Shortly after Michelle and Annette left we headed for Dubai, caught a plane to Heathrow, took a car to Gatwick then flew to Toulouse, were picked up by Denise and Ray and driven to Andorra - a narrow little state in the Pyrenees between Spain and France. It used to be a smuggling route between the two but it now makes its money from skiing and, as it's not part of the EU, from cheap cigarettes and alcohol. Every gas station, supermarket or small corner shop is loaded with cigarettes and alcohol. If you want to eat you may be out of luck, but if you need a fag or a drink you're in the right place! Denise and Ray have a little one bedroom apartment in Soldeu (Andorra) just a short walk to the gondola and you're up onto the skifield. They stayed at a friends place, literally just across the road and we had the use of the apartment for the week.
On Day One we had a sleep-in, picked up skis and boots and had a look around the area. Matija was very lucky to get a ski suit, gloves etc. from Aunty Denise so she was toasty warm and very styley all week long. Soldeu is a genuine little alpine village - there are a few older stone buildings with wooden beams and even cows housed at street level, and while there are many more newer buildings and apartments they are required to have stone facades and fit with the old village. Very nice. There seem to be a string of small villages, towns and resorts through Andorra and most are adjacent to skiing or have a gondola up to the snowfields. We went for a drive and a walk onto one of the skifields and Matija was determined to throw some snow. Unfortunately she kept picking blocks of snow and ice as big as her head and had trouble lifting them, let alone throwing them. An afternoon pizza and beer in the sun overlooking the fields and we felt like we could easily settle in for the week.
Day Two saw us up the mountain and hitting the slopes with Denise and Ray. One of us stayed with Matija on the learner slope while the others did a run or two then swapped over. Matija remembered her skiing from a couple of years ago at Ruapehu and quickly got the hang of it. By the end of day one she was skiing along the beginner slopes and even catching the rope tow up by herself. Ande and I were pretty rusty and I'd never used carving skis before, so the week of ski school we'd booked into was a very good idea. Despite this and the crushing pressure of my rental boots, we had a great day. The weather was beautiful, the snow was good and we got to ski miles and miles of new terrain. Awesome.
Day Three saw us up the hill for our ski lessons. Matija was booked into ski school too. She had three hours of ski lessons with Steph (the instructor) in the morning. Luckily she had met her Steph in the pub the night before and spent most of the night climbing around so she could watch and idolise her. A great start to a student/teacher relationship. We would meet her for lunch for an hour after our lessons then she went back into the childcare/playcentre and we hit the slopes with Denny and Ray for the day.
Ski school didn't start well. We had to ski down a slope, one at a time so that the instructors could rate us and draft us into the correct group for our abilities. Unfortunately the person at the top, sending us down, was a bit of a wally and sent everyone down so quickly that the instructors scarcely got a chance to see people skiing and in Ande's case, didn't see her ski at all. She got drafted into a lower group than I did, which was completely unfair as she is a far better skiier. Never mind, I got Chris as an instructor. He was a very good skiier, but had the personality and natural charm of a fencepost. Not an old rustic one either, or a nice solid strainer. More a post that's slightly fat at the wrong end or that someone's put slightly out of line. You don't want to go and bash it with the post rammer every time you go past, but you do wish that some bastard had put a better one in in the first place. Not the world's greatest encourager/motivator. Ande, on the other hand had a really nice guy for an instructor, although the group were tackling slopes far easier than she was used to.
Anyway we headed off in our respective groups for the morning, skiing around, doing some exercises and practicing the things we needed to do to be better skiiers (most things for me, as my technique was to skid around the corners, rather than carve with the ski's). We also got to meet a few new people and enjoy the awesome mountains up there. Not bad at all. By the end of the day Matija was doing a brilliant snow plow (pizza in their terms), she could stop and she could stand up when she fell over. Very cool.
More of the same followed for most of the week. The weather was settled, sunny and relatively warm and Matija was learning at a frantic pace. By the third day she was heading off around the mountain with her little group of three rather than hanging in the beginners bit. The ski shop hadn't believed a 4year old would keep skiing all week so hadn't let us pay a full week's hire. In the end she skiied for seven days straight - although a couple of mornings we had to cajole her up the mountain a little bit as she was getting worn out.
