Living in the Midst of It

I live in a place called Kläppen. It's a house about 20 minutes from the center of town owned by Skistar. It's mostly lift operators and ski instructors who live here but we've got a few caretakers, pist machine drivers and cooks around as well.

3 floors, 4 entries, 3 kitchens, 7 fridges, 4 freezers, 2 laundries, 2 saunas, 3 tv rooms and somewhere around 35 housemates it's quite the Big Brother experience. You can see what the entry way looks like in terms of finding one's shoes on the way to work; and this is immediately AFTER our weekly clean.

Last week we had the first big staff party with pretty much everyone in the whole company. That's something like 700-800 people at the most expensive hotel in town. We had a superhero/fairytale theme which produced some pretty interesting costumes. I haven't been able to track down the people with the cameras to show off my very well thought-out Clark Kent costume but I managed a few snaps myself.

It seems like only yesterday I was talking about blue skies, sun and +4 temperatures. Well you never know what's going to happen around here and at the moment I am scared to shave off my beard to see what is underneath. Last week I got some pretty nasty frostbite on my chin and I fear there may be a scar. That's how it goes when you go out snowboarding all day with lots of clothes on; you feel hot and sweaty moving around all the time but your face is getting a barrage of wind chill that means an effective temperature close to -40 degrees. Ouch.

Other than that I am injury free; slowly getting my nerves back in the park after the leg break. But I fear I have done some permanent psychological damage there, the fear is there and it's not going anywhere just yet. My luck hasn't been all good with guests; I had a kid this week who had some pretty serious ADHD even for a 5 year old and wouldn't listen to a word I said; just wanted to disappear, fail around on the lift, turn down the wrong track and so on. That's a bit of a nerve tester I can tell you; you can imagine trying to explain to a parent that their child wouldn't listen on their way to the hospital... Doesn't really cut it.

Ups and Downs

Life is full of ups and downs. Work is pretty peachy... but not always. There are times when I get stuck with 3-5 year old kids who often don't want to have anything to do with skiing. They get frustrated and upset and want to go back to mamma. I don't blame them. You pick them up on their skis and put them down somewhere else. Having said that working with kids can be the most rewarding thing in the world. At the end of the week they have learned so much, had so much fun and quite often don't want to leave. Rewarding things are seldom easy.

And then sometimes I'll end up with the absolute worst skiiers I have ever seen in my life. And both of them will coincidently come to me at the same time. These things happen. So there I am running up and down the hill trying to prevent 50 year old women from crashing into oncoming traffic. Dangerous stuff this skiing.

But I digress; as far as jobs goes, teaching skiing is about as good as it gets. There are times when I'll unexpectedly get a very gifted skier who can go just about anywhere on a beautiful day letting me lead them around the magnificent views. They can ski all the way up to the top and all the way down without thinking twice. And then I'll get days off over the single most spectacular weekend I have seen and do some exploring of my own.

Åre is unique in that way. We often experience a meteorological phenomenon known as Inversion. In normal conditions, the atmospheric layers closer to the Earth are warmer than those above as solar radiation warms the Earth which then in turn warms the atmospheric layers closest to it's surface. Inversion usually occurs when a warmer air mass moves over a cooler area thus trapping the cold air below. This usually occurs early in the morning when there is a cloud mass or fog hiding the Sun's rays. The result is a village temperature of as little as -24 degrees while it can be as warm as +4 on the top of the mountain; a bit upside down really. Herds of skiiers flock to the top of the resort, shed layers, crack open a thermos and soak up the sun while they can. It's funny to see truckloads of people perching on top of massive chunks of ice as though they are sunbathing...

This kind of weather inevitably puts people in a great mood and a full house afterski party ensues. Live music and beers flowing for the brief period between 3-5 has people dancing on tables in their ski boots and sweating up a storm in their beanies and ski jackets. The band members usually take their wireless guitars as they march around the beer hall-style tables showing off their moves in front of acres of ski bunnies. Like any job; it's a tough one but someone has to do it. This weekend I made the mistake of going in my ski instructor clothes; I suddenly realised as an ambassador for the resort I should behave myself. Next time? Try to stop me.

Thanks to my wonderfully thoughtful mother, Australia Day was not neglected here in Sweden. Taking the only other Australian within a few hundred miles we stocked up on our care package goodies and let loose on the town. Luke had a few Norwegian buddies in town which turned out to be about 140 Norwegians here on a ski trip. Most of whom had been on exchange in Australia last year. It's a little known fact that Norwegians are insane but now you know. They drink and party and dance and you wake up on someone's couch with a shot of Jager dangling in front of your nose as you scramble to get your things together before sprinting out the door to the nearest chairlift in your jeans and tshirt before stumble/running down a ski slope while holding out your thumb until you get picked up by a passing snow scooter and thanking your lucky stars that you keep toothpaste and a toothbrush at work.

Oh yeah. And you know what really grinds my gears? Turtle in Swedish is sköldpadda which means "shelled toad". It's not a toad it's a freaking turtle!