Yeah well I thought Japan was cold. I was very wrong. Lyon was absolutely freezing, almost cold enough to convince me to grow a beard.

The flight from Japan to Frankfurt was horror, as to be expected. Frankfurt airport was pretty much a blur as I was that tired. I did however turn on my phone and come to the discovery that global roaming was blocked. This did not make me happy. Anyway that’s all sorted now thanks to mum and her mad phone skills. Next up was a small flight to Lyon and a hike through the snow to meet up with Louise and Dave at a hotel in town.

Next day we walked around the town to discover that the roman ruins were closed for today only. No reason given. Bastards. Anyway the museum was open so we looked at that which was pretty cool, lots of amazing roman stuff, its quite wierd because you sort of think its all fake because we aren’t used to having that kind of artifact from that old in Australia. Then we went off to see the local art museum which has the 2nd largest collection of art in France, it was pretty impressive stuff. Unfortunately we only had the one day in Lyon, we probably could have spent a week but we had to get to chamonix the next day.

4 Hours in a train and we were in Chamonix…… what a fantastic place. So picturesque it is almost unbelievable. Got all our hire gear sorted and then got a salami, some cheese and three bottles of rose wine, at €6.50 a bottle it wasn’t exactly the nicest wine I have ever drunk, in fact it was quite ordinary but it did the trick. Hurrah for hangovers on your first day skiing.

Day one skiing was great, we got Louise into a private lesson with a funny old guy who yodels and then took off up to the top of the mountain for some skiing, the weather was really sunny and quite warm after Lyon’s efforts. Anyway we skiied til they turned off all the chairlifts and the sun went down, it got really icy and hard to see but even still we all made the run down to the buses. Went out for dinner at a dodgy bar named “wild wallabies” which was pretty funny. The only Australian beer they sold was carlton cold and most people know my feelings on that particular beer.

Day two was a different story, snow poured down all night and all day so there was literally a metre of powder, it was so light you didn’t even feel it when you were skiing through it covering half your legs. It is very wierd not being able to see your skis at all. Visibility was absolutely terrible and it meant we pretty much had to stay on the lower easy slopes. It was fun anyway as we were able to just hammer down without braking at all until the lifts.

Anyway I am gonna go and have a nice pasta dinner somewhere. Hope everybody is well

Matt