YEP Report – Maddy Stroot

Maddy’s Report 30.3.10

Right at this moment I’m sitting outside, it’s the start of spring and everything is turning a wonderful lush green, the air is cool and fresh and I feel completely at ease with myself and where I am right now. Yesterday we came back from France where we skied for 8 days straight; France is an absolute stunningly beautiful place!

We stayed in Le Bettex, which is situated among the French Alps, and we were with a group 50-60 people that were all wonderful and a lot of fun to be with, during those days we became a family. On the first day I started skiing I was a little nervous but I realized that the first day of skiing is never the best, I think I feel over more than 50 times that day, on the second day I started to really improve a lot I started getting technique and from there on I enhanced me skiing ability and I found out how much I really enjoy skiing. Being surrounded by mountains, skiing for a minimum of 8 hours a day and spending the rest socializing and preparing for the skiing trip the next day, it felt like the world revolved around skiing, I even dreamed of skiing. Every night after dinner we would all relish in an activity of some sort- the first night movie quiz, the second table tennis ext. on the 5th night was a crépe competition- which table could eat the most crépes, the highest record was 124 crépes by 8 people, I was very lucky that night I was with 3 teenage boys and 4 girls, the boys got to 25 crépes EACH! I got 14 plus very close to throwing up, Julia (my sister) ate 9, Claudia (exchange student from Mexico) ate12 and a girl from Germany ate 10. That equals 120 crépes, of course we didn’t work this out until they’d poured out the remains of the mixture, we were 5 off from winning the record!!! It was a night to remember. On the last day we were the last group of skiers to arrive so we were last to hit THE shower, the new group had already moved in so we all had to share one shower, I didn’t really mind when I had mine so I went lucky last, but I wasn’t so lucky- it was cold water! So my shower lasted about 30 seconds but I was smiling to myself, if this is the worst that has happened to me for this week I am amazingly lucky. The 22 hour bus trip home went calmingly uneventful, my mum let out her first real breath thanking God the worst that had happened were a few bruises, I taught some people the song the wheels on the bus go around and on the second last stop we said goodbye to everyone, my family and I were the last stop and still had 3 hours to go, this was the stop where everyone we had befriended had gotten off, it was sort of heartbreaking to wave goodbye to them all knowing very well I’d most likely never see them or experience what I did with them again. My family paid for everything for me on the trip, they are so incredibly generous and wonderful that I can’t explain to them how grateful I am to them. School is delightful, I’ve made some really great close friends, learning the language is difficult but I feel like I’m getting somewhere now and I’m starting to really understanding conversations, on the whole I’m having the best time EVER!