Woooooaaaaahhh... MY FACE IS ON FIRE

Its been a busy busy non-stop week, and a brilliant one. Friday was the start of my birthday, yes thats right, Maria said it was three days long so three days long it became. Friday night kicked off with a pretty awesome party, Maria got plenty of bread, crisps, cake and apples in for the occasion, she seems to have gotten to know our favourite foods, carbs carbs carbs. So the no bread ban was out the window and everyone tucked in. Manuel set up his dj booth, party lights and smoke machine and we danced the night away to some reggaeton interjected with a bit of english cheesey pop. Saturday we took the bus to Vina and I endured a few hours of ella sobbing to my sisters keeper or as the chileans have named it.. un decision mas dificil. So two wet and red faces later we hopped back on our bus to crash and burn back out the house. Sunday brought the arrival of my birthday, and a bouncy ella made pancakes while I opened the cards that had been stolen from me. A pretty damn good three days if you ask me. Settled in for the night ready for another week of Spring time in the classroom, only to be awoken to some kind of commotion about going to the mountains. Fernando set off to fetch his car and requested we be ready in ten... ummm hold on rewind.. what? actually dont explain ill just go pack.

After an incredibly exciting road trip through the mountains we arrived at Portillo, attempted to check in and after struggling for a few minutes with our spanglish the woman informs us she cant infact speak english.. well in that case you lovely lady where might we locate our room, and more importantly what time is dinner time? We opted to not spend 200 dollars a night each to stay in the hotel and chose to stay in the lodge outside, one cosy room later with the possibilty of being joined by more people in it we managed to unpack our small bags and somehow fill the room with all our stuff. No chance of being joined. theres no shelves left.. sorry. We then wandered round the hotel .. a gym.. a beautician.. a pool.. a cinema! oooh yeeeahh. very nice. Next stop hire shop.. here we befriended the staff with our wit, english beauty and general attitude to get stuck in. That was until we got outside.

Boots on
Snowboard on.. I think
Top of the slope
Stand up... woah no. Yep this is slightly more difficult than I first anticipated

So I spent a lot of time on the floor not really being able to work out how to get up and then when I was up I was straight back down again. Back to square one.. Get up.. nope I really cant.

So we laughed and bickered and I fell lots and seemed to only know the word cant. We were the last people out in the snow and after a few more tumbles we called it a night and headed in to warm up.. and boy was my bum cold from sitting on in too much. Id learnt my lesson.. work out a better way to get up or lose my ass to the snow where tomorrow it would more than likely fall off if I stayed on it too long. We hit up the cinema, then the gym where ella seemed to turn into one of those gym freaks that has to get their fix of the gym equipment, one hot and sweaty ella later we hit the showers. These I cannot describe in their full glory.. What sort of hotel builds a row of pretty much see through showers? ah well in we get followed by a lot of hysterical laughter from our end of the row as various body parts were mushed up against the glass. After dinner we hit the DISCO.. and it was dead but we bumped into the hire shop guys and taught them some english card games.


Day two - Whey straight up and standing. Look at that determination. 20 mins on the green slopes then off we go to the blue slopes.. erm theres a pretty big difference between this one and that one are you sure? oh yep well were on the lift now... hold on hold on.. how do we get off.. turns out no matter how hard you try on a snowbaord you just fall off. well maybe not if your a pro.. I definately think i may have broken the world record of stacks off a ski lift managing to fall off every single one.. a few times taking ella down with me, if she wastn already down of course. And the few times i did stay up I was knocked down by Pablo.. thanks Pablo (never ridden a snowboard before.. yeah right.)

But that doesnt matter, the point is I was now up and unstoppable on my board, apart from the falls at the top of the ski lift, I could now get all the way down the mountain with only a few falls here and there. A few pretty spectacular falls though I might add, one involving an almost broken hip.. no jokes. Ow the pain. 4 meals later and a full day out on the slopes we were feeling good but pretty tired. we took a two hour nap and then headed out in search of entertainment; we headed to the cinema room where they were playing Donde esta Elisa.. boo yeah! Maria would be loving this. we settled down in our bean bags and waited for the film. Charlie Wilsons War, pretty good. Maybe a little heavy for our tired selves but nevertheless managed to stay awake throughout. just about. After the film we headed down to the disco.. empty. One of the women informed us that everyone was over the road at the other bar. So we decided to check it out. Luckily we bumped into the ski rental guys outside as the "bar" in question was infact someones house. But boy was it banging inside. Here we found out was where the staff hung out and it was someones birthday. We got our groove on and danced the night away. quite literally the music stopped at 3 and it was us for a change that wanted to carry on. Nope bedtime. oh ok.

So 4 hours later we were up again. incedibly tired but eager to have our last morning on the slopes. Ella was getting good at learning to carve and I could get from the top to the bottom without stacking it. Brilliant. Well done us. Two very proud girls took our last trip on the big ski lift. Enjoyed the view all the way back to the top then once again ceremoniously stacked it coming off. I seriously dont understand how anyone gets off them.

So it was goodbye to Portillo and hello to fernando.. and apparently fernando's videocamera. Why oh why are you filming the receptionists.. and the carpark.. and the goats..

x x x x