Snowboarding

Epiphany.
i initially hated snowboarding. The feeling was mutual.
Ok, background info coming along here. It’s my school holidays (exams in a few weeks oh joy) and so I decided to go on a snow camp to Ruapehu, in National Park, in New Zealand for those people who are not obsessive geographers.
Now to get down to this lovely natural environment, one must take the train.
For six hours.
Alright, so initially, the idea of training somewhere is rather exciting, beats bussing right?
After four hours I had eaten a packet of grainwaves, drunk two L&Ps (Yes I freely admit I’m addicted) was craving coffee, had asked the trolley lady (Hogwarts Express anybody?) for a sandwich twice because she forgot the first time and I spent twenty minutes lamenting the loss of said sandwich having been reduced to giggling when told my sandwich had run away (Yes, I imagined a ham and mustard sandwich sprouting little legs and running down the compartment screaming 'help me help me!' it was just too funny) I had deduced that the train attendants name was Shawn, and that my phone had no reception.
Life was looking grim, but after a packet of tim-tams and a good ole rap along session to Fort Minor, the journey became more bearable.
That’s of course not going into detail about my strange seating companions who were of such an...Interesting nature that I found myself suddenly rather grateful I had a cold and had lost my sense of smell judging by their disposition and the facial expressions and breathing patterns of my fellow passengers.
Er. Moving on.
I'd never seen snow before and I have to say I was disappointed. There I had for the best part of sixteen years, been holding on to this image of pure white powdered snow, soft and fluffy and cool in my hands, perfect to make snow balls and play in.
It was freezing, slippery and looked like someone had left their freezer on extra cold for too long.
It was just ice.
A whole load of ice compacted together and nastily good and getting past your gloves and melting torturously against your wrists.
Once I'd got over the fact that I'd just had my childhood dream shattered, I moved on to more important issues, like snowboarding, or as the old man behind me in the queue for the ski chairs had said 'one of them skateboard things'.
Aside from the fact that I had no grip, fell over more times than I could count, decided that my snowboard was out to get me, and made intimate friends with the snow by face planting in it an embarrassing number of times, it was great.
Sense the sarcasm people.
It didn't help that my klutz of a best friend was somehow whizzing down the mountain past me and that I was stuck in a place called Happy Valley.
Happy Valley.
I ask you. The name itself is enough to make you consider beating yourself to death with the snowboard. It was a condescending name and didn't even fit, ok for one thing everyone in the valley was anything but happy; we were all beginners, failing miserably at skiing or snowboarding or whatever other foolhardy activity they had decided to engage in, we were stuck in a valley while the experts lorded their greatness over us, and the place looked like somewhere in Mordor out of Lord of the Rings. There was nothing happy about it.
Except when I bombarded the chairlift attendants with snow. That was fun.
However it wasn't all bad, the hot wedges with sour cream and sweet chilli sauce were enough for anyone to die for, and there were an inordinate number of rather nice looking guys to watch...uh for snowboarding techniques of course...
So snowboarding and I did not agree, however I had by this point another two days of it ahead of me, it was too late to switch to skis and I was too embarrassed and stubborn to give up right then, I mean how hard could it be to get snowboarding right?
It didn't help that everyone else in the camp had snowboarding experience, but they were all lovely people and I enjoyed my time at camp, playing awesome card games and ending up scum every game, trying to breakdance, getting my beanie stolen a billion and one times (always managed to get it back though :D) getting high off coffee and dancing until midnight to pendulum. Come on, how could that not be fun!?
On Friday, which happened to be the last day we got to go snowboarding, I got it.
Typical.
Life just has it in for me, I mean; I couldn't have gotten it earlier could I? No, I had to get it the last day I was actually in the vicinity. Still, It was an amazing feeling, zigzagging down the mountain, doing three-sixty turns in the snow and speeding past people without falling over (yea you better believe it people) and sending up mean sprays of snow as I came to a dramatic stop. Oh yeah, it was AWESOME.
Then we got gale force winds, thick cloud rolling in until I couldn't see a meter ahead and blinding, painful rain was mauling my face as I sped down the mountain feeling like ice daggers on my cheeks. So we retreated back to the lodge for another round of scum (guess who lost, AGAIN!) and for our themed night of grandparents, involving me, a lumberjacks shirt, my beanie covering my hair and a whole lot of toothpaste to the face as facial hair, good times.
So yeah, I still hold firmly to the belief that surfing is just a whole lot more fun than snowboarding, but the problem is, snowboarding is sneaky, it creeps up on you and all the while you think you hate it and you suck at it and then you go home and you can't stop thinking about it, and talking about it, and yes I admit, obsessively dreaming about it.
Damnit.
I'm hooked.