Archives for May 11th, 2006

Click to watch Jani PogaÄ?ar escape certain death.

Being a non-skiier in Slovenia is a bit like being an atheist in America: you automatically belong to a distrusted minority. If a Slovene asks you if you ski, you say yes. You shouldn’t say that you don’t and, for the love of God, don’t tell them you have no intention of learning. I’ve done the latter a few times and it’s never been pretty.

My reasons for not skiing are fairly simple: I grew up in a place where snow was something you only saw on TV, not interacted with, so I never really had the chance to learn. Now that I’m old (almost as old as ancien Poulette) it would be harder, and pretty expensive, to start. I’d also feel weird about shelling out a month’s salary for equipment in order to go take a shot at breaking every bone in my body. (And maybe taking some innocent people down with me.) For me, the triumph of skiing would be making it down alive — but I can just as easily enjoy that triumph by eating a Döner kebap at the new Panda grill in town.

And then there’s this video of Jani PogaÄ?ar skiing in Monterosa, which pretty much seals the deal…