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Living in one of Europe's best ski towns and not trying skiing would be a cardinal sin. I therefore ran across the road to the Salomon ski shop and worked out a nice deal with a gentleman by the name of George which included a four hour ski lesson and all the equipment at a very good price. Nice. Walk the 40m to the gondola lift station in those ridiculous ski boots that make you look like you are walking on the moon. Stood in the long line and spoke for a long time with a fantastic guy from Ireland, reached the front of the cue and realized that I did not have my card on me(never carry it on me in BG) and that I was short 15 levs. Patsy just whipped out a 20, said no worries and would not even take the 5 levs change. I offered to pay him back after the skiing and he refused.

Tearing it up on the Slopes of Bansko

Lloyd Peter West
2007-03-08 17:57:42

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Living in one of Europe's best ski towns and not trying skiing would be a cardinal sin. I therefore ran across the road to the Salomon ski shop and worked out a nice deal with a gentleman by the name of George which included a four hour ski lesson and all the equipment at a very good price. Nice. Walk the 40m to the gondola lift station in those ridiculous ski boots that make you look like you are walking on the moon. Stood in the long line and spoke for a long time with a fantastic guy from Ireland, reached the front of the cue and realized that I did not have my card on me(never carry it on me in BG) and that I was short 15 levs. Patsy just whipped out a 20, said no worries and would not even take the 5 levs change. I offered to pay him back after the skiing and he refused. I plan to meet up with him when I go and take a look around Sofia sometime this month.
Jumped on the gondola with the team and away I went. Lifted high above the Pirin mountains giving way to spectacular views Bansko.

Jumped off the gondola and clipped my boots in and I was away!! I have always wanted to ski and at the ripe age of 24 I got to give it a bash. My instructor was this really great bulgarian girl called Maria, such a tom boy. Loves skiing, hiking and fishing. Such a cool person. It was very tricky at first just staying still on the snow and not sliding down was tricky as was turning around and getting up after having fallen down. We did the snow plough(pointing your tips of your skis together to cause more friction) drills and all that stuff but I was always itching just to go and do it. So I did and on the 5km run down from the gondola into Bansko I was parallel skiing and parallel turning, not quite parallel stopping though. It was amazing, I loved it. I was getting some great speed down the slopes, I think I might have been overly confident due to the fact that I had not yet had a bad wipe out. When I got to Bansko I promptly took
my skis off and jumped ...