Of all the paths through Europe that I’d hypothetically created, Slovakia wasn’t included in any of them. I guess it was too far east of my preferred route through Germany and then down to Italy, but there I was, in the Tatra mountains of Slovakia just a few days before Christmas 2019.
I volunteered on my first day to do the first shift, in an attempt to apologise for arriving late.
It was pretty chill. I mean, other than being on a mountain during the winter, the resort was closed, and this was the only restaurant open… so actually it was really chill in both senses of the word.
I worked the first shift with Luda. She was from Ukraine and we became really good friends over time.
We just had to wash-up and clear tables of trays.
I would later question the scheme’s corruption, but admittedly, four hours work, for five days a week was not bad at all in exchange for a ski pass and rental equipment.
I was also volunteering for the whole ski season, so I would learn how to ski and snowboard for free.
And although I did learn to do both, I was bloody awful at the start.
The first day we got our equipment kinda sucked really, because everyone else ran off up the slopes and I couldn’t even stand upright on the snow.
I wish Viv, my Aussie mate, had managed to record my first attempt at skiing down a slope.
I went straight over on my arse, and as I tried to get back up, I just kept picking up speed and so there I was rocketing down this slope with my skis dragging my sorry arse behind them.
That happened a few more times on more difficult slopes before I learned how to keep my balance and get back up.
In fact I didn’t really master stopping or slowing down until I landed hard on some ice and slid halfway down a steep slope later on in my two month skiing career.
But overall it was fun.
I hadn’t seen so much snow since Switzerland 2018 when I went on a Topdeck tour.
This was also my first experience with winter sports.
The other volunteers were a good crowd. There was plenty of diversity and it was fun learning different languages, playing new card games, and just general bullshit learning really.
Christmas arrived and well…
Viv and I decided to start drinking at midday and although it felt like a great idea at the time, there is an infamous cringe-worthy video of me on a few people’s phones.
It’s a strange thing, alcohol. It’s almost embedded in every culture. Even wild animals are known to eat fermented fruit, which is in effect alcohol.
Obviously binge drinking is no good, which is what we were doing, but then again, alcohol bingeing is nothing new.
There is certainly plenty of health negatives associated with alcohol, but I’m not sure it’s necessarily a good thing to remove entirely neither.
I only mention this, because I believe I have mentioned giving up alcohol altogether in previous posts.
In my adolescent years I would binge just because it was funny to be as drunk as you could possibly be. Throwing up was an acheivement.
I think as time went by I actually found myself binge drinking to ignore the existence of “tomorrow”. I didn’t want the good vibe to end and I was already feeling the next day’s stress, so I would numb the feeling.
I actually also dabbled in a few drugs when trying to get through my darkest depths of depression.
It sounds strange, but I saw others taking them and they seemed happy.
And on alcohol, I am genuinely happy… until I cross the line and say or do something which turns the evening’s entertainment upside down. It’s almost inevitable.
Which is what happened Christmas, when I finished off a table loaded of half finished drinks – disgusting, but funny at the time and not as bad as the drink in Bratislava – oh and I wrecked a chair, smashing it into many pieces.
Maybe I’d been so tame on the farm I needed to let rage.
Something to reflect upon, but oh well, I actually managed to not hurt anyone else other than damaging my own dignity.
So we moved on and laughed about it.
A small group of us took a trip down to the Low Tatra mountain range, where the ski resort had already opened.
This was my first official day skiing.
Luckily it was just one long slope with a real easy decline, so it was perfect to learn.
Luda taught me how to pizza (slow down for beginners), which is fairly fundamental.
Though it really only took me maybe three runs to find balance and learn how to (sort of) slow myself down.
We also got 50% off food and drink in various restaurants too, so we all met up (I’d been left behind on the beginner slope) at the expensive mountain-top restaurant.
I had carp which is a common dish in central *cougheastern Europe.
Apparently it’s drinking time after lunch on a ski resort.
I took the ski lift down from the restaurant as it was a red slope, though the fog at the top was unreal. I couldn’t even fathom going down that with zero visibility.
So I met them at the bottom and took videos like the ski-noob I was.
And then drunk my tatratea and tonic.
Don’t worry I didn’t drink much, though enough to feel more confident going down. So confident that as I neared the bottom, I thought I’d show off my new skills and come to a neat finish beside the ski rack.
Though you probably already knew what was coming and yes, I found myself in a pile underneath the ski rack.
The volunteer package didn’t stop at discounted food. We all had free access to Tatralandia which is the biggest waterpark in Slovakia.
That’s about as much credit it deserves. Please don’t book your holiday to Slovakia expecting a Disneyland extreme.
Though, it was decent enough. There was a bar, and a fairly-sized sauna with plenty of rooms, and a few water-slides.
By the way. How many times do you see “no diving”.
Especially around a sauna with magically floating people.
One of the volunteers called Nathan decided to ignore all of these signs and busted his open on the metal sauna beds under the water.
Watching someone hit their nose on the bottom of the pool is extremely entertaining to watch, but this was something else.
I don’t use saunas too often. Everyone preaches how healthy they are for you, but I still don’t believe deep-breathing in a sweatbox with complete strangers is healthy.
Luckily, it was fairly quiet when I visited the High Tatras saunas.
This was all in the first week or two of the ski resort and although I have many more stories or hilarious fails to talk about, I do feel as though the videos would just give so much more.
Which means that I need to get my YouTube up and running for sure, so that you can all see me hopelessly being dragged down the slope by my skis.
I’ve also already written about New Years Eve 2019, So I will leave the stories here and leave you with this.
Imagine waking up on top of a mountain, looking outside to initially see a blizzard of snow, covering everything in a glittering white surface. Once you take your eyes away from the mesmerizing flurrying and twirling winds of falling crystal snowflakes, you look beyond to see the sun rising, emitting an orange glow from beneath the ledge of which you are based.
I saw all that. In fact, I saw all that most mornings.
I cooked scrambled eggs whilst watching all that through the window.
And then I skied down the mountain road on my commute to work.