Chris Dean’s Personal Website

I’m going to call yesterday day one, though strictly no skiing was done by anyone, we were all travelling and then just had drinks, dinner and played games in the evening.

I, along with most of the other guys decided to take the Eurostar from Ashford to Moutiers, before getting a half hour car transfer up the mountain to Chalet Richard

For me this first meant catching a train from Hove to Brighton and then Brighton to Ashford International, before getting on the Eurostar itself.

The journey to Ashford was fine, the early train was pretty much empty and I managed to get a little bit of shuteye on the way there. Then at Ashford, check in was nice and quick and easy too, though Sii and Georgia had their bags searched for some reason.

We had a quick bite to eat and a cuppa, and before we knew it we were getting on the train to France.

Though not completely full, the train was pretty rammed with people and luggage which made it all feel a bit uncomfortable and claustrophobic, though I’m certain that whichever way you look at it, it was a more comfortable seat than the plane.

The journey itself was generally also much easier, with much less stress than you get when taking a standard cheap flight, so that was good. As a train in itself however, I found the Eurostar to be a bit drab and a bit too functional an experience. It was easier and probably slightly more comfortable than a plane, but it wasn’t exactly a pleasure to take the ride.

One of my reasons for taking the Eurostar (aside from seeing what it was like, as I’ve never done it before) was a hope that I might see some interesting sights as we travelled across France. Unfortunately, I didn’t.

The day was fairly dismal, so it might have just been that putting a dampner on things, but all we really got see out of the window was a lot of security fencing before and after we got through the tunnel, and then acres of dull, flat, frozen farmland.

Coming from Kent, and living in Sussex I regularly get to see some fantastic views of beautiful rolling hills and really quite varied farming landscapes, so I guess I’m spoiled, but again what we saw in France was pretty dull, functional and boring to be honest.

It was interesting to see the mountains as we came closer to the resort though, and one thing did make me laugh on the way: The very first actual sight as you come past the security fencing on the French side is a massive warehouse selling discount booze and fags. What do these people thing we come to France for??!!

Anyway I digress. We all got here fine, and were shown to our rooms where we dumped our stuff before going downstairs for champagne, coffee and tea before dinner which was all very pleasant.

Dinner consisted of canapés, which were prunes wrapped in bacon, and some tuna/pepper mix in cucumber wells which were nice; leak and something soup which was lovely; Duck, cabbage and potatoes as a main (I don’t like duck so swapped mine with Jake for some excess cabbage); and finally lemon tart for pudding followed by coffee and cheese board. All this might not sound exciting – unfortunately I can’t remember the exact names everything was given on the menu, but it was all lovely.

After dinner, Jon got the better of Luke (again) with another 10 Euro proposition bet; Sii tried the same with Colin but lost due to an apparatus malfunction; and Jake and Quinny cosied up in the hot tub – before I showered them with ice water from the balcony!

Later on we played our own made up version of speed Taboo, which was quite good fun, the guys got measured up for their skiing stuff, and as the night wore on Quinny and I taught some of the others how to play poker. Poker went on quite late, with James getting quite drunk and winning everything, but it was a good a laugh, and everyone went to bed tired and contented.

And so ends our first day in here, and lets hope we’ve started as we mean to go on