The time of my winter vacation has arrived. Have you ever had a lower back pain that lasted for two weeks right before your skiing vacation? The question was if those stupid muscles are needed while skiing on the slopes of Alps.I can tell you for sure – they get tense when I sneeze.

Our plane with about 20 amateur kamikaze landed in Geneva, Switzerland on time and our old time friend and travel agent Dora was meeting us with the bus with other 30 people who came to this pretty boring city a day earlier. Our ski resort is located in up French Alps in two hour bus ride.

BTW, Seatguru lied about electric outlets on our plane. Second time in then last month.

The plane landed on time, but our ski bag didn “t. While submitting the claim at the lost and found, I explained that we are kinda need skis as we are planning to start skiing tomorrow. They politely answered that if the bag won “t be delivered to your hotel within than 24 hours, we “ll get 100 Swiss francs. I asked, “What if they “ll never find our bag? rdquo;

“Don “t worry, they will. If not, call Swiss Air for further arrangements. rdquo;

The problem was that my wife has also packed two pairs of ski pants , gloves and socks in the ski bag. This is the case when traveling in a large group helps. We “ve borrowed most of the stuff we needed from other people and rented skis.

The bag has arrived to our village two days later. Now I want more than a hundred franks.

I “m writing this after four days of skiing and the weather was great. I “ve been wearing wide stretchable belt, which helped with my back. So far there were not too many casualties in our group: one twisted knee, one bronchitis, and one serious lower back pain (not mine). These poor three things watch TV, eat, drink and try enjoy seeing happy red faces of skiers returning back from the slopes daily.

Actually, there was one more accident that we witnessed and participated in. Our group was sliding on the narrow but almost flat slope. All of a sudden, two of our ladies noticed legs and skis flying down into the woods. We stopped and told our instructor about this. He went into the woods. Sure enough, there was a 65-year old women laying in the snow between the trees. She was scared, her face was scratched, but she was alive! Here “s the picture of our instructor (in red) helping her out of the woods.

On one slope there was a large bump followed by a smaller one followed by a steep slope. A group goes one by one and this lady passes the first bump, but makes a sudden stop in a doggy style scared by an unexpected steep slope. The man who was skiing behind her passes the first bump and then hits this lady “s ass with his head. The man fell but the lady didn “t. She said, “No wonder, this is my favorite position rdquo;. This was funny.

One day, I was boarding the chair lift with two women from our group. We spoke Russian, and noticed a guy who clearly wanted to talk and jumped into our chair lift the last minute. We asked him in Russian, “Where are you from? ” He proudly replied in Russian, “From Moscow. And you? “. I said, “We are from the USA “. The guy exclaimed, “It ‘s so horrible! “.

Having been to Moscow a month ago, I didn ‘t get it. IMHO, if I would compare living in Moscow vs. New York, I would prefer the latter hands down. He also added that he ‘s skiing with a friend who was a poor skiier, and he left him skiing alone. Five minute later, he stared to ask the hotel and room number of our ladies. They didn ‘t tell him the room number, which is nice, because one of them was my wife. Oh, those Russians! Today, I was sitting at the chair lift with five other people. When the lift is about to arrive to the top, someone usually raises the bar so everyone can get off the chair. I said, “Raising the bar. rdquo; A teenage girl sitting next to me immediately replied, “AT amp;T rdquo;. Originally, this was the motto of Cingular , but AT amp;T purchased both Cingular and their motto.

Two more days of skiing and back to work. I love France in general, and Alps in particular.

Drinking coffee and not in Starbucks:

Heineken promises to entertain me. Yeah, right! As you can see, I ‘m not a college kid anymore. My fun begins with Hennessy XO.

On the way back, Swiss Air offered a wide variety of movies to every passenger. Unfortunately, the software development has been outsourced, and French, Germans,and other passengers had to make a tough decision while selecting a language of the movie.

My blogs about last year ‘s skiing are over here .