Sara has a apartment in a village called Sauze d'oux, 40mins outside of Turin, she infact has two. They were her husband's and they've had one 20 years and the other a little longer. Sauze is a skiing village so they're just small one/two room things with folding beds. In 2011 we came up here a couple of times during summer for fresh mountain air and walks and I had an absolute blast. Last time I managed to destroy me knees a bit from all the up and down hill walking so I had a day just around the apartment. Subsequently this is the only place Jace and I have slept that I haven't bought a bracelet for her, Annica and Bruce from. It's on my list for this time.
Since its ski season and school holidays for Christmas/New Year were up here again for 9 days this time. We headed up Saturday afternoon after I got back from Gabri's. When we first got up here we showed the second apparent to a family that's thinking of renting it for the season before heading to the better of the two where we're staying. It's quite nice for such a tiny place with two folding double beds, a folding single, permanent table, tiny kitchen and bathroom. I am quite fond if it despite how cramped it is with more than 3 or 4 people.
In the process of getting to the first apartment I managed to sustain the first snow related injury of the trip. We were still in our 'city shoes', mine which have approximately no grip. We were walking down a driveway to hid from the snow a bit and I managed to slip over and land (not terribly hard) on one of my hips. I got up, shaked off the snow and moved on. The next day I sat a bit wonky and noticed my left greater trochanter was rather tender. I was surprised though that it didn't bruise.
For dinner we headed out to meet up with one of Sara's friends and her daughter. The snow that had just started when we arrive picked up and I had a wonderful time walking around getting snowed on. I would point out to Tancre that it was snowing, joyfully turn my face to it and then complain that I got snow in my eye. Sara and Tancre, and indeed the friends too appear to have been quite amused by my joy at the snow. We had a few photos taken but somewhere in the gloved handing over of my camera we managed to get the camera on the wrong setting so none of them have worked out =( I'm hoping it snows again while I'm here to we can get some new ones.
We ended up at a pizzeria for dinner and had to brush/tip off all our accumulated snow before going inside. Which I found extremely novel and everyone else less so. The snow at more or less stopped by the time we headed home again and I amused myself by walking in a picking up fresh, powdery snow. I've seen snow a few times before but never that fresh.
Sara and Tan conned me into playing a board game (patente punti) with them, assuring me it would be less than a half hour and we'd be off to bed at a sensible time. As it turns out me were playing until almost midnight =( the game is designed to teach kids about italian road rules before they get their drivers licence. It's a great idea given how complicated their road rules are and how their demerit points work. As you can imagine it was significantly more difficult for me, not just because all the question cards were in Italian but also they have strange rules and tragic lights I've never seen before. Despite all this however, I was the first person to arrive at the end with all 20 demerit points.
In the process of playing a learnt a new italian word 'spinterogeno', distributor. I even got the question right, Tancredi got in (fake) trouble because he didn't know the answer and Valerio, his dad, was an auto electrician.
The next day we had a lazy morning before going through draws of old ski clothes so find some that fit me. It's pretty handy having a younger, growing brother. I've ended up with his ski pants and moon boots from last year, as well as his old ski boots and skis. I was amused that ski pants have build on braces so had Sara take a photo of me and Tan half dressed to show them off.
That afternoon Tan and I headed off to a near by hill with a toboggan and a plastic shovel looking thing to catch up with some of his friends. The bucket was not so much fun but the toboggan with two people in it made for an exciting trip down the snow. The friend we caught up with had a plastic disk about 80cm across and with handles moulded in on either side, while he and Tancre went down in the toboggan I made the mistake of sitting on the disk and ended up doing backwards half the time. Apparently it works much better if you go down head first on your stomach with your arms trailing behind for course correction. It certainly gives more of a thrill that way, something about your face being 30cm from the fast moving and hard ground...
Since it had snowed freshly the night before the bottom of the hill was a bank of fresh, uncompacted snow. Fresh uncompacted, deceiving, snow. You some to a stop on your chose moulded plastic of choice and go to stand up. Only to loose your leg, but to the knee, in previously unbroken snow. It makes for interesting work, getting out of an overturned sled with another person squished on/under you/the snow/the sled. Eventually this ends up in snow flying and Tancre, his friend Tommaso and I had a snow fight. Fresh powder snow doesn't make good snow balls but after you've walked around for a bit there are sizable chunks you can pick up and chuck.
It was during said snow fight that I sustained snow related injury number two. Tommaso was using the disk sled as a shield and as he was passing it to me Tan threw a chunk of snow at us, I didn't have a good hold on the disk and as the snow hit it is hit my forehead. We continued playing and by the time the lump was obvious to Tancredi I was too cold to take him up on my need to put my face in the snow.
We trudged back home for cups of tea and our books. Several times later in the day Sara could be over heard on the phone saying how it had snowed the day we arrived just to say welcome to me. And at one point Tancredi leaned over and asked me if I'd heard what she said, when I pointed out I haddn't been listening to her phone call he told me she was telling Corrado that I was playing in the snow like a puppy. I heard similar phrases in several other phone conversations she had that evening....
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