i think i just punctured an internal organ

I finally found an internet cafe that is close to my house so hopefully I will be able to start talking to people on skype. I went snowboarding on Friday with Kristen, Stina, Leah and Molly at Sierra Nevada, a ski resort about 30 minutes away from here. We woke up at 6:30 in the morning to catch the 8 o'clock bus. We bought our bus tickets and rented all of our equipment from a rental shop at the bus station with ease but then the adventure started...

Molly´s story: When we got to the mountain we were trying to find a locker to put all of our bookbags in and left our skis and snowboards on a rock, when we got back to the rack everyone´s stuff was there except for Molly's. After frantically looking for her skis, she asked the police if there was a lost and found in case someone accidently took her skis instead of their own. The police basically laughed at her and said that someone had stolen them and she had to file a police report (this entire interaction was spoken in spanish). After having already bought her lift ticket, she had to rent a new pair of skis at the pricier rental shop on the mountain. Leah and Molly were walking back to meet the rest of us on the mountain when (icing on the cake) Molly slipped on a patch of ice and fell down. Molly told Leah not to say anything or laugh because she was going to ¨freak out¨ haha but the bad news is that Molly ended up having to pay 50 euros to replace the stolen skis.

Kristen's story: We decided to get a feel of the terrain and opted doing a green for the first run down. After that, we were all up for the challenge and took another lift up that offered only blues and reds. We took the blue trail down that half way down turned out to be mostly a red (which we later found out is a black diamond in the US). Kristen hasn't been skiing since the 8th grade and has a little trouble controlling her speed (possibly because she keeps her skis completely together, her poles horizontally off the ground, and maintains a crouched position). I wish that I constantly walked around with a video camera because I saw quite possibly the funniest thing in my life that would have definitely won money on America's Funniest Home Videos. I was going down the mountain when all of a sudden Kristen comes flying down the mountain past me. She completely wipes out not even attempting to break her fall with her hands. She loses a ski half way back up the mountain that I had to pick up and bring down to her. The slope we were on was really steep and she couldn't put her ski back on so she just decided to try and make it to the bottom on her butt and one ski with poles and the other ski in hand. She is still flying down the mountain, spinning in circles with snow blowing in her face when all of sudden this older man comes zooming down the mountain with one of his skis flying down in front of him. The man tumbles down and is lying on his back with his poles and skis in the air and whizzes underneath a "DESPACIO" sign which means "SLOW" that is approximately 6 inches off of the ground. The man's other ski flew off the side of the mountain and he was leaning over to try and lift it with his pole. Needless to say, it took some time for me to stop laughing and continue down the mountain...

Snowboarding in Spain is definitely different than snowboarding in Jackson. You have to take a gondola up the mountain that drops you off in front of 5 different lifts, which take you further up the mountain. It was so awesome because the runs were so long but getting on the gondola was a different challenge. Apparently Spaniards don't believe in waiting in lines so instead of it being an orderly process it was more diving into the gondolas in hopes that there was enough room. I was so sore yesterday and had a KILLER sunglass tan (really attractive, I know). It was a lot of fun though! We went to a discotheque last night called Kapital. It was fun but it was also a lot of API (my program) students, which makes it a little difficult to meet local Spaniards. It was definitely a late night though, people here don't eat dinner until like 9 o'clock and don't usually go out until 12 or 1 at night and the discotheques don't close until 6 or 7 in the morning on the weekends. Don't worry--I was definitely at home asleep before then. We are going to go watch the super bowl tonight at an Irish pub called Hannigans but it doesn't start here until 12 so I doubt I will be able to stay up and watch the end. Hope everyone has fun at all of the super bowl festivities! Miss yall!

Love, Grayson