Maggie, Juliana and I all woke up somewhat early so that we could have a small breakfast before we all headed to the train station. When we got to the station we thanked Juliana’s family for everything, and headed off to find our train. When our train finally arrived, we searched for the car that we had reserved seats in. Our seats happened to be in the same car as just about all of the other exchange students on the the way to ski week!
We had about four hours on the train, so we all moved around all of the compartments and said hi to everyone. I’m sure all of the other passengers and the people who worked on the train hated us, but that didn’t seem to stop anyone. We all shared all of the snacks that our host parents had sent us with, and got excited for our week of skiing.
Once we had arrived in Poprad, we all got off the train and then stood there for awhile not having a clue as to where we were supposed to meet. Finally someone spoke up, and everyone just decided to follow them out of the station to a street corner. We all stood there until someone realized there was a Rotex with us. We all went to talk to him, and ask him what we were supposed to do, but he told us that he probably knew even less than us.
Eventually two tour buses pulled up, but we weren’t sure if they were for us or not. All of us were of course nervous to ask with our limited language skills, especially since we were all from Czech Republic. Finally the Slovak kids showed up, and we got one of them to talk to the bus drivers. Someone eventually said that they were our buses, so we all started to load our bags into the bottom before getting on to find a seat. Once we had set our bags down, we all got back off the bus to hug everyone from Slovakia who we hadn’t seen since our first meeting.
Once the rest of the Rotex showed up, we all got herded back onto the buses so that we could start our drive up the mountain. We drove for about half an hour before stopping at one of the ski resorts. They told us that this was where we would be renting our gear from, so if we were renting we needed to get off the buses and line up. Then they all reminded us that we had to bring our passports too, so we all got back on the buses to get our passports before lining up. Only about five of us could go in the shop at a time, so most of us got back on the bus to stay warm and hang out with our friends.
We spend a few hours getting gear, and trying to find room in the bottom of the buses for everything. I was one of the last people to go because I didn’t want to wait in line outside of the bus, so I just went with one of the last groups. Finally we got our gear, then we had to take pictures of the numbers on it so that we could find it all later when we got to our hotel. I ended up being on the first bus, so we got to go while the last 5-10 kids got their gear before getting on the second bus.
When we got to the hotel half an hour later, it was pure chaos. The bus couldn’t be parked in front of the hotel for very long, so the driver told us to just take everything out of the bus and throw it everywhere so that he could move. So everyone worked together to empty out the bottom of the bus as quickly as possible, which as you could imagine, was chaotic to say the least. People were yelling out the names of the bags that they came across, or yelling out descriptions of the bags that they were looking for. Finally after most of the bags had been dealt with, it was time to go through the mixed up skis, poles, boots, and snowboards. I found my things pretty easily, but I would have to wait for the next bus to get my boots and board. Once we had our things, we were allowed to check in with the Rotex to get our room assignments. Somehow I managed to be the first in my room to have all of my things, so I grabbed our key and headed upstairs.
Slowly my roommates showed up with all of their things too. I spent my week sharing a room with Juliana (Portland, OR), Jess (Canada), Marina (Alaska), and Chantal (South Africa). Once we were settled, I went back downstairs to try and find my stuff from the second bus. Once I had my things I went back upstairs to try to get out of the chaos of the buses. Finally most everything had been sorted out, and we were called to dinner and a meeting.
As we ate all of us got caught up with all of our old friends from the first meeting. Once the Rotarians and Rotex had finished eating, they started to explain the rules and expectations for the week. We also got our jerseys with our names, and a random number on them that we would be wearing over our ski jackets the whole week. Next we were all assigned our ski lesson groups for the week as well. Finn (Australia) and I happened to be the only ones who had every snowboarded before, so we got grouped in with the advanced and expert skiers. All of our lessons were taught by Rotex except for the beginner skiers who also had some instructors to help them out.
Once our little meeting was over, they assigned us groups to play a little game before bed. They gave us each a sheet of paper to get signed by Rotex who were hidden around the hotel. When we found a Rotex we would get asked questions about the geography and if we got them all right, then we would get signed off. Most of the questions were pretty easy, but it took all of us a long time to find the last Rotex. Once the game was over they told us we had some free time to do whatever we wanted before our curfew. We had about an hour and a half, which I mostly spent going between all of my friends’ rooms visiting everyone that I had been missing so much.
