A New Experience
I hope all is well back in the states! Life in Barcelona is still going great! I have spent lots of time filling my days with museums, an array of exhibits, classes and program excursions. One of my larger program goals was to embrace new things so it felt only appropriate to jump on the opportunity to go skiing this past weekend!
I have never been skiing in my life let alone done any type of winter activity despite living in Wisconsin for the past 21 years. I am not a huge fan of the cold but anyone can handle it for a few hours. A friend invited me after we went to Paris together and I spontaneously said yes and booked my ticket three days before it was time to go. Then before I knew it, I was headed to the slopes.
We decided that for our weekend trip we were going to spend one day skiing and the next at the spa to have a little bit of relaxation before the upcoming week began. When the day arrived to go skiing we got up super early and made a big breakfast of eggs, French toast, orange juice and more!
After breakfast we loaded up our warm clothes and took a bus to the mountain. We were a bit confused on how to get there but eventually made it all bundled up. The first thing we had to do was rent clothes. They had a really cool machine that measured our feet and allowed us to get the perfect sized boots and skis. We then put on all our clothes and found some helmets because one thing we all knew was that skiing could be dangerous.
Once all our clothes were on and we had all the stuff about an hour and a half had passed and I was in shock that people did this so frequently. It felt like such a long process and we weren’t even on the mountain yet.
Eventually though we did make it to the top of the mountain and I will say I was not prepared for how scared I was to ride the ski lift up. It went up so much higher than I thought it was going to. I watched a quick youtube video about how to ski and went down the hill. I had no idea how to stop or turn but eventually got the hang of it and had a blast. I spent the day laughing, falling and making memories. What a wonderful experience.
Major: Supply Chain Management, Operations and Technology Management, Marketing
Hometown: Appleton, Wisconsin
Program: Spain, Barcelona / CIEE Barcelona Business and Culture