Snowbombing Austria

Okay, so I'm still alive. Always a good sign after strapping 2 planks of wood to your feet and hurtling down the side of a mountain.

Visibility today was 10m, so i nearly found myself in the trees a couple of times. But hopefully tomorrow is going to be sunny with no fog. It's never fun when someone half your size goes whizzing down the hill faster than you, but i guess i did the same when I was younger.

I think I may be better at the Aprez ski than the actual slope stuff. Aprez ski is at the end of a long day the first bar you walk into.

Mayrhofen is a very pretty place, I'd recommend it.

Anyway, time is short, just wanted to say I'm alive at the moment and am going to be stiff as hell tomorrow.

I'll post pics when i'm back home

Signed... sealed.. and ... delivered

I've got it... I've got my contract in my grubby little paws :-)

Ah, so much shopping to do now that i have something that slightly resembles disposable income. But first the holiday.... I've sort of decided to take a week where I'm uncontactable by anyone. I'm going to Austria.

I've booked a week on the Mayrhofen resort http://www.mayrhofen.at/index.php?id=6&L=2 . I'm going to be staying at a nice hotel with the slopes just outside my front door, and some clean mountain air. Brad has kindly let me use his ski suit otherwise that would probably add another couple of hundred pounds to my trip (not fun). But now I want boots of my own... rentals always give me blisters and bruises.
The week that I'm there they're having some crazy European rock type festival called Snowbombing. Google it... it looks interesting. Bands I've never heard of making a noise on the slopes and drinking Jaegermeister (scuse spelling) at the top of the mountain. Sounds like a recipe for disaster, I can't wait. But till then at least the weather on my puddle of mud island is improving. I have seen the sun, so I know it still exists and all the tickets for the concerts are coming out now. I'm going to be broke by the end of this, but at least it'll have been fun.

Anyway, I'm off to buy some gloves for the slopes as I don't think my skinny little one's I have at the moment will suffice.

later

Still waiting....... and waiting... and waiting

So my boss has finally decided that after a year of working for him that I'm not a complete nut job and I don't have any completely weird habits... okay, so I'm not a morning person but he seems to be okay with that... so the short of it is that he's offered me a permanent job. I suppose me telling him that come beginning of March if he didn't make me permanent he'd be looking for a new person to fill my role made him more enthusiastic to do something. So there we go.... I have a permanent job... and I get heaps of holiday and he's paying me more than I was hoping for so I'm ecstatic about it.

This now means that I can escape to some deserted mountain range with 2 pieces of wood strapped to my feet and spend a week going up and down the mountain. And spend the evenings curled around a log fire drinking something that is cold and I probably can't pronounce.

So yes, I'm hoping to spend easter skiing in Austria. That's one of the nice things about living in Europe.... the rest of Europe is on your doorstep... I can go skiing for a weekend... :-)

Although I am still waiting for my contract to come through (still) I'm getting the little yellow pass instead of the blue one and I can now take holiday without wondering how I'm going to pay for it :-)

So things are looking up

I'm annoyed

That's basically it... I'm fuming at how utterly and completely self centered people over here can be.

eets snowing eets snowing

This is what it looked like outside my house this morning.... they're not the best pics but with my digital camera wandering around with someone else all I've got is my camera on my phone.

The luck of the Irish

Well a couple of things have been going on since my last post, but nothing of great importance.
Thursday 9th November was the return of the great Springbok Nude Girls(SNG) at the Shepard's Bush Empire, they were supported by The Parlatones and then Prime Circle. All in all it was a great concert. Bubblegum on my boots started and a fair section of the crowd started expending their energy in the form of a mosh pit, which caused something in Mr Burden's head to snap, attempt to grab me... missed... and dragged an unsuspecting Mr Shuttleworth into the belly of this monster. Seeing Brad disappear reminded me of the movies when some creature drags their unsuspecting victim into the river/lake/ocean etc, the same wide eyed look of surprise and arms grabbing at fresh air to stop this... and with that the dissolved into the mass of bouncing people. Rearranging my bag so things couldn't fall out I followed suit. Perhaps not a great idea for someone my size. But it was fun nonetheless. Getting home at about 1am it was packing the last of the bags and getting some shut eye before the cab came to fetch us for the start of our Dublin trip.

Timeline

3:00 - wake up, get dressed, wake Kev, get back into bed
3:25 - cab calls, he's outside, wake Kev again.... stumble outside
3:50 - arrive at Liverpool street station in the freezing cold
4:00 - station opens
4:15 - can smell bacon and eggs, just can't find them
4:30 - catch Stanstead Express to airport
4:40 - sleep
5:15 - arrive at airport and try to check in (Ryanair is less than helpful)
5:30 - finally get checked in and move to a) find food b) find boarding gate
6:00 - board plane, sleep
6:20 - plane takes off
8:30 - land in Dublin

On arriving in Dublin we caught a bus into the city center and tried to find out hostel. We got there and booked in, and were told that we could only get into the room at 3ish... now being 10:30 and both of us desperately needing sleep you may as well have told us we could check in next week. So it was off to find McD's breakfast and something to occupy our time. We took a bit of a walk around and Kev showed me Trinity College which is really beautiful, then we headed out and caught a bus tour of Dublin, stopping at Dublin Castle which we got off to have a look at, the Guinness Brewery, which is huge and very interesting. Then back to temple bar and home for a nap.

A while later it was off to meet Mr O'Connor for a couple of drinks... unsurprisingly this led to us getting back to said hostel at about 4am. I'll have to ask Tim what the second place was that we went to but it looked like something out of a fairytale. It really was an amazing place... with the prices to match.

Saturday morning was spent wandering around temple bar before heading off to Lansdowne Road to watch the Boks take on the Irish. Being that it was only apparently about 15-20 minute walk away we decided to walk. It turns out that the distance between our hostel and Lansdowne Road as the crow flies is only about 3-4 miles. However when you have to take into account the round about route you have to take to get there you end up doing closer to 7miles, which takes just over an hour. We made our way into an Irish pub called Paddy Cullens for a couple of drinks and to watch the English lose to Argentina... :-)
Anyway, the match was okay. Seeing our guys get flattened by the Irish wasn't great, but the atmosphere was good.
A quiet night followed the rugby with trying to find somewhere to eat in Temple bar, but with half of dublin there it proved to be tricky. We found a little quiet Italian place which was nice enough but when things went wrong there they went wrong...(but that's another post altogether)
Sunday rolled around and we did some more walking, going to see the Book of Kells, at Trinity College, but the queue was mad so we left if for another time. Then searching for hot chocolate for Kev proved unsuccessful we headed back to the hostel to warm up before heading out to the Jameson Distillery which was very interesting to see (I'll load some pics at some point)

Then Monday and we eventually went to see the Book of Kells at Trinity College which was quite interesting. And then it was time to head back to London after a very good weekend.
Hopefully the Boks will remember how to play rugby sometime before 2007.

Thanks Hawk

You Are a Lime Margarita

Realistic and grounded, you have the energy to tackle any obstacle that stands in your way. Hyper and driven, you despise lazy behavior of all kinds... especially lazy drunks too tired to dance!

What Flavor Margarita Are You?