On our first day of skiing we woke up around 7am and got mostly dressed in our ski gear before going down to breakfast. Once we were done eating we went back upstairs to put on our last bits of gear, including our boots, and grabbed our boards and skis. We all met downstairs and gathered our things before getting on the shuttle buses up to the mountain.
Once we had all arrived, we stood around for a long time while we waited for our ski passes, to hear the rules, and to find our groups. Once I had gotten my pass, and we were released to go to the top of the mountain, I found as many of my group members as possible and we got on the gondola. When we got to the top, we continued to wait around for everyone to get to the top. Finally the Rotex for my group showed up, and we got dismissed from the group to go. We all agreed on a warm up run to see what level everyone was at. All of the skiers had snow caking the bottom of their boots from standing around so much, so it took awhile to get ourselves ready to go, but we got their eventually. As we headed down the slope, we were told not to pass the Rotex, and that we would be stopping in the middle to regroup. As Finn and I set off, we were going kind of fast, and realized that we were going to pass the Rotex, so we slowed down and waited in the middle. While we were regrouping in the middle, I looked over and realized that the only lift that was available for this slope was a T-bar lift. My heart sank at the sight of it, because not only have I never used one successfully before, but now I was with all of my friends.
As we all got in line for the lift, I asked Finn for some advice, and he explained it to me but ended with telling me how he hated them too. That made me feel a bit better as I got my self situated on the T-bar. I had finally done it without any problems! About halfway up the slope, I could feel my leg going numb from the bar, and as I approached the end, I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to stand up. As I let go of the bar, I hobbled my way out of the way before collapsing and massaging my leg back to life. We ended up sitting at the top of the slope for awhile as we regrouped. We all agreed that we wanted to try something else before Jayson (Canada birthday boy) announced that he had dropped his phone on the first run. He and two of the Rotex went down the hill, as the rest of us stayed at the top and took a nap. After what felt like forever, they still weren’t back, so we decided to go down the hill too. On our way down we looked over to see them on the lift almost at the top where we had just been. We all regrouped at the bottom again before all taking the lift back to the top.
Finally we were all together and ready to move on. We all pushed our way over to the top of the other slopes, and got ready to go. The Rotext reminded us yet again not to pass them, and that we would be stopping in the middle points again. As we set off, some of us crashed, or had to dodge people all over the slope. Finally we got to the middle point, regrouped, and head for the bottom. We all split up into groups and go on the chair. I quickly realized that Finn was quite good at snowboarding, and I was excited that maybe I could learn a thing or two from him during the week. It was nice not to be the only snowboarder in the group, so that it wasn’t just me who had to wait at the top and put on my other binding.
After a couple of runs on the chairlift run, it was our time for lunch. There were so many of us, we had eating shifts so that we could all fit for lunch. When we first arrived for our lunch, we were a bit early, so we had to wait outside while the group before us finished. Lunch ended up not being super great, but we were all happy to get to eat together anyways. After lunch we took a few more runs before calling it a day.
As we went through our day of skiing, I could feel that something was a bit off with my board, but I didn’t want to be “that kid”, so I kept it to myself. I could feel my boots slowly rubbing my achilles raw, but also chose to keep that quiet. At the end of the day as we were standing around waiting to put our gear away, Finn was giving me weird looks. He agreed that my board looked incredibly short, and only then did I think to look at the size of the board only to realize that it was 10-15cm shorter than I’m used to riding.
When we were all done skiing, we all lined up to but our boards, skis, and poles into some boxes in a trailer so that we didn’t have to bring them back to the hotel with us. Once we had all dropped off our gear, we made our way back to the shuttle buses slowly since almost everyone was learning to walk in ski boots.
Once we were back at the hotel we all changed into more comfortable clothes before going downstairs for dinner. After dinner we all took a vote for which movie to watch together. My friends and I agreed that we weren’t really in the mood to watch a movie, and especially not the movie that had been chosen, Deadpool. So we asked for just the six of us to leave, and we went up stairs to the bigger room. We mostly just snacked, and listened to music as we chatted until curfew.
