Today was the day I learned how to snowboard or at least made the attempt. I have never snowboarded before so leading up to it I was both excited and apprehensive. Excited because I really want to learn but apprehensive because I had never done it before and did not want to get hurt. :) We met up with our friends, Daniel, Lucia, and Lenka. Out of the 5 of us only Lenka knew how to snowboard, the rest of us were going to learn. It took about 45 to an hour drive to get out there and as we are going up the mountain on one side we can see across the snowy ravine the hills for skiing and snowboarding that we will be going down. As I see them I start to get a little bit nervous because they look big and steep and I wanted to start out on a baby hill. We arrive and jump out of the car and head to get our gear. We then follow Lenka to a spot at the top of the hill that you can practice on. As it is the boots for snowboarding are a little heavy and then you attach the board and it gets even heavier and more difficult because now you are strapped in. I think I fell at least 100 times today, both frontwards and backwards. However, do not get anxious about me because it was never really hard because I would never let myself go that fast because I didn't feel that I could handle the speed and keep my balance at the same time. Keeping your balance is a very tricky thing. Back to the story....so we practiced just getting up and going a little bit down this area that was a slight incline. This was for about half an hour. Then we proceed to the hill, and this is I believe the smallest hill they have....to me it seemed more like a mountain, but it was probably only as high as Green Mountain back home. So we proceed down this steep hill/mountain and it took me about half an hour to get down...seriously. Because of the falling and because of just getting used to having my feet strapped onto a board and trying to move them as one. So we all finally make it down, some faster than others, I think I was the last one down. Then the not so fun and tragic/hilarious part happens, but not only to me Imogen as well, we are at the bottom and have to go up to the top via the lifts, except these lifts are not seats, they are boths with hooks on the bottom that drag you up. Now as I come to my turn I have one foot out of the hold on the snowboard because I saw others doing this and it seemed logical. As I get to one side and pull the pole thing between my legs it starts moving up and I am not ready at all and it basically is starting to drag me and my feet are not ready to come. So i fall on my face, not really embarassed because I am foreign and I don't really care, most of these people have been watching me go down the mountain and that was already bad. Then I try again and again I fail. So some nice workers direct me to the other one and let me try that one and that fails as well. Until one of them who speaks english and is on ski's helps me out. So he sits on one side and I am on the other of this pole with two arms on the bottom and finally I am able to ride the thing up the mountain. The man was very nice and we had a nice conversation going up. Then I met some of the others up at the top and we rested a little bit and then headed down again. Again slow going. Then the group is off to one side halfway down and Lenka is helping us and giving us pointers. So we practice and practice and practice. Imogen and I are doing the worst but we are definitely trying hard. Now we decide, because Imogen also had a bad time of falling off the lift a few times, that we would just climb back up the hill halfway and go down again and do that several times instead of taking the lift all the way to the top. We don't want to take the lift until we have to. After a while Daniel, Lucia, and Lenka decide to go check out another hill. Imogen and I stay put on this hill and continue going up and down. We would go down as best we could (actually getting better everytime we went down), all the while watching kids as young as 2 1/2 go speeding by on their ski's. Which made us laugh at ourselves, but hey this was our first time, these kids probably have been doing this for a while, or at least more than us. Imogen and I were on our last legs and decided to go down one more time from the halfway area and go up using the lifts. However, mishaps happened again and again I had to go up with someone because I couldn't get it on my own and kept falling flat on my face :(, but this time as well the gentleman could speak english and was very nice. So thank you to the two slovak gentlemen who kindly took pity on me and helped me up the mountain. By this time we were all exhausted, cold, tired, and ready to go home we had been there since 10:30am and it was now 2:30pm. My back, bottom, ankles, knees, and wrists are hurting and I know I will be totally exhausted and sore tomorrow when Imogen and I head up to Prague. But I am glad that I did it and thankful that our friends had a car and asked us to go along. Maybe in the future I can do this again. Imogen had a camera so hopefully pictures of the day will come soon. Looking back I can say Snowboarding rocks! if I was able to just practice more or have an instructor I am sure I would get it in no time. Just looking at the improvement that happened today, going from never having done it before to being able to go down half the mountain was an accomplishment for me. :)
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