Ski Trip: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Facebook version, aka "The Good".

Over the weekend, we took a last-minute ski trip to Sälen, Sweden. Sälen is about 5 hours north of where we are and billed as "northern Europe's largest alpine ski area" ("alpine skiing" = downhill skiing; these are not the alps).

The red dot is Tjärnö, the blue dot is Sälen.
 We were east of Lillehammer, Norway (site of 1994 Winter Olympics).

Our resort consisted of four ski areas, linked by bus and ski trails. In addition to downhill skiing, they offered cross-country skiing, dog sledding, outdoor ice skating, and snowmobiling.

Sälen prides itself on being kid-friendly. The bunny slopes had little Smurf-like mushroom houses for kids to ski through. There was a kids' slalom course, a mini terrain park, and a run where trolls whisper to you as you go down. (They must whisper very quietly, because none of us heard them.) The girls took a private lesson with their friendly Swedish ski instructor, Gustav.

Valle is the name of the snowman mascot of the resort. He's everywhere.

The lifts were quite different from what we were used to. Most of them were button lifts, also called platter lifts.

An empty button lift.
Photo from www.livingnorth.com

Savannah riding one of the button lifts.

You grab the bar, shove it between your legs, and put the button behind your bottom. It pulls you up the mountain. They also have similar lifts with bar shaped like an upside down T.  You "sit" on one side of the T, or two people can go together. You don't really sit, you just lean on it and it pulls you up the mountain.

The view from the top! Worth it.

These lifts were an adventure in themselves. The bars often whipped around so fast that it was a challenge to get your hands on one before it passed by. Once you catch one, the ride is not always smooth. There are some jerks and slows, which makes it difficult to keep your balance. Both girls fell off these lifts at least once. Luckily, if you fall, you don't fall far, since you were never off the ground. Unluckily, someone is usually sliding up right behind you, so you have to move off to the side quickly!

Lots of empty runs on our first day.

Skiing this way, with the button and T-bar lifts, is exhausting. Effectively, you ski twice as much: up the mountain, then back down. You never get the little break of sitting on a chair lift in between runs. My knees were aching by the end of the first day.

I was surprised at how unsupervised the lifts were; it was noticeably different from the United States. Often, there was no attendant at the bottom of the lift at all. You had to get on all by yourself. If there was an attendant, they usually just stood off to the side. They would help the littlest kids, but that's it. At the exit, there was never an attendant. You were expected to let go of the bar and get off on your own. There was always an emergency stop button (helpfully labeled in Swedish, which I could only read because it's almost the same word in German).

At one of the lifts (an unattended chair lift), we saw a self-serve coffee station right at the entrance. A roadie for the ride! There was no cream or sugar, so I skipped it (you cannot drink the Swedish "scary coffee" without cream and sugar!). I can't imagine any US ski park offering this little perk.

We stayed at a lodge with individual apartments. It was surprisingly similar to our apartment in Tjärnö. The entry way, cleaning closet, and sink area looked almost exactly the same: same set-up, same equipment. Even many of the kitchen implements were exactly the same. Of course, it had all of the basic equipment (sliverware, plates, etc.) but they had the exact same mugs, the exact same cork pot stands, the exact same cheese slicer. I knew that Swedes are known to value conformity, but I did not know that it extended to household set up and goods.

Our little living room.

Our bedroom. Two twin beds, as usual!

The girls each had their own tiny room with bunks.

And, I could scarcely believe it, but our little apartment had a tiny, private sauna.

After a day on the slopes, to come home and sit in your own hot sauna? Amazing.

~

The Bad:

The drive.

The children complained about not being allowed to play on their iPads. They complained about not being warned in advance that they would not be allowed to play on their iPads. They complained about not having brought more things to do because they had assumed they could play on their iPads. Then they got carsick from playing on their iPads. It was a long drive.

The gear.

I arrived in snow boots whose tread had long worn out, and promptly slipped and fell on the ice. At the fancy ski store, I bought a pair of $90 boots (on sale!) which I don't like. I also arrived with child-sized gloves and was too stubborn and cheap to buy a new pair, so I just wore them.

The skiing.

Jeremy and Chelsea are ambitious and want to go to the top of every mountain. Savannah and I are cautious and want to stay on the bunny slope. Jeremy always urges us to go up higher and higher. There is much wailing and gnashing of teeth from Savannah. And me.

While the girls are in their lesson, Jeremy tries to take me on an epic adventure: skiing from one ski area to another. This involves taking a T-bar lift across the mountain. It's basically cross-country skiing for lazy people. Except that holding my body in the position the T-bar requires has my knees in agony. Just when we're about to crest a tiny ridge, and I think it's almost over, I see another long stretch of trail, and the end of the lift is nowhere in sight. There's no bailing out to simply ski down, because we're between ski areas. By the time we finally reach the end, I'm panting from the pain. It's all I can handle to ski straight down the mountain, where we have to catch a taxi to make it back to the ski area where we dropped off the girls, because there's no way I can do that long-distance T-bar again for the return trip. Poor Jeremy is cheated out of his two hours away from the kids, because he has to babysit me and my old-lady knees.

The next day, we split up. Jeremy and Chelsea head off to the highest heights, while Savannah and I keep it simple on the bunny slopes. Savannah and I take a break at a small cafe, for a hot drink. While carrying my coffee back to our table, I slip and fall. I make a giant coffee lake on the cafe floor.

We ask for cleaning supplies and receive a small stack of napkins.

I get down on my hands and knees, still wearing my ski boots, and slowly wipe up the coffee. Savannah gets more napkins. It takes me a long time. And a lot of napkins.

Of course, I start to cry.

Frustration. Humiliation. Exhaustion. The background stress of living in a country where you can't understand what anyone is saying or what any of the signs read. Being a rule-follower in a place where you can't figure out the rules. It wears on me.

I had a hard time pulling myself back together. My child had to comfort me, and that only upset me further.

I walked around the rest of the time in the cafe in my socks, too afraid of falling again.

Finally, we met up with Jeremy and Chelsea and went home for lunch. When it was time to leave the apartment, I slipped and fell YET AGAIN and it was all just too much. Another round of tears, but at least this time Jeremy was there to hug me and help me calm down.

My instinct was just to give up. Stay home. Sit in the apartment and watch Netflix while everyone else went skiing. But I didn't want to set that example for my kids. Didn't want to let my emotions get the better of me. Didn't want to spend my time in Sweden sitting inside, not doing anything.

So I went back out. And it was fine.

The apartment.

Our neighbors had a 3am Swedish dance party that involved noisy sing-alongs, stomping on the floor, and loud music (the only song we recognized? La Bamba.). We did not have the phone number for the reception, which was not located in our building.

Our sauna was broken.

We had a cleaning list for check out that was a mile long, but the place wasn't fully stocked. We had to sweep, with no broom. We had to wash linens, with no detergent. We had to clean every surface, with no paper towels.

Savannah got sick at 2am, covering herself and her bed in vomit. Did I mention that the apartment had no paper towels? Or detergent? I won't go into the gory details, but there was much disgusting cleaning happening in the middle of the night.

The Ugly Truth:

There was arguing. There was yelling. There was really bad communication. There was lots and lots and lots of crying (approximately 90% of it mine). And then we got in the car to drive 5 hours to get home. *grand sigh*

~

Conclusions.

The Facebook version is real, but incomplete. So is the bad and the ugly. The reality is that all of these versions happened at once. Although it often felt like these competing versions were taking turns.

Lessons learned:

1. Sign children up in advance for morning ski lessons.

2. When you need new shoes, just buy them.

3. Always put a lid on your coffee.