Our curfew was at 10:30 every night. Every night the Rotex would come knock on each of our doors, do a quick room check to make sure that everyone was in the room, and nobody extra. Then they would say goodnight, close the door, and tape it shut so that if it was opened after curfew, it would make a loud noise.
The next morning we woke up at 7am again for breakfast. Then we got all of the rest of our layers on and got on the shuttles, thankful that we didn’t have our boards and skis with us today. When we got to the mountain, we all ran to the trailer to try and find our gear which took awhile again since everything looks the same and you just had to search for your number. As soon as everyone in our group was ready to go, we got on the gondola to start another day of skiing.
When we got to the top, I was sad to hear that I was losing my snowboarding buddy Finn to the other group, but it was also nice to switch up the groups a little bit. As we set off we did some runs on the T-bar lift to warm up again, which put my legs to sleep for our first run of the day on the other hill. One of the times we were going down the other run, I happened to hit a bump just right and it sent me flying into a handless cartwheel. I ended up hitting my head pretty hard, so I laid there for a minute before gathering my senses and standing up again. As we headed down the mountain, I was a bit shaky and slow, but I made it onto the chair for another run or two. By the time we got to lunch almost everyone in our group had fallen at least once, and most of the time for no apparent reason.
We eventually headed in for our lunch which wasn’t great again, but we were all hungry so it didn’t really matter. After lunch, we were all starting to get exhausted already and we knew that we would have more days, so we decided not to take the extra run or two after lunch, There were really only about three runs that we could go on anyways.
Once we got our things into the container again at the end of lunch, we all headed for the shuttle bus. We ended up all getting on the wrong bus, and it only took us halfway to our hotel. So we all had a huge snowball fight and were playing in the snow for 15 minutes while we waited for the next bus that would take us the rest of the way to our hotel.
When we got back to the hotel we had awhile until dinner, so I decided to take a little nap because my head still hurt pretty bad from my crash earlier in the day, and I was exhausted from all of the snowboarding that I had been doing. In the middle of my nap Rotex came in to do room checks to make sure that nobody had brought alcohol or drugs. I was a bit slow moving because I had just gotten woken up from my nap. They asked us to empty our bags onto our beds and then let them go through all of it. I was still super tired, and my head still hurt pretty bad from my crash, so I ended up falling asleep again in the middle of our check.
Finally after our room check was over, it was time for dinner. After dinner we had an impromptu dance party with the speakers in the dining hall. Some of my friends and I didn’t like the music they were playing, so we decided to all go take a nap together and come back later. After about a half an hour nap we went back downstairs to join the party for a little bit before curfew.
The next day was my birthday!! I woke up to a bunch of birthday texts from my mom who had gotten the family together for a birthday party for me. They sent me pictures and videos from dinner and all wished me happy birthday. After I opened my messages, we headed down for breakfast. My friends started a round of happy birthday at breakfast which of course made me smile! Then we got our things ready like usual and got on the shuttle bus to the mountain.
The Rotex all changed groups a bit, so we got to ski and snowboard with some other people. Our new Rotex let us go through the trees, and down the black run all the time and we were all racing each other down the hill every time. I even got brave enough to do a few jumps! Finally after a really good short day of skiing in the sun, we headed in for lunch. On the way back to the container to put our things away, I met a really cute dog that made the already good day even better!
We only skied a half day because we were driving back down the mountain in the afternoon to go to a water park in Poprad. So as soon as we got back to the hotel we all quickly got our things and got on the buses. They made us all bring our big jackets, scarves and we weren’t allowed to leave without a hat or warm hood.
When we first got to Poprad we went to the store so that everyone could buy some snacks or whatever they wanted for the bus ride back and the rest of the week. All of my friends insisted on buying everything for me because it was my birthday, so I didn’t end up buying anything. Once we had checked out we got our bags checked again and then moved on to wait for everyone else. It was cold outside, so my friends and I stood in a huddle the whole time. Finally we walked to the pool.
