Sunday, August 21, 2011

How can you be so cold?

This past week, as part of my life goal to have endless adventures to make up for the chronic lack of physical affection I receive the from fairer sex, I went on a vacation based around studying, identifying, discussing, and basing happiness around the various states of frozen and horribly sometimes unfrozen water. Yep, I went to the snow.

Skiing in Australia is a particularly strange pastime. The fact that our continent is one enormous inhabitable desert surrounded by hot sunny beaches all under a hole in the ozone so harsh that if you try and moon a car full of teenagers your butt cheeks instantly sprout a farm of skin cancers leaves snow sport enthusiasts in an understandable state of utterly expecting that the tiny hills we almost ironically call the ‘Snowy Mountains” will have the perfect skiing conditions all the time.

The reality of course is that we have two main categories of “snow”
- Solid bricks of ice and
- Melted hills of slush.

Of course this is if you can find either of these in between the thousands of rocks, trees, and full fields of mountain side grass. This leads to much discussion on where to find the best “snow”.

“Should we try the Excellorator?”
“Nah too icy, what about the Front Valley Quad?”
“Nah too slushy”
“Um you know those are the only two options in Australia right?”

Of course I am being far too harsh here. I for one, having grown up enjoying these hills many a time, know what to expect and love it for what it is, and I have many extra ways to enjoy our subpar yet still awesome alpine hills. These include:

- Risking my enjoyment, health and safety all in the name of fashion. On this trip I bought a whole new outfit based around a grape and grey colored ski parker. Now on this particular trip the first and last days were so hot people literally skied in t-shirts, but the three days in-between were freezing cold, enormously windy, and jumped between relentless rain and blizzards. I had brought with me a much needed neck warmer to pull over my mouth and nose so I could survive the horror of going up a chair lift exposed to nature trying to beat your spirits to death, but alas the one I brought was bright red and clashed with my new color scheme so instead I just braved the pain. This was smart; my lips are now so crippled with crusty dryness and bloody splits that if I blot them with a tissue it looks like I have kissed a man’s collar with ruby red lipstick. Being a heterosexual man is so awesome.
- Inventing ad campaigns. This ones for you owners of beach resorts – simply put a webcam on a chairlift and patch the feed of people finding out what it feels like to have 58000 tiny grains of ice hit your face at 234km per hour every 3 seconds, and put the caption ‘this is a holiday, are you retarded?’
- Becoming a “Goodsamarabunny”. I know this makes me a little weird, but when I see a six year old sitting in the snow, balling his or her eyes out because they are lost, can’t figure out how to get their skis back on, and don’t have a clue where their parents are, I like to help them rather than ski past yelling wooohoooo. I know this makes me weird because pretty much everyone else takes the wooohooo option. Then in the chairlift line they look at me with eyes saying “stay away from little kids you pedophile”. Then YOU help them asshole! Then again my beanie shaped like a cute bunny may have given the wrong impression. Still I am officially a hero.
- One chairlift in the resort of “Blue Cow” has an area you can’t ski in because it is inhabited by the endangered snowy mountain pygmy-possums, an animal so stupid that it chooses to live in a rare snow covered area full of people rather than the endless isolated forest surrounding this hill. By riding this chairlift I assume I saved this animal, I am officially a hero.
- I also help out cute girls who have fallen down. I am officially a hero.


Oh I almost forgot, at the snow there is also super fun sport. Two main ones in fact:

1. Attempting to sit on every single patch of snow you can find anywhere on the mountain, with special keenness to sit on snow near chairlifts, flat sections, and ridges. A sport also known as snowboarding.
2. Standing around in the snow waiting for snowboarders who are sitting down, making relentless fun of snowboarders for always sitting down, and getting frustrated at how much time you spend standing in snow waiting for snowboarders who are enjoying yet another sit down. A sport also known as skiing.

Both of course are high paced and soaring adrenaline Olympic sports.

Snowboarding is judged by how many times on one day you can sit in snow and either un-strap or re-strap your board to your feet. The lowest number ever recoded is 2,454. If you can’t get into six figures you can forget about the Olympics. Another fun event is the ‘How much snow in your bum crack does it take before you snap and punch the mountain’.

Skiing is judged by how few blisters you can develop walking fifteen meters in horrible ski boots. World record fewest is 2,454. If you can’t get into six figures you can forget about the Olympics. Another fun event is ‘how badly can you twist your knee without requiring reconstructive surgery’.

I am of course a skier, because I am not stupid, and I love blisters, especially puss filled ones. But also because it’s immensely fun, challenging, beautiful, and adventurous, all things I love. In fact having just arrived back a couple of days a go I am already trying to figure out how to go back in the next few weeks. If you are a cute girl you should come with me, we’ll make fun of snowboarders together, then at night I’ll make you hot chocolate, and we can cuddle by an open fire, and when the moment strikes I’ll kiss you with my crusty dry bloody split lips. I am officially a hero.