Bitter Sweet

This isnt a funny story or anything but I just wanted to tell about my first attempt at snowboarding. Well we rented our gear on base and drove up the mountain to Piancovallo. once we got there I was like crap I cant do this. I was hoping for an easy runn nothing to steep to learn on.... No such luck. The lifts went all they way up to the tallest peaks and all the way down the paths there was cliffs off the sides. Not only that once you got towarrds the bottom there was jumps,tricks and cars to jump over. Lets also get one thing straight when I say jumps I mean a pack of snow that if you hit it would launch you a good 15 to 20ft in the air. So ya...back to the stroy we got our gear on and my friends who have all snowboarded before picked the second tallest lift first. We rode the lift up and up for like 5 to 10 mins and then we got off which in itself is a difficult task. lets just say I never perfected it and I ended up on my butt or face everytime I got off a lift. We get to the first hill and it is really steep and I have no idea how to do a thing on this board. I get up start going down and face plant horribly. After that I get up I only went like 10 ft down the hill so I try agian this time I fall on my butt. So Im sitting on my butt trying to stand up and everytime I try the board starts to slide down the hill. I really didnt want to face plant again so I ended up going down that first hill on my butt sliding. I also forgot to mention that while im doing this all the italians and everyone else up on that mountain is laughing at me. Finally after trying agian and again on the next hill down I finally learn how to stop and control my speed. I know this is getting repatative so ill just say I was on my butt 80% of the day. By the end off the day we went up to the highest peak which was gorgeous we were looking down on the clouds it was breath takng. I made it down that run without too many incidents. On a side note there is a ski restaurant up in the mountain were the have fry sauce. It is my new favorite place in italy just for that and the best part is its free!!! Anyways there are my ramblings for the weekend