Organizing the biochem 2010 Ski trip to Serre Chevalier

It all started last year, when the gods where in my favor and I was able to organize a group of 7 PHD researchers to go to a crazy SKI holiday  in Serre Chevalier.

Previous Ski trip 2009. Our group except Chris who took the picture.

Previous ski trip 2009. A nice couple just in front of the nice view from the studio next to the ski station

In resumé, our friendship got a boost thanks to a lot of good fun with our snowboards and skies for a cheap price. Well yes the cheap price was necessary, I know don´t remind me that we study like hell and get a lot of diplomas, but we are not rich yet. People find it ironical and some of even frustrating, but not me, and anyway even if I was rich, I would keep travelling the same way, because that´s the way I enjoy it the most.

Ski trip 2009. We could not miss having a great fondue

Ski trip 2009. There I am doing my crazy stop in my surf

This year I was glad to learn that Patty, Chuanjie, Shahina, Mustafa, Maria and specially Chris and Homam were really eager to repeat the trip.   (We missed you Pacha, Raha and Murni but next time !)   After having the group settled I started again checking the possibilities.     After a few phone calls, I sorted out two cheap studios from my father´s Friend Michel Vrinat ( French researcher who knows me since I was born !), as well as reduced price to hire ski equipment from our friend in the ski resort Philippe.  Next we found really cheap Ryanair flights to Turin, and a funny fact is that our plane  was scheduled to leave at 7 AM, so we all book an easybus at 4 AM in the morning, expect Homam and Mustafa, who  for saving 4 pounds decided to take the bus at 1 AM  ! LOL they had to wait in the airport for more than 5 hours in the early morning ! When we arrived to the airport, we found them with a white face of non sleep, but Patty, Chris and I could not stop laughing PPP.

To reach the ski resort, as we did last year, we had the cheap option of taking three buses and one train, but we had learned painfully that this implied  more than 10 hours just for travelling 130 Kms ! So we said no more to trains and buses this time !

Previous Ski trip 2009. No more train this time !

Previous ski trip 2009. No more long waiting for bus this time !

This time we rented a 9 seats big Van all for us for the whole week !  Everything went perfect with the Van, even the  AVIS rental car guy was a funny italian shown in the picture below.

Ski trip 2010. Part of the group with the funny car rental guy

Ski trip 2010. Wrong Van !

But do not be mislead by the previous picture, because that was not our Van !  As Chris said later on facebook  :

” 1 minute later everyone’s inside, luggage and all and for some reason the van won’t start. 2 minutes and we all realise the chairs are a different colour and it’s actually someone else’s van ! ”

Yes indeed, in that time we were already in Briancon, 15 min from our ski resort, having lunch in a lousy tourist trap french restaurant.  Our Van was a lot nicer, but for some reason I suppose all the Vans at the beginning look the same, and it took all the effort of the pretty girls who care about the details to realize that we were actually trying to steal another person van !