Claviere - day 1

September came around and I started a new adventure. One I never really thought would happen but did. A new school with a hugely different feel but a place where I have come to love. So these are the adventures that I have been on, hopefully inspiring kids or at least giving them the opportunity to see and do things. My first giant step was to take on running a ski trip. Claviere Easter 2024 and our first day turned out to be an adventure in itself.

Travel days are always exciting and long. You never really expect to have much more than travel, orientation and the start of the plan. So I took 16 students with 3 staff, sensible numbers in my opinion, off to the airport at the crack of dawn! 03:30 wake up was unpleasant to say the least and arrived at school ready for a 05:00 departure. Now this is where based laid plans and all that already started to unravel, the gate wasn't open, the code I gave parents was missing the all important # symbol, clearly a learn for me. Then, a student's plans change and instead of meeting at the college they are going straight to the airport. Being part of a boarding school would evendentally mean that a plan is not a plan until it happens.

At the airport in plenty of time and all the students arrive fairly well timewise. Going through check-in on a budget airline with a group is always frought with people getting a little hot under the collar and the odd member of airport staff being a little grumpy about their day. Apart from having to stand around for ages whilst a member of the check-in staff needing to check up about an EU regulation, the queuing wasn't bad at all. Clearning security checks was fairly smooth with obviously more queing but that seemed to go through without too much of a hitch either.

The queuing and the little delays to the start did mean that we didn't have time to stop for food and we went straight through the departure lounges and down to the gate and onto the plane. It felt very seamless.

The flight itself was only scheduled to be 1hr 15 mins. A quick little hop over France and down to Chambery airport. Not been there before so a new experience for me. The senior first officer announced that there would be a few bumps along the way but up until our arrival these had been a few short bumps that didn't amount to much. Unfortunately, things changed fairly significantly at this point. The approach took us over lake Bourget. Quite a dignificant body of water in a valley in southern France. The airport itself is right on the edge of the lake. I later found out that the pilots have to have special trainging for this airport due to the short runway and wind patterns that are present over the lake. Our first approach, yes there was more than one, was very bumpy indeed. I may be slghtly underselling this but it we were being shaken all about by the turbulance as we descended and the pilots made the decision to abort our approach. It felt very hairy indeed. We then cirlced back around and waited on news from other aircraft attempting to land too. After a little while, couldn't really tell you how long, it was probably about 20-30 minutes we were descending again over the lake. This time it was far less bumpy but still a bit shaky and down we came. There was a massive applause from the passengers as our plane landed.

This was probably my worst flying experience to date. I was definitely nervous about the landing the second time but put my faith in the team and it all went perfectly.

There was a little irony about the next part of the day with us all walking off the plane to get on the transport buses that took us round most of the airport to end up almost directly next to where our plane was. It would have been far quicker to have walked but I guess this is used to keep groups of passengers together before joining the inevitable queue for passport control, and baggage reclaim.

The next part of the journey was completely uneventful. The comfortable bus journey down through the rest of France and into Italy through some amazing views and incredibly long tunnels.

We stopped for a quick lunch stop before arriving in Claviere. On our arrival our hotelier and Ski rep were waiting for us and were incredibly helpful in getting us sorted.

Quick rest followed by a walk down to the ski shop to get ski fit, the process of trying on skis, boot etc to be ready for taking on the mountain!

This was all sounding a little too good to be true! Until we discovered a student without any ski clothing! The essentials kit list seemed to have passed him and his parents by. Still a quick trip into the nearest shop and he was kitted out in some of the finest ski wear Claviere had to offer. 

Dinner was amazing. Having stayed in the hotel back in January and had essentially 7 courses of food I knew we were in for a treat. The authentic Italian food cooked from decent produce meant by the time we had finished eating our scary landing saga was nothing more than a dim and distant memory. 

The customary gave of Uno, only after discussing which particular variation of rules we were playing, was a great way to finish the day off.

Ready for the skiing tomorrow. 

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