Day 4 - The Birthday Fall

Today is my birthday so I've been able to get my own way all day by milking the annoying line "but it is my birthday!" We had a great day on the slopes today and I'm pleased to report that we've been on just about every run now - including number 9 which is the black run.

Before I share the tale of how I was duped into taking this run I have a couple of comedy video clips to embarrass myself with. The weather was good today - it stopped snowing and the sun was shining so we took lots of photos and did some filming of our Olympic performances. Our skiing has got much better and we are not falling over so much now. That is until the camera is turned on! Mario filmed this clip of me doing a 'You've Been Framed' style fall:

Straight after this and as soon as he had stopped laughing Mario did exactly the same but sadly I wasn't filming. Thankfully to get my own back I did capture this little gem:

Mario continues to get more adventurous every day and insisted I follow him off piste. I watched him head towards a bush and sure enough he fell into it. He pulled himself up and shouted "follow me" before falling into another bush. I laughed so much I was nearly crying... until I fell into one myself. The snow was soft and deep and it took ages to pull myself out.

Later on in the day we reached the top of the black run when Mario said "I want to try this one. If you want to take the easy one and meet me at the bottom I don't mind!" I was having none of that so after I filmed the clip of him falling over I headed down. Amazingly I didn't fall over once but when I got near the end I could see Mario in the distance climbing up a hill. I thought he was trying to get to a good spot to film me falling over. As it turns out he had lost his skis as he few out of control over some rocks and was trying to find them in deep snow!

Mario got his own back later when I shot past him in thick fog thinking we had reached the bottom of the slope. I thought I would slow down naturally so I let myself go. When I realised that wasn't happening I had a struggle trying to stop. I was going to fast I think the other people on the slope must have thought I knew was I was doing! Mario arrived a few minutes later close to wetting himself from laughing because he knew I was out of control.

In the evening we went out for dinner to celebrate my birthday. Taking advice from blogger Lance Nelson we avoided the Mehanas with people outside trying to get us in. We found a little place away from the main roads which turned out to be fantastic. I had honey baked feta cheese with walnuts to start followed by a local Bansko dish of rice, pork, chicken, wine and vegetables. I recommend anyone coming to Bansko to check out the place which is called Todeva House on Neofit Rilski Str. The food and wine was amazing, the service fantastic and best of all it was very cheap.

If you walk down the main road from the Gondola to the town at night be prepared with some good excuses for not going into the bars and restaurants. You will be approached around 5-10 times by people employed to bring customers into the venues. Some of these people are quite pleasant and with chat with you but it gets tiresome coming up with fresh excuses every night.

One the way home from dinner we were quite drunk and popped into a shop to buy the obligatory comedy hats. Stand by for pictures of these tomorrow.

In the meantime here are some photos we took up on the mountain today. The scenery was stunning especially at the top where we were above the clouds.