Italy Sestriere Ski Trip Blog!

       Today I just got back from a week in Italy of skiing. Me and 70 other students in St. Andrews College and in Transition Year all went to Sestriere in Italy for a week to Ski. We flew to Italy on Saturday, and we skied every day from Monday to Saturday. Each day we had lessons from 11 AM to 1 PM, and then again from 3 PM to 5 PM. The lessons for my group were not really lessons, but our instructor Roger just took us on the hardest hills and we skied down them.

      When we got to our Hotel which was called Cavalieri, we got sorted into our rooms. I was in a room with Dominik, Jack, Stephen, and Alec. There were 5 beds, a small kitchen and a bathroom with a shower. It was a 3 star hotel but I really enjoyed it. Each day we would get up at 7:30 AM, and go eat Breakfast at 8:30 AM each morning, then meet downstairs all geared up at 9:30 AM. Then from about 10 AM until 11 AM, we could free ski. At 11 AM we had our lessons. At 1 PM we had our lunch. Our lunch break was from 1 PM to 3 PM, but we could free ski after we were done eating if we were back by 3 PM for our next lesson.

      Out of all of the 70 students, we were all organized into groups of how good we were at skiing so that each group was about equal experienced. The names were Seaweed, Jellyfish, Mackerel, Stingrays, and Sharks. The Seaweed were the new people to Skiing who had never skiied before, and Sharks were the most experienced, and I was in the sharks along with about 11 other people. The Sharks went on a lot of hard hills, they were very steep. Sestriere is way bigger than Cannonsburg in Michigan which I had skiied at before. Here are some pictures of Sestriere from our hotel and what the ski pass looked like.

The 2006 Olympics for Skiing was here in Sestriere. This is the sign. 

View from the Balcony of my room. 

What the pass looked like, I kept it in my glove. 

        To get on a ski lift or button lift, we had to have our ski pass scanned electronically. I kept my pass in my left glove zipper, and it was very handy because It would always scan very easily. Our instructors name was Roger, and he was Italian. He was very good at Skiing, and he took us on some crazy hills. One of the crazy hills we went on was on a button lift, which is basically a little seat you put in-between your legs and it pulls you up the hill. It looks like this. 

        So this button lift that my group went on with Roger was a very steep hill, and it is where the Olympic skiiers started and went all the way down the hill. The sign said only experts and the hill is more than 60 degrees down hill, which is very very steep. It was very fun once we got going down the hill, but at the top, we were about 2500 meters above sea level, it was very cold and windy. It was very high up.

     Here are some pictures of Sestriere that we skiied on. I took a ton of pictures.

The trip was amazing overall, and the slopes were awesome. I brought my coat with me but I did not wear it, because every day, it was very warm, like 30-40 degrees each day. I usually only wore 3 shirts and a sweatshirt. Each day for lunch, I would get french fries and a big square slice of pizza. It was very delicious. I would usually ski from about 1:45 PM - 3 PM for free ski after I ate Lunch. I usually went with Alec, Jack, and Stephen. 

Each night we had a night activity. We had Karaoke night one night, a swimming night, a night where we went Ice Skating also. I became a better Ice Skater in that hour. Dominik is a very good Ice Skater. 

Each night for dinner, we would usually have a starter, which was usually a pasta dish, then a main dish like chicken or something like that, then dessert. At 5 PM, our skiing would be done for the day, and each group would meet up then ski back to the hotel. We had to walk back to the hotel from a certain area with our ski boots on each day to bring the skis back to the hotel. Each night from 5 PM until 7 PM, which was Dinner time, we had free time. We would usually just take showers, hang out in the room, or go to this shop that is a little bit away from our hotel to get snacks. We would get things like chocolate and chips and water and drinks. 

Roger taught the Sharks about how to turn better while going faster. Roger always wore no helmet because he was so good, and a pair of orange sun glasses. He had a huge tan around his face except his sunglasses because he always wore them so you could see he was more white around his eyes. 

Saturday morning we woke up at 5 AM to eat breakfast really early so we could fly back to Dublin. We took the buses for an hour and a half to the Airport. We all checked our bags and got to Dublin at 11:45 AM. Then Dominik and I each went and took a cab home. 

-Febuary 25, 2017