Skiing in Bukovel

The Bukovel Resort was a DREAM destination for our first day of 2009.

Getting there from Lviv and traveling back to Odessa was a nightmare, but the location was absolutely, superbly, surreal. The reason traveling was terrible is because the resort is so incredibly remote, that public transportation takes hours. Of course, this doesn't really affect the uber-wealthy patrons of Bukovel who mostly rolled up in expensive four-wheel drive vehicles and jumped out in their designer ski-apparel and paid for exclusive chalets with piles of cash....

Alas, for us... it was a rough 7 hour journey from Lviv in buses and trains with little to no heating.

Once we got there, it was easy to put the journey behind us and settle into our cabin.

The minute we walked into the cabin, the smell of citrus-mint wafted through the air. It was so warm and cozy, it made you want to settle into the luxurious bedding and read Dickens or Frost or something. The bathroom literally had strawberry-scented toilet paper. I'm serious.

Of course, the first thing on Arun's agenda was to try out 3 of the 4 places to dine. (All in one evening, of course.) So we visited the two Ukrainian restaurants and a Pizzeria and stuffed ourselves silly.

The next morning, Arun awoke with dread. I insisted on an early-morning start to our ski-day. We were the first ones in line for breakfast, and we hired a ski-instructor. After renting our gear- we were off!

We learned some basic terminology and were instructed to get our bindings on... Arun was a quick study and I struggled! However, once Arun got his skis on, he immediately began to glide....backwards.
Panic washed over his face, and he soon found himself planted face-first in the snow. Unfortunately, this pretty much set the tone for Arun's skiing.

Luckily, all he REALLY wanted to do was get some great shots, and doesn't he look great with the gear on this shoulders? So confident! (and relieved that the skis were in his hands and not strapped to his feet!)

Now, I actually managed to stay upright the entire duration of our ski-lesson.... however, the minute our instructor left, all her teachings seemed to evaporate and I simply could not make the graceful turns down the slope that I had JUST learned. So I used my prefered method of slowing down- falling.

But as you can see- I DID enjoy myself! Arun had already turned in his equipment at this point, because he was DONE!

There were a couple of noteworthy moments with our ski-instructor. At one point, she planted Arun at the side of the mountain and instructed him to wait while she taught me some basic turns. After some success, she looked up and saw Arun gliding backwards into the woods. "Be Careful!" she shouted "...there are woods!" Arun just kept gliding and our instructor turned to me and entreated me to get him to stop. When we looked back up, we saw Arun sitting on the snow. Our instructor looked at me, shook her head, and with a tiny hint of despair sighed, "He has fell." And then she strode back up the slopes to save him. Poor Arun!

Arun later confided in me that our ski-instructor had told him that the disparity in our performance was due to the fact that I actually wanted to learn to ski more than him. I was also happy to hear that she asked him if I was a 'sportswoman' :) If only she saw my slowing-down-by-falling methodology later. I'll have to confess that I was very impressed by Arun's eagerness to try out skiing. This stuff is just NOT his thing, and he was an incredibly good-sport about it all. Here's to a year of trying new things!

Happy 2009!