March 13, 2008<\/u>.\u00a0 Wow, what a day.\u00a0 Nothing happened.\u00a0 I did manage to plan another two days of our Easter break (Semana Santa) which is the Saturday and Sunday on the way back from skiing.\u00a0 Here’s the thing, it’s high season, we need two rooms (if anyone wants to sleep — David snores loudly and I can’t sleep with it and frankly, we like to be comfortable) and Provence, where we’re going seems set up for romantic get-aways (only).\u00a0 Hours later, I called the best western and booked something one of the sites said was not charming.\u00a0\u00a0 It required speaking French to a few people, with one guy answering me back in such poor French I didn’t even try to book with him after that (he didn’t have anything close to what we wanted anyway).<\/p>\n
March 14, 2008<\/u>.\u00a0 We packed today, getting ready for what promises to be a long drive to M\u00e9<\/font>ribel, France.\u00a0 It’s all super highways and should take about eight hours.\u00a0 Unlike the US, every resort changes on Saturday (as in 30 years ago in Colorado) so the roads are crowded not to mention it’s Easter (Semana Santa for hispanofiles).\u00a0 We are packing heavy since it a car trip.\u00a0<\/p>\n I went out to get in shape for the vacation today, and road my bike about two hours up into the hills.\u00a0 It’s some pretty nice riding with tons of tight turns after you get out of town, which takes about 15 minutes of uphill riding.\u00a0 One thing I noticed is the clothes I wear here are completely different from other places — long sleeved jersey (I never used it until I got here), vest (ditto).\u00a0 It’s still a bit cool, but definitely ready to warm up.\u00a0 After skiing, we’ll stop in Provence to do some reportage.<\/p>\n March 15, 2008<\/u>.\u00a0 Eight hours plus in the car<\/a> and we got from Barcelona to M\u00e9ribel, France.\u00a0 There was about 30 minutes of traffic, otherwise not bad at all.\u00a0 This is the largest ski resort in the world (Les Trois Vallee).\u00a0 I’ll get all the details here.\u00a0 Anyhow, we’re here.\u00a0 They have a great Internet connection, a nice village where there are tons of restaurants all within 100 yards and sports stores.\u00a0 We rented equipment and went to dinner.\u00a0 The French food, even here, is far superior to Spanish food in flavor (it has some).\u00a0 It’s nice to be at altitude (about 6,000 feet) and unlike Aspen, it looks like they could use some snow.<\/p>\n March 16, 2008<\/u>.\u00a0 We gave up trying to find breakfast and went to a small, very good supermarket and bought everything for a while for probably the price of one breakfast.\u00a0 The local foods are very nice, products of this region which is the Savoy.\u00a0<\/p>\n Just got back from skiing (photos here)<\/a>\u00a0and it’s endless.\u00a0 Conditions were less than perfect with flat light and a new “dusting” of about 3 or 4 inches of heavy wet powder.\u00a0 We skied through it and aside from not seeing anything, the amazing thing is that everyone stays on these very narrow “pistes” which are next to huge fields of endless untracked snow (which is in fact better skiing and much more fun).\u00a0 From the reading I’ve done, the harder pistes are found in Courchevel, which is one ridge away along with a gondola ride.\u00a0 We’ll try to go there tomorrow, weather permitting (it was not permitting today with wind and white-out conditions).\u00a0 It’s dumping now at 5:28 p.m. local time.\u00a0<\/p>\n March 17, 2008<\/u>.\u00a0 Last night both Joshua and David threw up.\u00a0 It was really bad for Joshua, not too bad (but bad enough) for David.\u00a0 Joshua was up an extra hour and a half, David probably about half an hour.\u00a0 Joshua was very pleased after he threw up the second time.\u00a0 They obviously got some bad food, we suspect at the restaurant we ate at last night.\u00a0<\/p>\n