Originally Published in Print, April 2022.
The borders are now open, and so are the pubs. With no better time than the present, this January saw over 600 Trinity students voyage to the Alps for what some would describe as being the best seven days of their lives.
I haven’t been out of Ireland since the beginning of the pandemic, so the anticipation for the holiday was both exciting and nerve-wracking as we prayed for negative antigen tests pre-flight. As we all lugged our suitcases about the airport and chatted eagerly about the upcoming week, it reminded me of old school trips. There was an air of uncertainty about the flexibility of the borders between Ireland and France due to Covid, but thankfully we all made it into the country with no problems, despite my flatmate forgetting she needed to get a visa to travel on a New Zealand passport.
With a lot of drinking, and not so much skiing, Trinity took over Avoriaz. We spent the mornings beating the hangovers by waking up early, continuing to drink and braving it down the slopes. It was a recipe for disaster. For myself, it was a very humbling experience to realise that I am an awful skier; while many were tackling reds and blacks I was launching myself down greens in the classic snow plough. It was a great bonding experience to have to be constantly pulled off my bum as I lay helplessly in the snow. I’ve only been skiing once before, so the initial thought of going on the ski trip held a lot of uncertainty, as I knew many people going who had been skiing since they could walk, but I couldn’t recommend it enough to anyone who may be on the fence about it. I had thought I wouldn’t end up skiing much, but we surprised ourselves at how much time we actually did spend on the slopes. My highlight was probably the feeling of sheer fear and dread as I stood at the top of a scary slope (that was definitely only a blue) and realised that my only option was to go down it, which resulted in several wipe-outs. I don’t think my skills improved once over the course of the week, but I relish in my inability to ski well.
Over in France restrictions didn’t appear to exist; we took over apres – the after skiing activities – every day, making the place our own to the point of having a St.Paddy’s themed event. Packed in a tight crowd of drinking 20-year olds is a feeling we haven’t felt in a while, but with the clubs reopening (again), it’s one that we will all soon be used to, and it’s exactly what apres was like. To make matters more exciting, the scramble to find the correct skis and lug them back to your room was a task that is difficult sober, nevermind after seven Aperol spritzes. Let’s not get into the amount of skis that went missing or got swapped… However, the clubs got busy at around 6pm, and if you didn’t want to queue in the cold for two hours, you had to go straight from apres to the nightclub. This is a great idea if you want to blackout. Unfortunately, we didn’t make it to many clubs due to this reason, but for me the highlight of each day was definitely the apres.
All in all, as many of us spent the week afterwards recovering our minds, bodies and souls, reflecting upon the trip made me realise how amazing it is to go travelling. The views of the snow-covered mountains is a picture I could only dream of waking up to every day. It definitely cured the morning headaches stepping onto the balcony and taking in our surroundings. If there is one thing I am happy to see return in 2022, it is the return of people exploring new places.
