggest something - ours were only notable by their absence!!!!

Any suggestions before we go back in March and I manage to break something too?