My friends and I were all tired and so we started our time in the warm pool just relaxing. Eventually we wanted to try everything in the whole park, so we went and played in the bigger pool and made whirl pools and waves everywhere. Then a group of us all went to the two water slides and raced each other down. Later we decided to explore a bit more of the building despite being absolutely freezing walking around wet inside. We ended up finding quite a few other pools in the maze like building. There were in-pool bars that the Rotex were sitting at watching us, so we only spent a little while there before moving on to other pools. In the end we found a huge pool that was in the shape of a giant flower with jets and fountains all over it. We spent most of the rest of our time there. We finished off our swim with some relaxing time in the hot pool before going to the changing room to get dressed.
Unlike all of the locker rooms in the US they are co-ed here. We all rinsed off and then waited in lines to go in the many stalls to dry of and change back into our clothes. I of course didn’t really think about going swimming on a week of skiing, so all the pants I had were skinny jeans. I struggled for awhile to change, but eventually I got it. Once we were ready, we slowly made our way out to the lobby to sit on the stairs.
While we waited for everyone in the lobby, we all pulled out the snacks that we had bought, and ate together. Finally it was time to get back on the buses back up the mountain. We ended up spending almost four hours at the pool! On our way out the door, they made sure that we were all wearing our hat or hood since our hair was kind of wet. My friend Ryan didn’t have either, but they hadn’t noticed as we left the hotel. They noticed when he tried to leave the pool though, so he borrowed Polina’s scarf and wrapped it around this head which of course looked ridiculous.
As we headed out to the buses, the sick kids met up with us again. My friend Rizley from Washington had been sick most of the week, so I hadn’t gotten to spend a lot of time with him. We decided to sit on the bus together because neither of us really felt like singing and dancing all the way back. We just sat and listened to his music and talked a bit and took a nap. As soon as we got back it was time for dinner. After dinner they made me go and stand in front of everyone so that they could sing happy birthday like they had for the other birthdays that week. After dinner we all went upstairs to Finn, Addison, and Ryan’s room to eat all of our snacks and listen to music before curfew.
The next morning I woke up and my head still hurt, and I was starting to feel a bit sick. I was starting to worry a bit about the crash that I had had on our second day, but I really just wanted to make it through the week and not be that kid. So I went down for breakfast with everyone and had some tea, and tried to eat, but I didn’t feel great. Then I talked to our group’s Rotex and asked to take a break for the day since I wasn’t feeling great. She said that was fine, so I went and packed a bag, and got ready to go.
We all took the shuttle to the mountain, and then I went with Rizley and Maggie to the cafe/restaurant where we were eating lunch every day. We all found a table and waited for Ondrej to come and join us. We all ordered tea, and listened to music. After awhile we were kind of bored and sad that we weren’t skiing, so Maggie braided my hair.
In the afternoon it was time for us to take group pictures at the top of the mountain with our jerseys and flags. So we gathered our things and got on the gondola up the mountain to meet everyone. It took a long time for us all to gather together again, and all move to where we wanted to take our pictures. While we waited for everyone to arrive, we started to take our smaller group pictures with just our friends. Once we had everyone… or so we thought, we all gathered and attempted to take our group picture with all of the flags and the Rotary flag. About halfway through our photoshoot people started to realize that we were missing the whole other advanced skiers group. So we all split up into our friend groups again and continued to wait. After about and hour of pictures, it was over. Maggie, Rizley, and I walked back up to the gondola and got back on to ride down to the restaurant again.
Polina was getting really sick too, so she came and joined us when we found a couple of small tables in the restaurant. We got some more tea, and hung out while one of our groups ate lunch. I was still not feeling good, so I ended up passing out with my head on the table. Eventually there was a pretty big group of us who weren’t skiing anymore so we all moved to some couches and hung out. We ended up meeting a guy from Poland who wanted to talk to all of us.
Finally it was my group’s turn to eat lunch, but I still wasn’t hungry. I tried to eat a little bit, and gave up and gave the rest of my food to Finn and Addison who had been eating the other part of my lunch every day. After my group was done eating we went back to the couches and hung out until everyone was done eating and skiing.
When we got back to the hotel we all changed, showered, and hung out until dinner time. After dinner they told us that they had a surprise for us, but we had to go and put on all of our clothes for being in the snow.
