Skiing at Rogla

Carla and I went skiing at Rogla, Slovenia on Saturday. We got up at 5am, left our place at around 6 am and then waited at a nearby grocery store to meet up with my cousin and his friends. Once we were all there (convoy of four cars) we took off for the border with Slovenia.

One of the couples did not have passports, as their passports were supposed to be done on Friday, but the efficient Croatian bureaucracy, in their usual style, said "Come on Monday, we have not finished it yet." The couple decided to take a chance and see if they can cross the border without the passport. After an hour of driving and paying toll for the highway, they had to turn back as the border police would not let them through. After the border, we were a convoy of three.

Then, we had to stop for the other cars to buy a Slovenian vignette. Since last year, Slovenians converted their toll highways from a toll-system to a vignette system. You buy a vignette (a sticker for your windshield) and don't have to stop at toll-booths. A good idea, if they offered more options than a 6-month and a 12-month vignette. Other European countries have a 10-day or a two week vignette, but not Slovenians. Actually, the European Union has sued them and Slovenians will have to introduce a shorter term vignette, but until then, they are raking in the money 'Balkan-style' (plunder and pillage).

Took us another 1.5 hours to get to the hill, where the last 20 minutes of driving were done on the windiest road in the world. Forget Lombardi Street in San Francisco, this road was windy and up a steep hill.

We got to the hill around 10am, rented skis for Carla and a snowboard for me, and were off to the races, or in this case ski trails. :-) It has been at least four years since I have snowboarded so it took a few minutes to get used to it, but soon enough I was carving the slopes. FUN!!!

The scenery was beautiful, the ski hill was not too busy and there was no wind. The temperature was -12C but since there was no wind, it did not feel cold at all. My cousin told me that most of the time he comes to ski here, the temperature is around 0 C and the sun is up. No such luck this time, but the conditions were still a lot better than what we experience when skiing in Canada.

We were pretty exhausted by 3:30pm, and since the hill closes at 4 pm we started getting ready for the trip back. On the way back, we stopped at a nice pizzeria and had a pizza to refuel from a tiring day of snow activities. I can safely say that this was a Fun Skiing Day! Last one for a long time, as I don't plan to do this once I am in Australia. Maybe I will take up surfboard. Yeeeeeessss!