Sleep

(submitted by phone so please forgive the lack of formatting etc. I will probably sort it out when I get home).

I finally got to sleep 48 hours into my holiday. That's the longest that I've stayed awake without the aid of drugs (alcohol not included) in ages.

Donovan had a few problems getting through immigration (mostly because the guy Checking didn't understand English).



We were on our way again an hour later and just made our train which left at around 12am. Didn't get much sleep on the four and a half hour train trip from Bratislava to Poprad but did manage to get a sk600 fine before I even made it into the terminal. Apparently you are not allowed to smoke on the platform (of course there was no signage where I got off the train and judging from the amount of cigarette butts in the bin, it's a nice little money earner for the cops).

So anyway we were in Poprad at five in the morning and could only check in at the place we were renting at eight so we did an hour's worth of shopping at Tesco before having some breakfast and heading off to our cottage.

The place is really nice, tucked away in the trees and has everything that you need (except internet access, which is probably a good thing). We stayed just long enough to have a coffee before heading off to find the slopes and I spent some time falling on my face and arse alternately. Eventually I gave up and admired the view until the others got tired of eating snow. Well, the girls were not having any problems skiing to tell the truth. I did learn a few new words though. "prepach" (sic) which I think means "I'm terribly sorry for crashing into you" and I seem to be using it a lot.

This morning we got a bit of a late start and went to a beginner slope as opposed to the mediate slope we were on yesterday. Turning gave of the most hassle and my first few runs were problematic but things got better once I discovered that it helps if you bend your knees.

Not sure where we're off to tomorrow but I think I might need to practice the art of stopping rather than the more or less controlled crash that I've been using up to now.