First of all, apologies for the delay between posts. We don't have internet at our place so we have to go to the information centre to connect and it is all a bit of a mission. /too hard basket.
So we've been in Tignes [teen-ya] for about a month now and it has gone super fast. The first week was spent in nervous anticipation as we waited for the snow to arrive and we were able to walk around in t-shirts it was that warm. Lucky for us the glacier is able to be skied on year round so we went up for a day. The snow was surprisingly good and the area was so much bigger than we initially thought so we were able to complete a few good runs. The French ski team was there training and they were amazing to watch, super fast! The army was also there training. They are not given a ski pass so if they want to ski down the slopes they have to walk up them first...
There are a few different ways to get up the slopes here too. 6 seater lifts are standard but they also have gondolas, cable cars and funiculars (a train that is like the tube) which make their way up to the top of the slopes underground. The piste tracks here are very much like the ones in New Zealand but bigger, steeper and longer. In the area Espace Killy, (Tignes and Val D'isere) we are staying, there is around 600+km of them. You can also ski into Italy where you can heli ski as it is illegal in France. There is a lot of off piste skiing though and a short hike can get you some amazing fresh tracks although the danger of avalanches is very real and apparently a few people die a year skiing off piste. A few have already!
The snow started falling around the 10th of December and a week ago we heard people saying that the snow fall so far was 80% of what Tignes had for the entire last season so we are definitely off to a good start!
Sophie is a nanny for Snowbabies and it looks to be a very busy season for her. She looks after visiting families children while the parents ski or do other resort activities. Her first week was with a very sick bunch of kids, all three got a 48 hour vomiting bug. Not super exciting but the family were lovely. The week just gone was for a group consisting of 5 families, 19 people in total, staying in a very luxurious 5 star chalet. While there were 11 kids, we are only allowed to look after 3 at a time. We did lots of fun activities! Decorating the Christmas tree with homemade decorations, chocolate covered spoons, bum boarding/sledging, bungy trampoline jumping, decorating photo frames with pics of them during the week and more. Definitely looking forward to trying out more activities!
On Christmas day Sophie had to work but Simon made it up the mountain for the afternoon. He met up with Sam and Lauren, a couple from New Zealand, and went for a hike off piste for some fresh tracks. Sam and Lauren invited us back to their Chalet for Christmas dinner and it was amazing!
The food in Tignes is really expensive but we have been lucky enough to get rides down to Bourg St Maurice most weeks with Sophie's boss, Donna to stock up. Bourg St Maurice is a town about 40 minutes down the Alps and it has a lot of little boutique shops and supermarkets where the food can be half the price. We have discovered that duck is really cheap over here, about 3 euros for a massive breast, so we have been experimenting with a duck stir fry and Simon made an awesome duck soup.
We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas with family and friends and enjoyed your New Years Eve celebrations as we did! X
