French Alps

[Halon]

My girlfriend, my co-worker Jenna, and myself are all taking a vacation to the French Alps the first week of March! I'm real excited as I can't even remember the last time I took a vacation. I've done a lot of traveling in my life, but it's always usually been work related, not for a vacation.

Some of you may remember my European co-workers that came to a couple meets. Well Fabian (the Belgium guy) is booking our rooms at Val Thorens right now. He'll be meeting us there with a couple of his friends as well, and we'll get to spend about a week out there! I can't wait to get there, do a ton of snowboarding, enjoy it all, and take lots of pictures! I've never boarded outside MN!!!

OK just wanted to vent and share my excitement! Here's a link to the place we're going

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Val_Thorens
http://www.valthorens.com/winter-en/home-page.1.html

[C3L1CA]

Wow that looks like so much fun. Looks like the runs might last a little longer than 30 seconds like ti does on the hills we have here.

Have fun and take lots of pictures!

[scheides]

Damn.

[A//// Guy]

Dude im jealous! We need pics when you get back!!

[Goat Blower]

Wow, that looks like a sweet place. I've never boarded through the clouds before. MN hills really suck compared to actual mountains.

[SnoEclipse]

I spent many, MANY days at VT and the whole of the Tres Vallees (3 vallies) when I lived over there. You MUST get over to the '92 Olympic Downhill (Piste Killy) to ski that beast. Even after almost 20 years it's still considered one of the toughest Olympic downhill runs ever.

[rose0529]

Damn, that looks amazing!

[FattyBoomBatty]

Wow, that's one amazing picture. I need to do this one day (soon).

Oh yeah, tell us how bad the smell is up there!

[Halon]

No Olympic runs for us. Most us of snowboard, and the ones who ski aren't badass skiiers. For me, just some fun carving around, the occasional jump, that's what I like. I don't want to die!

[Shane@DBPerformance]

That looks awesome.

[cmspaz]

Definitely jealous.

I've only ever seen the Alps from the window of a plane, it would be crazy to ski or board there!

[Kracka]

Looks fun!

[SnoEclipse]

Stay away from the Belgian beers. Worse than PBR.

[Halon]

I don't know about that. Chimay Blue is pretty good.

[asshanson]

Originally Posted by SnoEclipse

Stay away from the Belgian beers. Worse than PBR.

WTF!?!?

I seriously hope you are kidding. Belgian beers are the best. You have Chimay and other abbey beers such as St Bernadus, all the various Saisons and tripels, to me it's the best beer in the world.

I think I will forward this to my beer friends, they will cringe. Hellomynameis, Scheides, care to comment? Haha.

[SnoEclipse]

I have some dim, dark memoies of Bad JuJu caused by a Most Skanky Belgian Beer (I think it was Jupiler) one 4 day weekend in Tignes. Missed a whole day skiing because of it. Rinsed and Repeated almost exactly a year later. Last time I ever lost a ski day to drinking.

I've got a 5200 word personal write up on skiing in Europe. It's a bit much to post here but I'll PM it if anyone wants it.

[asshanson]

That sucks to hear, I've never had skanky belgian beer.
But cool that you (and now Brandon) have the opportunity to ski in Europe. My friends and I have discussed doing it before, but we're all too cheap to buy plane tickets over there for just a week. I've heard it's really cheap once you're there though, no $80 lift tickets like out west.

[Halon]

Originally Posted by asshanson

but we're all too cheap to buy plane tickets over there for just a week. I've heard it's really cheap once you're there though, no $80 lift tickets like out west.

That's when having an uber amount of frequent flier miles comes in handy My roundtrip ticket is Free. My girlfriend is 7000 miles shy of a free ticket, so I'm going to transfer 7000 to her account so she can also get a free ticket. The transfer fee is $95. So all in all, 2 round trip tickets to Paris = $95 Total


Pretty sure the lift ticket cost was something like $250 for the entire week.

[1slowdsm]

wow. that place looks awesome. I really need to get out there once during my lifetime. These hills in MN are boring but it's all I can afford.

[SnoEclipse]

You can get the TGV right at Charles DeGaulle (I think you have to transfer if you fly into Orly) and go straight to 3 Vallies. Local shot from there to val Thorens. Don't bother with a car.

I wouldn't even bother with skis, boards, or poles. I'd bring my clothes and boots and rent the 'heavy stuff' once there.