By Raima Garodia, Year 10 Journalist Leader

In the February half term, a group of NHEHS girls and teachers flew off to the snow and sunshine in the Pyrenees.

Here’s what they got up to.

Day 1: Travel Day

Around 2:30pm, 60 Notting Hill and Ealing girls flooded Heathrow Terminal 3 all dressed in bright burgundy hoodies saying, ‘La Molina 2500 Alp’.  Most of us stocked up on unnecessary food for the journey ahead of us, although some of us went shopping for last minute essentials. After the flight, we arrived to a warm breezy Spanish evening, but it was midnight when we all excitedly, half sleep-deprived trudged with our suitcases to the third floor to our rooms then turned in for the night.

Day 2: Skiing Day One

We all woke up in good spirits for our first day of skiing as we headed down to breakfast dressed for the day. Then we had our ski fittings, and headed to the slopes where we were grouped by ability with our instructors for skiing. We headed back up after lunch and shedding some layers as the sun was out to resume our day of skiing. In the evening, we went ice-skating to enjoy witnessing our friends falling over then laughing hysterically about it and falling over with them.

Day 3: Shopping in La Molina

The next day, during our afternoon skiing session, we came across an icy red slope. All of us fell over one by one. So after Francais (my ski instructor) helped us back up to our feet,  we all took of our skis and slid down the majority of the ice covered slope. After making snow angels and having a massive snowball fight, we proceeded to put on our skis and ski back down as it was the end of our session today. We were taken to a small convenience store called, ‘Gemma’ along the main road a twenty minute walk from the hotel before dinner. Everyone bought more food, mostly consisting of souvenirs and hot Cheetos.

Day 4 and 5: No poles!

‘Say goodbye to your Mothers, say goodbye to your Fathers,’ said Francais as we got off the gondola to our second black slope of the week. We all anxiously skied down as professional skiers sped past us as we somehow made it down in one piece covered in sprayed snow.

The next day, we left our poles behind and practised jumps while skiing, getting to spray tons of snow at our friends in the process! But little did we know, the real challenge was yet to come. After lunch, Francais surprised us all with a game of catch. The catch – it was down a steep red slope –  and we had no poles. The outcome wasn’t as bad as we thought though as we all only fell over once or twice.

Day 6: Marbella

After having the disco the night before, not many of us had had much sleep so we all went down to the last day of skiing a little bit grumpy but sad that it was our last day. Our ski group travelled further across to where we were able to see the mountains that lined the border of Andorra as we skied down the long path down to La Molina (where our hotel was.)

Day 7: Are we there yet?

Everyone was excited to get home whilst being sad to leave this amazing week behind us. Our 5 am wake up call was a tough one, but we made it to the airport after a nap on the coach on way to the airport. After a trip to the Duty Free for more souvenirs, we finally arrived at London Heathrow after a two hour delay on the plane in Barcelona.

Naturally for a ski trip, there had been ups and downs (!) but we all thoroughly enjoyed the trip!