“Leg” 1: The Ski Trip

Skiing was the first “leg” of the trip. Rabbi Berger announced that we will be going Skiing in a place called “Camp Adventure” which is located about 20 minutes drive from Yeshiva (right across the border to ‘The Country of Quebec’ in the ‘Ottouais Mountainous Region’ i.e. Gatineau). At around 2:55pm Rabbi Smith calls Sholom Ber and notifies him that Rabbi Berger had just found out that the skiing place closes at 4:00pm and therefore we should go for 45 minutes and come back. Sholom Ber didn’t agree and proceeded to find someplace else where it will be open after 4pm. After long investigations he found a place 180 km away from Ottawa, in the Laurentian Mountains, north of Montreal. The drive turned out to be 2 and-a-half hours. With short breaks for finding out if it is already time to ask “Are we there yet?”

We arrived at the Ski Mountain called “Mont Saint Sauveur”, a place where no one speaks English but us, we had to figure out a way of explaining what we wanted with hand motions... and cash signs...

Yankee Kopfstien trying to figure out the Canadian Sports

Once all equipment was rented and tickets paid for, all but one headed for the Ski Slopes. All strapped on their gear and went towards the hill. We had quite a few novice skiers who have never before skied: Boruch Tauber, Shmuel Kalatchy, Yankee Kopfstien, Rafi Morgenstien. They all headed with confidence relying on Ari Eagle who has promised to take good care of them...

Group Picture of the Majority of the Skiiers atop Mt. Saint Sauveur

Boruch & Yankee asked Ari for the “Bunny Hill” and were directed to the Ski Lift. As inexperienced skiers they listened to him...

Boruch ended returning downhill with his glasses broken, and most of his beard in a form of a block of ice. Yankee returned with burn marks on the bottom half of his upper back, and the top half of his lower back (i.e. his bottom). Rafi Morgenstien returned with his hair totally white in one big block, looking like some old man who just rolled out of a Old-Age Home...

Boruch Tauber WITHOUT his glasses...

Zaidy Rafi

We headed towards Montreal for eating. At the car a heated debate started, whether we should eat in Chez Benny’s (Fleishig) or Pizza Pita (Milchig). We arrived at Montreal at around 11:20pm short while before both restaurants closed. We first stopped at Pizza Pita where we made the final decision that we will all eat at Pizza Pita.

The Pizza was great, a hundred notches above the regular Pizza we always eat at “Viva’s Pizza”...

Sholom Ber & Simcha enjoying the Pizza

Short while later we all headed back to Ottawa. The drive took a total of 1 hour and 30 minutes. During this drive is when Sholom Ber noticed that the brakes are malfunctioning, and a weird smell is emanating from the back brakes. We stopped at a gas station where Sholom Ber & Yankee bought Coffee, freshly made by the attendant specially for us.

We spent some time in the Gas station with a French-Canadian Attendant. Chaim Kaufmann decided that he must say something stupid and he said: “How good it is that we are back in Ontario, out of Quebec, where those stupid Frenchies don’t speak a word of English...” Needless to say, Chaim was answered by a nasty comment, spiced up with some French profanities by Yankee.

We made it back to Ottawa at around 2:00am, straight to Zal, where Benny was waiting for Play Practice. All was set, and then all got cancelled... Everybody was notified that we will be woken up at 8:00am, daven and hit the road to Baltimore with plans of eating Schwarma and sleeping by 11:00pm Thursday night.

“Good Night”, here ends the first leg of the journey.

(To Be Continued)