Another First

My first eight weeks in Estonia have been full of new experiences.

A First time to go hole fishing, ice skating, walking across a frozen a sea and now I've been skiing.

Arriving at the resort I was handed my skis and a pair of those sticks. There's probably a better name for them other than "those stick things", but right now its all I got. The skis simply clamp onto your boots by pressing the toe of your boot against them.

But this simple process wasn't as simple as it sounded, as I struggled and swore with those devilish devices.

Sometime later I eventually stood up and was ready to go. Unfortunately the only place I went for another ten minutes was back on the ground. In spite of Tiiu's best efforts and my insistence that not only was I listening to her but understood perfectly what she meant.

However understanding and doing, turned out to be completely different things, as I got up, fell down got up again and yes fell down time and time again. Attempting to get up for the tenth time, I put a bit too much pressure onto the Ski-stick and it snapped.

I'm not sure if it was because of my laughable efforts at speaking at Estonian or the pitiful look on my face as I brought the damaged equipment back, the owner just grinned and gave me a new one free of charge.

Knees bent, leaning forward and not crossing my skis, it started to look as though there may be hope for me yet as I slid along a prepared route. Picking up speed as I moved along, I suddenly realised that not only did I not know how to turn, or slow down, so I stopped the only way I knew how.

On the way home we passed by a small football stadium, where the pitch was being prepared in the Estonian way, with a groundsman sweeping the snow of the pitch with his plough attached to his quad bike. Yep difinitely a day for firsts.