We all thought that we were going to go sledding like it had said in the itinerary, so we all got super excited. Once we were dressed and ready to go they took us out of the hotel and told us to follow on of the Rotex. They lead us to an open area next to the hotel and announced that we would be having a snowman building contest in our ski groups.
We were all a bit bummed that we weren’t going sledding, but once we got into the snowman building concert it was pretty fun. Of course since we are a bunch of teens, everyone gave their snowmen big boobs, and a big butt. We even put clothes on our snowman. Then they told us five minutes before the building time was up, that we had to also come up with a background story for our snowman.
We had put a bra on our snowman, so we decided to go all out and put credit cards, and money in the bra. She was basically a high class stripper snowman. A lot of other groups had very similar snowmen, just with different stories. I thing the Rotarians were a bit disappointed, but probably not very surprised. Ondrej and a few Rotex went around and listened to all of our stories before taking a group picture with each. Then we all went back inside to changed. We all had a relaxing rest of our day before we went to bed.
For our last day of skiing we all got up at the usual time and had breakfast. Once we got to the slopes we split up into our groups and did some warm up laps on each slope before heading to the racing hill. I was still feeling sick, and my head hurt, but I really wanted to race. So as I got to the top of the racing area I sat down and let everyone else in my group go first.
I watched all of my group members go before putting on my second binding. The race starting guy helped me up, and I set off through the gates. They made the turns super big, so you really couldn’t get going fast at all. About halfway down the slope I got dizzy and fell over, but I got up pretty quickly and kept going. I didn’t go super fast, or do super great, but I was happy that I had at least done it. By the time I got through the finish line, I knew I had probably made the wrong choice to race, but there was nothing to do but stop then.
It was absolutely beautiful weather, and by the end of our races, everyone was down to just wearing a thin layer and their jersey. After the races, everyone headed off to do some more runs before lunch, but I stayed and watched the last few races. Once everyone was done, I went inside to meet the others who had decided to call it a day. We all hung out until it was our turn to eat lunch. On our last day we actually had a pretty good meal.
After lunch a bunch of people wanted to do a shirtless run to finish off the trip. The Rotarians of course wouldn’t allow that, so they had to wear jerseys at least. Everyone who wasn’t going stood at the bottom of the slope and took videos when they came down. Then we all slowly made our way to the shuttle again, this time with all of our gear. Once we were back at the hotel we changed, and then all brought our gear downstairs to return to the rental company. It took forever to return everything, so I was happy that I was quick enough to have returned my things first.
We all had dinner later that evening before going to Finn, Addison, and Ryan’s room to hang out for awhile. Mallori and Lauren cornrowed Finn’s hair, and then we all went downstairs. After dinner we had an awards party for all of the random competitions we had had over the week including our race results. For the snowman competition they gave the first two places to the two groups who hadn’t made inappropriate snowmen, and everyone else got third palce, so everyone got chocolate in the end.
Rotary had organized for us to have a party for our last night, so we all picked Kimi from Argentina to DJ. Then they gave us soda and snacks and we all danced around. We had already had a party a couple days before though, and we were tired from racing. So a lot of people didn’t want to party, but enough people left the party, that Rotary got mad. They eventually came and told us that if we didn’t all come back to the party, they would make curfew immediate. So my friends and I went back to the dining hall and sat at a table and played cards while singing along to the music and sometimes getting up to dance. We would sometimes go out just to take a brake from the flashing lights and loud music before going back to sitting inside. Finally around midnight we all made our ways to bed.
For our last morning on the mountain they made us get up at 6 for breakfast so that we had time to finish packing and load our things into the buses. I sat on the bus with Polina, and she and I slept pretty much the whole way back because she was sick and my head hurt. Once we got to the station we all struggled to get all of our things off the bus again. Then we all went and stood in the station and slowly said goodbye to groups of people as their trains came.
We ended up having a lot of people on the train that the Brno kids took. We all hung out together for the most part and slowly said bye to people as they got off the train. Finally in Bratislava all of us got off and switched trains. There was still a good group of us going to Brno, so we all hung out and talked all the way home. Once we got to Brno we had awhile until the Třebíč kids had their train home, so we went and got some food. Then we said goodbye and I went with them on the train home since the village I live in is on the way to Třebíč. Once I got home I immediately went to bed.
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