cheeseit

The trip to Val d'Isere yesterday was pretty uneventful, my parents gave James and myself a lift to Gatwick. We got there about 10:45, as we needed to get issued with a new ticket for me - the ski tour company had misspelled my surname (amusing considering I'd corrected the spelling of my first name with the booking agent two days before said tickets were issued!) Getting the new tickets didn't take long as the rep was in front of the check-in desks and the desks themselves were empty so we were checked in and had our skis in the oversize baggage by 11. So we had an hour or so to kill before they announced our gate, Gatwick was deserted compared to previous times I've been there and they now insist of pumping some very repetitive music out in the background.

The flight was pleasant and we landed on time in Chambery. I've only ever flown out of Chambery before, so I'd not experienced the delights of walking across the apron to a couple of tents that led to the immigration clerk. The baggage carousels were also very entertaining with no end of bags getting jammed.

Still all our bags turned up, so the next bit of fun was finding a rep who actually could tell me which bus we were supposed to be on. I tried all three Total Ski reps, before being told I needed to talk to the rep with a different tour companies jacket on. Once we found our bus, we weren't allowed to just put our bags in the baggage compartments, as the bus driver insisted on meticulously load balancing his bus. In fact when a couple of fellow travellers tried to assist by bringing their bags around to the other side of the bus, which he was loading, he barked something at them in French, sent them back round to the side everyone else was waiting on, and then ended up putting their bags round the other side anyway. He did also have a shocking taste in music, namely some ghastly Euro Pop/Dance that he insisted on playing for the second half of the journey.

We got to the hotel around 7:15. Jame's Dad and brother Andy had caught different flights to us and had been at the hotel since early afternoon, so got the early sitting at dinner, we had to wait until 8:30, but did get mulled wine and aperatifs beforehand, which took the edge off paying 11 Euros for two pints of beer in the hotel bar, although the barman did accept 10 Euros - which was nice.

Dinner was good, but we did wait until about 9 as there was lot's of talking from the reps, and attempts to punt the services of others. The food was good as was the free wine. By then it was about time to turn in, by which point it had started snowing outside....