We broke all the skiing up with a bit of night life. We stopped for a beer a few evenings - when a little two piece band got Matija up for the second night to play the tambourine they let her keep the tambourine and a red cowboy hat. A band of the local ski instructors gave us a great night with their 'crowd favourite' party songs and Ande ended having a late one with Denise and a few stayers.
We also enjoyed some great afternoons skiing with Denise and Ray. We ventured over to a frozen lake with a restaurant and did some more hard core skiing down some more difficult runs. We did hit a run that was a bit gnarly one afternoon and when Ray tried to cut inside Ande rather than letting her go he ended up catching an edge and falling headfirst, then sliding fifty or sixty metres down the mountain. He was a bit battered and bruised and took some time out that afternoon, but he was back up the mountain the next day.
On Thursday night we got the news that George, Ande's Dad, suffered a stroke and his prognosis was uncertain. There was nothing we could do at that stage so we went up the mountain on Friday, finished our respective classes and did a timed run down a slalom. It was a bit warm and slushy when we went down and it felt dead slow but we got some photos and it led to the prizegiving that night at one of the local bars, a good chance to have a beer and a chat to our classmates. Matija also graduated from her ski school - thanks to Steph's efforts she could stop, turn, slow down, catch a chairlift, pomma or rope tow and ski down the mountain! Unfortunately we got the news later that night that George was in a bad way and the girls should fly back to NZ asap.
It was a shock and we were all upset to hear the news, particularly when we were so far away. Fortunately we could support each other and Ande and Denise were up late booking flights and getting organised. The next day we said our goodbyes and Ray drove them down to Toulouse to get on a plane for a bloody long trip home. Matija and I took it easy till lunchtime, then we went up the mountain for a last ski. It was a bit warm and because she's still so little I had to tow her across the flat bits, but we skiied across to the 'circus', an area where there was circus music and a little track with a slalom, some humps, curved corners and obstacles to ski under and around. Matija loved it and we did three circuits, catching the chairlift back every time, then skiied along the trails right to the bottom of the mountain. She has a great snow plough, far better than mine and I was very proud of her.
The next day we packed up and headed down to St Pierre, a coastal resort town in Southern France where Denise and Ray have an apartment. The country scenery was beautiful on the drive down and we passed many rustic little towns and villages. We stopped for lunch in the old part of a French town and enjoyed beautiful sandwiches and excellent coffee with people saying 'merci' and 'ouvoir' and 'bonjour'. It's amazing how third and fourth form French come back when you are in those situations. You can also nearly guess the written words as the base is so similar to English, unlike Arabic where you don't even have much idea what the characters sound like. It was very different from Andorra or the middle east and a great experience because of that.
Denise and Ray's place is a lovely modern two bedroom apartment with plenty of outdoor space and everything you need. It's light and bright, with plenty of kiwi art and it was great to spend a few days there. We ate out the first night at a neat little restaurant by the sea called Tahiti. What I loved was that every restaurant offers a set menu, usually with a salad bar, a selection of mains and a dessert bar. The food was great and the price was very reasonable. The wine was also cheap and it made eating out a real option. It was also really good healthy food, lots of nice salads and veges and yummy deserts (not so healthy but very tasty).
Matija and I helped trim the garden back one day, we visited Narbonne and had an awesome walk along the canals, checking out the boats before heading into the town centre and drinking espresso's. Matija decided she was hungry and she chose a huge raw salmon sandwich at the counter. The young woman behind the counter seemed certain that Matija wouldn't like it, but we insisted and she shrugged and handed it over. I was very pleased that Matija cleaned up the whole sandwich herself and loved it.
We went for another good walk around St Pierre, stopping at a playground then walking back through the shops, trying out some local sweets and munching out on a custard tart at a seat beside the road. It was a really lovely town and just a shame that Ande and Denise weren't there to share it with us. Matija missed Mum too and got a bit stroppy a few times to prove it. She was also waking up a couple of times every night which disturbed Dad's beauty sleep too.
We'd earlier planned to get to Eurodisney after St Pierre, so Matija and I decided to carry on with that. We could get a train from Bezier, so Ray dropped us there one morning and we caught one train, the TGV right to the stop at Marne la valle (Eurodisney). It was an amazing train, they travel at about 300km/h, they're very smooth, quiet and comfortable. You don't realise how fast you're going until you come alongside a motorway and the cars are disappearing behind you as if they're not even moving. We'd packed a lunch, but there was a dining car and coffee and it was a great way to travel. Matija wanted to walk up and down to the dining car all the time, but at least we could stretch our legs and there were loos there too.
