Is it still a ski vacation if you can't really ski? (Les Arc 2011)

Hi Everyone,

I've been away from the computer for a while again.  First it was because my family was here and then it was because I left a week after them for a ski vacation in the French Alps.  It was the first time I'd done any serious skiing since my knee surgery and I was nervous, but excited to get to go France, speak French, and most importantly ski in the ALPS!

Unfortunately, all did not go as planned.  While the weather was gorgeous and the snow pristine, my knees gave me a lot of problems, so I ended up not skiing nearly as much as I had wanted and therefore spent a lot of the trip reading and basically killing time, since there is not much to do in a ski resort other than ski.  Maybe looking at the trip by the numbers will give you a better idea of the full experience.

Round trip travel time: 40 hours by bus and ferry

Boy movies watched on the bus.... (6 total, I wont include Brokeback Mountain, although that is about cowboys)
  - about Nazis: 1
  - about aliens: 1
  - about smoking weed: 2
  - about fraternities: 1
  - about superheroes: 1

18-year old boys I shared a room with: 3 (plus my wonderful housemate from Germany)

Days I actually skiied: 3 (half days, charitably) out of 6

Books read: 3

Crossword puzzles completed: 62

French doctors visited: 1

French "physical therapists" visited: 1, who was kind of strange and whom I'm convinced was a kind of hybrid between a physical therapist and a chiropractor...

Pictures taken: 132, because I had a lot of time to kill.

Here are some samples:

I'd like to be, well, optimistic is not the right word, but I'd like to say that even though it was frustrating, it was still a great experience, but that just isn't true.  It was difficult to be on a vacation that I couldn't really fully enjoy and which was frankly more stressful than anything else.  So I'm really glad right now to be back in Cambridge and to get back into a little bit more of a normal schedule.  Everyone is starting to come back from vacation and I'm excited to see some familiar faces, get back into work and rowing, and start off my second term at Cambridge!