Jane's Journal

In den beginne was er het Woord. En het Woord van vandaag is:

"Pepernoot + kokoskoek = ranja"

Olivier (collega) heeft gesproken (tijdens test-team + sql-team overleg)

We had so much fun yesterday!
Dalibor started packing his bags at 14:45 and we left our assignment with Yoeri, Matthijs and Marcel in tow at three pm. The trip to Snowworld was short, and we paid for two hours. Marcel and I had to also rent equipment and clothes, while the other three had their own boards, bindings and shoes and could get on with it.

Snowworld has three slopes on which to play around. The first two are side-by-side. The one on the left (when seen from the outrageously priced Glühwein infested restaurant) is a gentle slope for beginners, with easy lifts like a large rubber conveyor belt to get you up the slope and a low-to-the-ground knotted rope on the other side of the piste. The right slope is the trick-slope, with jumps, staircases with railings for grinding. The two slopes are divided by two dragging-lifts, or "pancake" as Youp van't Hek calls these lifts. It's a metal disc that you can sit on to drag you up the slope.

We first took the conveyor belt up halfway and I slipped into the bindings with some effort. Once I was stuck in, I promptly turned over, so that I could push myself up, facing the slope in stead of facing the restaurant. During my time in Austria some ten years back that was the only way I could get up into a standing position.
Boarding was fun and easily enough picked up again. On the gentle slope I tried out my curves and managed to at least get both curves working for me. I'd still need to finetune the smoothness, but I got the basics down. Yay!

I also tried the pancake-dragging-lift, but of course I fell flat on my face a couple of times. When skiing, it's simple enough to sit on the pancake, because your skis are perpendicular to your shoulders. If you're facing forward, your skis will just slide over the snow.
When boarding, it's a bit harder. The board is parallel to your shoulders and you need to undo the bindings of your hind foot (my right, I'm "goofy" but it matches my archery stance) in order to compensate should you lose your balance. It's the only way we can move towards a lift if we're not going down a slope and when we haven't mastered the penguins walk I saw some kid do with both feet still stuck to his snowboard.

After a while we went into the other hall, to slope #3. It was for more experienced skiiers and boarders only, but it looked, from down where I was standing, pretty cool to do. I had mastered the basics, and I had picked up the art of slowing down. But the only lifts there were those darned pancake-lifts. So I took my board in my arms and walked up the slope.
Did I mention it was a 200 meter slope with a 20% decline?
Did I mention the air was at a -5°C?
I had to stop twice during my ascent, panting for breath, but in the end I made it all the way to the top. Dalibor and Matthijs were urging me on to go down once I got my breath. That damned 20% decline ratio was getting to me. The slope looked a lot steeper from the top, I tell you!

But there's no rest for the wicked and if it doesn't look very steep from the bottom, then it probably really isn't all that steep even if it looks that way from the top. I have maimed satyr-skinners, I have hunted orcs, how can a stupid white slope ever stop me?!
So I fastened my bindings one last time and went down. And I went down well, too. I managed some lovely curves, and I only fell twice, once quite spectacularly where my board's edge buried itself into the snow and I twirled around it like a rag doll, laughing all the way. Whee!

At Matthijs' urging I then tried getting back up the slope using the lift, but a little over halfway in I fell again and I just went down from there. I really didn't want to burden the other more advanced skiiers and boarders with my incompetence at the pancake-lift, so I went back to the first slope. I took a bit of a break on a bench first, because I really had a little trouble getting enough air, as Matthijs was trying to be encouraging but in stead just really gave me a hard time about not managing the lifts. "You can't go on wintersport holiday if you can't manage the lifts, there's no place where they don't have these lifts, and it's really quiet here in comparison, so just try it here."

Stubborn as I was, I did try it a couple of more times, falling flat on my face 3/4 of the way up on the smaller slopes, and walking the rest. Still, I managed to place the pancake between my legs, although the iron bruised me in a wicked way in the more sensitive inner-thigh places. The problem was also that my fleece gloves were, by this time, so wet that they just slipped on the iron and I couldn't brace myself with them. They got stuck on other colder patches too, so I wasn't about to take them off. I did get a little better with the lifts, though.

After nearly two hours I was getting very tired and also very cold. The rented skiing pants were slowly getting colder and wetter, my gloves were finally soaking through, and my winter coat, as awesome as the hideous orange thing my mother once gifted me with is, also was getting wet at the cuffs. I decided to go down one last time with Marcel, who had a lot of trouble staying upright and slowing down, and then to go change.

It was after five when we sat down in the restaurant with a cup of hot (water-soluble) cocoa which was terribly overpriced. I really loved how this day was turning out: the colleages were lovely and supportive. Each of the more experienced boys took turns to help Marcel out, or to encourage me. There wasn't any jeering or jesting. Of course, when we sat down with cocoa the jokes and boisterous behavior started again, but the afternoon was really great.

At six something we left for the Greek restaurant where we would meet up with the rest of the colleagues again. Dinner was great, I had dishes well-known to me like spanakopitakia and mezes tou bekri and closed off with a yaourti me meli. The Greek matron even called me agapi mou because I spoke a few sentences of Greek, which was lovely.

It really was a great day, and the exercise would have left me bouncing for more if I wasn't hurting all over. I can feel almost every muscle in my body from the neck down to my ankles. I really had a great time!

"Nou!" schalde de stem van mijn Oma uit de telefoon. Ze vergeet altijd dat als zij de telefoon harder zet om beter te horen, dat ze zelf niet ook nog eens harder moet praten. "Ik moest oe eens e'em bellen."
"Dag Oma." zeg ik dan, een warme glimlach klinkt door in mijn stem.
"Ja, ik moest oe eens e'em bellen om te vertellen dat er wel fieftig bloempies in da' plantie zitt'n die ik van oe e'kree'en heb!"

Twee jaar geleden gaven we oma een orchidee met kleine bloemetjes cadeau voor haar verjaardag, omdat ze zo van orchideeëen houdt en omdat die planten bij haar zo vreselijk goed bloeien. En ze zegt altijd dat ze het "prachtig" vindt, zoveel plantjes met zoveel bloemen. Ze heeft een stuk of drie Phalanopsis'en staan in het raamkozijn (op 't noordoosten), en ze bloeien uitzonderlijk lang en weeldering.

"Wij hebben er ook eentje net als die van u." zeg ik dan. "En die bloeit ook, maar wij hebben geen vijftig bloempen."
Ik loop naar de orchidee, die vol met kleine wit-paarse bloemen zit, en tel hardop. "Vierendertig. En vier knoppen."

Oma wint.
Maar Oma wint altijd, want Oma is prachtig.

(Ik schrijf wel vaker Drents en over mooie uitspraken van mijn Oma. Van beide dingen word ik altijd heeeel blij!)

En dan heel wat anders. Ik neem al de hele week chocolade mee naar het werk, want het is weer die week. Vandaag merkt Marcel op dat ik ook aan de warme chocolademelk zit.
"Je hebt een vrouw in het team, en die neemt al de hele week chocolade mee. En daar ga je vragen over stellen?" vraag ik sceptisch, alsof hij beter zou moeten weten.
"Oh, ik snap het al." antwoordt Marcel. "Je bent verliefd."