2015-02-11: Faster, Higher and something else

Hearty Breakfast

Cool Kid Clothes

Let's do this thing!

Today we are at Strbske Pleso. Now that is a word in need of some vowels! Bit further out from the hotel. About 40 minutes each way. Red and Blue slopes only (yesterdays has Black way up the top).

Go up there, come back down. Straight forward enough.

At Tatranska Lomnica the difficulty levels are basically graded by how high up the mountain you are. This means that the lower (Blue) bits get clouded up quite easily and even the Red (Intermediate) bits can have visibility of only a few metres.

I wondered if I would die if I spent 6 hrs in the bar drinking instead.

At Pleso the slopes all start at pretty much the same place and difficulty is by following different paths. This means that the first view of the slopes innocent (and gentle) fellows such as myself have is a bloody massive, steep cliff with people zipping down at insane speeds. Doubts arose regarding the sanity of our choice.

This casual elegance thing everyone else seems to have, I wonder if they teach it at the ski schools

The view from the top is pretty cool. We tried a variety of paths and as I was still remembering how to do this ski thing we separated for the first few hours. After a couple of runs I was used to the speeds involved and having good fun.
I did manage a couple of pretty good falls. One gave me a nice solid smack to the back of the head. I think I had managed maybe a second of going backwards quite fast before I got nervous and fell. Not deliberate backwards of course (I am not actually suicidal) but as things had contrived to have me going backwards I tried to make it a learning experience.

I still find that snowplough thing impossible and useless.

I learned that helmets are pretty good. And that the guy praying at the top was maybe an example to follow. The fall put me into instinctive mode and got all the stupid higher brain activity out of the way which meant we could ski together for the afternoon.

Tourist Checklist: Chairlift Selfie: Tick!

Then it was time for warming booze.

Food and Beverage Review: Stroh 80% Rum

Smells really good. I know it said Rum on the bottle but this isn't rum in any way I can tell. It is spiced to be sure but it is more like Christmas spices than the usual spiced rum smells. None of the strong molasses / sugars I am used to. Ewa liked the smell so much she had a little sip.
Which is where the problem occurred for her.

That won't remove the flavour

This is pretty damn strong and the flavour stays with you a while. I liked it well enough but doubt I would ever buy a whole bottle.

Rating: 6.5/10 (seriously glad I didn't try it at lunchtime break though)

My GPS battery died about an hour before we finished so I am pretty sure I managed quicker than the 51.8 km/hr which I am still impressed with.

We are trying to decide which slope to move closer to after our first two weeks here as we are thinking of staying another two. Pleso looks like winning but we'll go to Lomnica again tomorrow to double check. Also the bus from the hotel leaves quite early for Pleso and I have to work quite late tonight, an extra hours sleep would be beneficial.

Competing on the Natural Good Looks is pointless but I try anyway

For the evening we spent most of it in the "thermal pool with a bar". This was purely for therapeutic reasons. We had spent too long looking for electronic cigarettes and managed to walk another 8K steps after 5 hrs of skiing.

No Good To Me

It appears electronic cigarettes are not hugely popular here. Plus they use a different name for them. In Polish they are ePapierosy. The Slovakian word Papiernictvo has nothing to do with them at all. This is causing issues with the science planning as I forgot to bring the charger for my current eCigs.

Science cannot be left behind sacrificed on the Altar of Activities With Hats. I shall have to rectify.