Christmas Vacation

Hola Todos!

I am back and recovering from my xmas vacation! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday! I realized being away from home is tough. I will now take full advantage of eggnog, xmas tunes on the radio and admiring the xmas lights....maybe even come to apprecaite the snow....just not 8 feet of snow. Anyways, even though it was tough being away from home, I enjoyed a wonderful vacation in Chamonix Mont-Blanc, France with my friend Barry. The scenery was unlike anything I have ever seen....the mountains, the sky, the snow...it didn't even look real. Very picture-esq!

So, we started out the vacation with a little travel hiccup. We had a wonderful and easy flight from Barcelona to Switz (enjoying some wine and champagne on the plane even) but arrived to find that our transportation from Switz to Chamonix was not there....and not coming. We tried asking cabbies to give us a lift but they would not do it for less than 200 euro. We figured we'd rather spend our money on skiing, so we walked to a near by hotel and got a room. We went back to the airport in the morning and basically harassed a guy to make room for us on his bus up to Chamonix, and so in the Christmas spirit, he did! So, on Christmas Day we arrived to our destination and immediately got on our gear and hit the slopes!

Conditions on the slopes were not ideal, very cold and icy with no "fresh" powder. Still, we got in our groove and enjoyed a little bit of time on the mountains. We came back to our hostel (who were not kind enough to give us a refund on the night we got stranded in Switz- ugh) and enjoyed a very hardy delish xmas dinner nonetheless. Then, off to explore the nightlife for a bit with a stop at a few pubs. A typical drink they serve in Chamonix is hot wine. Interesting, but not my thing. My friend and travel partner, Barry (BT), really enjoyed it though. I stuck to the beers and hot choco and bailey's...mmmmm! If it's one thing the French do right, it's chocolate for sure!

The next day we hit the slopes again. Again, not ideal conditions (cold and icy) but still GORGEOUS! We went to Le Tour Mountain to ski. BT a snowboarder and me a skier, got to the top of the mountain and our jaws dropped. It was unreal to be looking at these mountains and unreal for me to think I was going to get down without falling....20 times. And so, I did. These mountains were way over my head, but I still enjoyed the scene and went back down to the bunny hills while BT enjoyed the monstrous mountain.

The next day (Day 3) I woke up real sore and decided I would look into other options the city offered besides skiing. BT wanted to get his third day in of boarding and he did awesome...probably close to professional now ;) So, I went for a hike to the Aiguille du Midi. It's a lift station that takes you up to the highest peak of Mont Blanc. You have to take 2 separate cable cars to get up there and once up can hike around getting amazing views of the French and Italian Alps. Simply breathtaking! Oh and also FREEZING! Elevation is 3842 meters. SO HIGH!

Then after an afternoon of hiking and exploring the shops, I met back with BT and we had our last dinner and put our heads together to finagle a ride back down to the airport. We called every transportation company in town, but none were kind to our 5am pick up time for our 7:05am flight. We FINALLY talked one place into doing it, but for a pretty penny. So, my tip to you all if you travel here, is book your airport transportation in advance and negotiate up front.

So, now I am back in Madrid after a long and adventurous xmas vacation and unfortunately brought a nasty cold back with me. I am enjoying my New Year's as we speak on the couch, with a movie and orange juice and tracking the KU vs MN Insight Bowl online. I hope you all had a wonderful holiday and a GREAT New Year! Go KU!

I look forward to speaking and seeing you all in 2009!

Cheers,
Holly