As per usual I have a story to tell, I know there are those few of you who enjoy this thread for that reason. Never short of a story!
The ski lifts open on the weekend , so I had a few days to settle in and do some dry land training. I was ready for a relax. After a couple of days I was a little concerned about my car. So I drove down to the nearest garage who said it needed a new coil. They said they were unable to do it but booked me into the Opel dealer in Albertville for the following Monday. I arrived at the Opel garage at 8am sharp in hope to get back for a ski in the afternoon. How wrong I was. When I took my car to Opel, expecting a new coil to take about 1 hour and a bill of about 100 euros....after ten minutes the mechanic walked out and said "BIG PROBLEM"...thats when I asked I don't care what just tell me how much?? ....2000 euros....thats when the tears began. No one quite knew what to do about me bawling amongst a large variety of new cars in the middle of their show room.
So I finally asked whether another garage that was cheaper could do the repair. After a lot of trying to translate with my dictionary, and some phonecalls, I was off to another garage, they didn't want to give me the keys he said "you can't drive this it go BOOM!" so he reluctantly gave me my keys after I said "well buddy its not staying here at 2000 euros!" (thats twice the cost of the car) and i set off to find the cheaper garage. After 2 hours on google translator with the mechanic, we established it was the cylinder. Thats right I had been driving my 4 cylinder car around on just 3 cylinders. I established it was worth repairing rather than buying a new car, as everything else was good on the car, and it would cost about 800 euros, mainly labour cost as its a huge job and will take 2 weeks. So I call my insurance company to see what the situation is, turns out with roadside cover I get a free hire car for the duration of the repair and any taxis etc that I need. So they tried to be very helpful which was nice. They arranged a car and said you can't pick it up until 2pm, it was about 11.30am, so the mechanic man who spoke no english (hence the google translator tool) dropped me at the car hire place and i walked around killing time. Then at 2pm I go to pick my car up, its got summer tyres, manual and no chains. I said umm the insurance company told me, winter tyres and automatic. "No we have no car with winter tyres"...brilliant this is in the middle of Albertville which is surrounded by mountains..they treated me like I was being outrageous for asking. So unfortunately the insurance company was unable to locate a car with winter tyres and it was nearing 4pm, so they rang me to tell me everything is closing so we'll taxi you home and we will taxi you to go skiing tomorrow while we sort this out. So I returned home and went skiing with my taxi return. The insurance company called me and said ok we haven't a car with winter tyres, but we have an automatic (which is better than nothing as its what I am used to), it is in Lyon. So I said right well I won't get up my road in it (i really wont its not cleared and I was expecting it to snow) so I said can you arrange some snow chains. So after being made to feel like I had asked for a luxurious vehicle with a dvd player and GPS navigation system built in (i had merely asked for some chains in a mountainous country) they called back and said you can pick the car up in Lyon tonight, you can catch a train there etc, you'll get there about 9.30pm they have some chains for you and you are lucky my supervisor said we would cover the cost.
So off I go, get to Lyon, which in itself was a story but I shan't go there, get the car, start to make my way back to Meribel and of course in comes the huge snow fall they were expecting (and was still going 2 days later) after being on the highway for maybe 40km. And I am talking HEAVY SNOW FALLS! So I took my summer tyres rental car, fish tailed my way down the highway at 38km/hour (actually overtook a truck at that speed ...ridiculous), I did fly out of a tunnel at 110km into a white out and 20cm of fresh snow on the road, absolutely shat my pants, thought that was the end, horrible didnt know where I was going, if there were cars, whether to break or not, it was bad, thats when the speed went right down to 38km/hour. So I reached Moutiers (bottom of the mountain) at 2am. Couldn't actually go any further as the highway was so dangerous with no turns, let alone a mountain with about 25cm fresh chopped up snow everywhere, no road clearers in sight. So I went to put the chains on, so glad at this point that I had got them...wrong size aren't they... way too small. Fighting with the car hire company at 2am you can imagine...so they say we'll send someone and if they can get the chains on you have to pay 100 euro atleast and if they are too small we will deal with it (i was reasonably confident i am not that bad with chains and the box didn't have my tyre size on it), so they send someone at 3am...meanwhile hanging out at the closed Elf service station...so the man turns up at 3am says "it is too small...in french"...then wait for it....tows my car away...leaves me in the snow...pelting down snow, battery on my phone is beeping low, i am on the phone saying please i am freezing (no jacket just a polar fleece!) they have towed my car away now what?? please can you get me home. So I wait till 4am when they finally can arrange a taxi and I get home at about 4.20am. Not happy at this point.
So I woke up feeling exhausted and mentally drained, then wait for it, car hire company called me and asked me "why did they tow the car away, there was nothing wrong with it"...like I was pleased about it, cos i just love sitting in probably -5 being snowed on for over an hour at 4am....with no jacket...great! Then said....you are lucky that this is being covered and that you did not have to pay for the towing and garage....I said "lucky...are you taking the piss??" this guy could not find a file on everything that had happened, apparently my file didn't exist. Then they refused to pay for me to have some chains that fitted. So they taxi me to get my car from the garage and tell me we won't pay 120 euro for the chains from the garage so you must go to the supermarket and buy some cheaper ones. So I drive with no chains in the snow , with my summer tyres, to the supermarket and get the cheaper ones as instructed, so they will reimburse me. Well of course they are of lower quality so naturally they have broken and the chains are flinging around hitting the inside of car...which just makes me look like I don't know how to put chains on, you should hear it! So now I have this car until they can fix mine, and they aren't looking into it until Monday 15th because they are too busy before then...anyway just standard Sauvey shambles! Oh you can't actually access anything from where I am staying without a vehicle no buses or anything and about 20+ minute walk to a bus. Anyway, thought you may have a giggle, atleast I can kind of laugh now. On a positive there have been no fires and no ambulances. So i'll take it as a positive.
Am off to Grasgehren, Germany for a Europa Cup on Thursday, (in my summer tyres and broken chains...for the first time ever I am really hoping it doesn't snow because I really don't want to deal with it). Although I haven't skied that much or done much training, it will be good to have 2 days of training on the SX course. I will write again after that! Good Times!!!
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