We whizzed right through Paris and arrived at Marne le valle late in the afternoon and caught the complimentary bus to the Explorers Hotel, about 5 mins from the station. It was a big hotel set up for families visiting Disneyland. They had a playground and a swimming pool with a pirate ship and waterslides. Matija was rapt when she had her own bunk bed in a seperate room from me. It was full of English families visiting Disney and Matija loved the place. We hit the waterslides and Matija was really brave, riding on the fast one (for 6yrs +) with me, then even going by herself. I had to wait at the bottom as it was too deep for her to swim when she came flying out of the pipe at the end.
Next morning, after a buffet breakfast that was a bit like boarding school with about two hundred excited kids thrown, in we caught the bus to the main attraction. I didn't really know what to expect, but once you've brought the ticket (not cheap) you can go on any of the different rides and visit different areas without paying any extra. There are six or seven different themed areas (about 7 acres each) and these range from little Wild West towns to Space Age cities, to Princess Castles and African/Middle Eastern villages. Each area has little rides for little people as well as great big kick-arse roller coasters or steam boats or water driven rides. There were also opportunities to meet Disney characters like Micky, Pluto, princesses etc at various times in different parts of the park. It was all very well done. It was raining lightly when we got there and stayed pretty cool, which was probably a good thing. We were there on a wet Thursday in the off-season and we still had to queue for up to 30minutes for some rides. I would hate to be there on a peak season weekend. It just wouldn't be worth the queueing.
Mickey Mouse wasn't far inside the entrance so we queued for a photo with him (just as it started raining), then wandered down to the Wild West place. Matija insisted on going on the train ride, Thunder Mountain, even though it looked like about the scariest ride in the place. I shrugged and joined the queue and we ended up catching the manic little train through collapsing mines, under the lake, over a twisty, turning little mountain through caves that groaned and shrieked and back to the platform. Matija didn't cry, but she buried her face in my sleeve and closed her eyes most of the way. She was pale when we got off and kept telling me it was scary. She was a little shy of the other rides for the rest of the day. It was great that a seven or eight year old boy got off ahead of us and was bawling his eyes out. I could tell her how brave she'd been.
We went through the princess castle and got to see Cinderella before spending a lot of time trying to get through the maze to the Mad Hatters Tea Party and visiting a funny little house. We went on a huge carousel and rode the teacups before heading through the Small World ride with all the singing puppets from around the world - very cool although Matija had to be cajoled/dragged into the little boat (still suffering after Thunder Mountain).
We had lunch at some African? themed place then headed over to the space age part where we rode the Buzz Lightyear ride and shot at evil aliens (and the people behind us) with little laser guns. We queued for quite a while for Automania (or something similar) where Matija got to drive the car around a railed track. She did a great job and we took a coffee/hot chocolate break in the theatre where you watch old Disney cartoons.
Matija had spotted a princess dress that she adored back at the Castle and since she has a Princess Ball coming up here in May (a school fundraiser) we went back and got it, along with a crown and glass (plastic) slippers. She loved it and insisted on wearing it to watch the Disney parade. What's a Dad to do? The Parade was still 40 minutes away but she was shagged so we sat on a kerb and waited with hundreds of others. It was well worth it as she recognised all her favourite Fairy Tale characters, from Pluto and Goofy to the Princesses, the cast of Toy Story, evil uncle Scar from the Lion King, Peter Pan and the evil Stepmother from Snow White. She absolutely loved it and one penguin even took her hand and bowed to her as he recognised a true princess in the crowd. It was a great day out, we missed Mum, but we decided we'd have to take her back with us next time.
The next morning we breakfasted with the hordes, then took the bus to catch the train to Paris. In Paris we took a couple of Metro trains to get to the Eurostar at Gard du Nord, caught that to St Pancras Station in London then took the underground to Heathrow. We got held up for about an hour on that train, but as we had six hours to fill in at Heathrow it wasn't a problem. After a big wait we caught the plane at about 10pm, arriving in Dubai at 7am, but losing 3 hours on the flight, caught a cab to a friend's place where the car was stored, had a coffee and drove back to Al Ain. It was a hell of a long trip really and I can only blame myself as I was the silly bugger that booked it. Never mind. It was a massive holiday, one that had it's ups and downs and one that we won't forget in a long time.
