When a sun lover meets the snow
It's not quite the meltdown you expected - learning to love the cold
As we’re heading into winter here in Australia, I want to talk about my brief interactions with the somewhat unfamiliar world of the extreme (in my opinion) cold weather called snow. In my defence it does only snow when it’s below freezing! The cold weather is not my first love, in fact I moved to the sunny climes of Brisbane straight out of university because I hated the cold winters in Victoria. This is also evident in most of the holiday destinations I choose. Somewhere tropical, preferably an island. Somewhere with a beach or pool. Make it warm please sir!
However, as I’ve gotten older I’ve come to appreciate the colder weather. I enjoy getting rugged up to go places and taking off that coat, beanie and scarf when you enter the warmth of a cosy café, restaurant or theatre. I didn’t appreciate it as much when I was younger, and growing up near the beach with sun-loving parents I never really experienced what winter had to offer. I never went to the snow as a child. While other families spent winter holidays at Falls Creek and Mount Hotham learning to ski, our family never did. Winter was for football and netball. We stayed home and played or watched sports.
I first saw snow when I went on the school ski trip in Year 10. It was 1989 and I was 16 years old. Not everyone got to go and I thought I was lucky to get the chance. We paired up with another school in the region, about 10 to 15 students from each school, and I clearly remember the view out of the bus when we hit the snowline for the first time. It was a scramble to the side of the bus to check it out, well it was for those of us who hadn’t seen snow before. The teacher giving us instructions over the loudspeaker hushed as the excited chatter amongst us got louder and louder. I remember a chant started up in the bus and it was such a sight to see the snow outside get denser and denser until we were at last allowed off the bus to touch and play in it! I loved my time learning to ski, but hated being cold. I was grateful that a few of our days at Mt Bogong were quite sunny so we were able to ski in t-shirts. I did not pack well for the snow as a 16 year old and learnt my lesson for the next time I went, taking loads of thermals, woolly socks and proper layering.
I would not see snow again for at least another five years after that school trip. But in 1995 when I was in my second year at university studying environmental science, the student union advertised a trip to the snow. One of my best friends, a keen snowboarder who often went for weekends away during snow season, suggested we should go. Always up for an adventure, I agreed but we had to organise a few more people to get the cheap option of a room for six with BYO food and drinks. Luckily a few of our classmates were also keen snowboarders and said they would come along. All male. The boys organised all our food for the trip and I just needed to organise my snow gear. As they were all snowboarders I decided I should learn to snowboard too. A week out from this trip my friend pulled out. I can’t remember why, but vaguely recall that she broke ribs snowboarding. I can’t be sure if that was before or after this trip, but either way she left me with a bunch of 20-something stoners to go snowboarding with for a week.
So off I went with the stoners to spend a week snowboarding, me being the only female and sharing a room with them. Bunk beds. That sounds a bit daunting in this day and age, but I literally did not give it a second thought. These guys were mostly from Ukrainian backgrounds and treated me like a sister. They all left the room when I was dressing (even when they were hungover or injured), they cooked all the food (breakfast, lunch and dinner) if we didn’t eat out and there was always one of them close by or waiting for me at the end of the day to head back to the chalet or the bar for drinks. We might’ve got in trouble for the weed and the extreme amount of alcoholic beverages per person that we brought in, but it didn’t stop any of us from hitting the slopes each day.
While they were experienced snowboarders (skateboarders and surfers) and just took off over the side of the mountain outside the chalet each morning, I caught the buggy that would take me to a lesson first and then spend the afternoon on the easiest of easy slopes trying to navigate my way down the mountain without copping a mouthful of snow each time. When one of the boys injured himself on a black run, he found me at the end of my lesson and spent the rest of the day, and the rest of the week, hanging out with me on the baby slopes. He guided me through my fears and gave me little tips and tricks along the way. It was so much fun hanging out with him and I was secretly glad he injured himself and couldn’t keep up with the others as it meant I had someone to share the adventure with. We did not make out, just buddies to the end. I even stayed with these four again in a house by the ocean when we were doing third year marine biology (but that’s another story!)
The third and final time I saw snow was during my conference/backpacking trip to Europe in 2000. It was my first night in Europe and I had flown in to Munich, staying overnight in a hostel there before heading to the conference the next day. I arrived at the backpackers hostel all bleary-eyed and jetlagged after an almost 24-hour trip from Brisbane via Singapore. I immediately met two Swiss girls in my hostel room and told them to wake me if it snowed, because I had only seen snow twice before in my life. They seemed shocked at that but a couple of hours later they jumped on my bed shouting “Snow! Nicki, snow!”. We raced outside barefoot in our pyjamas and began jumping and rolling in the snow. The snow was falling steadily. They laughed with me and threw snowballs at me. It was like seeing snow for the first time all over again.
These days it’s been so long since I have seen snow, smelt it or felt it that I have forgotten what it does feel like. I want to see it again. I know that when I went snowboarding with the boys I actually had a good time because I wasn’t cold. Even though I couldn’t snowboard to save myself, I enjoyed myself because I didn’t even notice if I was cold. I was prepared, I had the right gear to enjoy it there and stay warm. And like surfing, snowboarding is not really my thing. But like surfing and scuba diving, I’m glad I gave it a shot. If I ever went back to the snow again I would probably try skiing again. As a sun lover meeting the snow I imagine it would look somewhat like Chelsea Handler skiing in her bikini on her birthday but shorter, chubbier and greyer! It’s high time I went back to the snow, somewhere in the world, and learnt to appreciate the winter months for what they are, instead of the tame winter we have here in Australia that I used to hate so much. These days I am learning to embrace the colder weather, even if it has taken me 50 or so years to do it!
What I’m watching: High Fidelity because music. And Zoe Kravitz! I wish there was more than one season of this, but I probably should read the book.
What I’m reading: Outcast by Louise Carey. Second book in the Inscape series. I love a bit of sci-fi.
