Prelude to Skiing

I am well on course in my mission to accumulate American experiences before Immigration Services (in concert with some administrators at my school) ask me to leave the country. Yesterday I went skiing on Hunter Mountain. To be more accurate, I went skiing down a smallish mound of snow next to the mountain. It was hard work trying not to ski right over the dozen or so deliriously happy little children sharing the slope with us. Our ski-teacher had done a better job of teaching us how to go than he had of teaching us how to stop. Anyways, I like to think of the situation as a dynamic obstacle course.

A seasoned veteran of symphony concerts and other high-culture events in Bloemfontein, I was expecting to be the only black person at the resort. To my surprise, there were 6 or 7 of us. I think all of us met at the equipment hire queue. Within a few minutes we were all standing next to each other. Each silently wondering what the other was doing here.

Talking about the queue, the devil is in the details! No one told us that equipment hire is like trying to board an international flight (or going to the Department of Home Affairs). Except, as Janet put it, at every station you are given more things to carry. We queued to get to the computer terminals at which we entered our details and received a print-out that then permitted us to go to the second queue. At the second queue we waited to get to the lady who took our printout and equipment hire ticket and stapled them together, and allowed us to the third queue. At the third queue we were given the ski boots (like a straight-jacket for your ankle), that made it difficult to walk to the fourth queue. The fourth queue was for checking-in our personal stuff and the fifth to get the helmet that is (according to the last of 3 waivers we signed) "protective at slow speeds".

For the 6th challenge, they changed things up a bit and instead had us stand in a 10-people-deep huddle across about twenty meters where about 5 employees shouted numbers out over each other and over the hubbub of the scrum. (We had been given a piece of paper with a number on it at one of the 5 previous stations). After 15-20 minutes when my number was called out and I triumphantly tried to collect the ski's, it was pointed out that I needed the paper from station 1 and my rental ticket which had been stapled together by the lady at station 2. My heart sank. I had lost it. I had lost my boarding pass. I had to return to station 5 and look for it. Fortunately, it was on the floor behind the counter.

By the time we finished getting the ski's, finding the place where the ski-lessons were given (an odyssey in its own right) and taking the lesson, Janet and I agreed that it was time for us to have lunch and a beer as a reward for the hard work, and so we did.