January 10-11, 2008. The missing days.
January 12, 2008. Today my new job as a group escort for ski trips started. With a bang, after one of the people I met at the airport had a bag stolen out from under our eyes. Amazing since everyone was sitting with the luggage, and his bag disappeared. Not good since it contained his passport. I asked if he had a copy of the passport, and he confirmed, yes, it was also in the same stolen bag.
Anyway, here’s the deal. I have a few just wonderful people, including the guy and his wife whose bag was stolen, and others. The deaf people are really nice and descent and trying to communicate with us like I try to communicate in Spanish. The woman in the ski shop just loved them – she is very nice. I’m pretty sure she’s from the Basque country since she’s not like a Catalan (she let me have a pair of skis free – any Catalan would have charged “sorry, it’s the rule”).
January 13, 2008. Everyone got on the bus from the hotel to the resort, which turned out to be too small. I even have a stow-away — a French guy who just happened to be at the hotel and is also deaf and cannot speak. Apparently sign language in international. What are the chances?
Then once at the resort, we finally organized tickets, which took some time, especially with the deaf group. Then taking a funnytram or whatever it’s called from the base of the resort to the top, an 18 minute ride in a large gondola with two cables. Finally at the snow, and one of the deaf women found out that one of the skis she rented did not fit her boot. This was very difficult since I had to find someone who knew how these worked and she was very agitated, pointed to her watch and jumping up and down. The guy who was helping me really felt sorry for me, and when he finally was able to fix it, hugged me (!) as if to say, Good Luck. I tried to tell her (difficult since she cannot communicate (no lip reading, no hearing, nothing other than writing I guess or sign language). The deaf people all ski together with their trip leader (it’s a group within the group).
Off everyone went and I ended up skiing with the couple who lost their passports yesterday. We had a fine day, ran into various people from the group here and there and everyone seemed to be doing fine. At the end of the day, one of the deaf people who reads lips very well told me that the women who was very agitated and nervous had hurt her shoulder. Bad news. Her group leader had gone with her to the hospital. Turned out she broke her arm, was hospitalized and would need an operation! Really bad news.
Anyway, I found all this out as I was walking the remaining 14 people who survived a day of me as trip leader to the Caldea Spa. One of the women accepted a dare (she apparently thought this was fun) to wear her hotel robe through the streets to the spa, a 15 minute walk. Whatever. Caldea is a huge indoor and outdoor pool complex with tons of “spa” features like Sauna, Steam, ice cold, snow, all in a darkened complex with a sound and light show every hour. There were tons of young Spanish and Russian couples in positions where you really wanted to say, “Hey, get a room” all over the place. The first show reminded me of some cheesy new-Russia themed movie with a disco and lots of action. The second show involved what appeared to be toxic clouds of smoke descending from the ceiling. Somebody must have had $50 million or more to build the place because no reasonable bank would have financed it; it seems pretty successful to me, though. Then dinner at the hotel (I found out everyone thought last night’s dinner was not good but apparently they were happier with this one).
Now to see who makes it through tomorrow.
January 14, 2008. Now I see yesterday was the 13th, not a Friday, but nevertheless. Today, after skiing the day and dealing with three nice people and having a pretty good time, after returning from skiing (somehow our group started out with 14 and was reduced to 7 by the end of the day), I went to the hospital to deal with the injured woman. She can’t hear, speak, or otherwise communicate very well, other than writing in English and sign language. Luckily, her group leader (she was part of the deaf group within our group) sat with her the entire day.
Anyhow, off to the hospital I want and a mere four hours later, we finally arranged for a ambulance to Barcelona where she could be operated on. With her limited communication, I don’t know how it will work, but so be it. I was helped for the entire time by Eugenia, from the hotel, who was fantastic and of course spoke every language. She also taught me the phrase in Spanish “estoy hasta las narices” as in all fed up, which I pretty much am. This is a job I probably would not want to repeat. The joke is I’m only two days into this.
January 15, 2008. Got the group together and off we went to ski. The wind was pretty strong but everyone seems to deal with it. We have levels from intermediate to close to expert but everyone seems to be able to ski together.
I have found a nice lunch place on the mountain and plan to spend all my lunch times there until we leave. Two more days.
January 16, 2008. Another day off to the slopes on what looked like a pretty terrible day. Once we arrived, however, the weather cleared and it was nice until about lunch time. I’ve found a very nice Andorran restaurant on the slopes (Pessons) that is just great and have gone there every day. On leaving, I just say, “hasta manana.” They are really nice.
I took the group out for dinner tonight at a Borda, a traditional Andorran farmhouse converted to a restaurant. It was very nice with multiple courses. Jenny, the girl who is my liaison with the hotel came along luckily and explained each dish of food and what it was and its history. She was a wonderful addition and is very attractive so one of the single guys (there are two) upon finding she was married asked if she had any unmarried sisters at home. She said she had only a brother. I, of course, commented “he’s very handsome, though.”
It’s raining cats and dogs here, which means probably good skiing on the slopes.