Tuesday, January 25, 2011
in hind sight, aka "Looking at the arse"
Returning to a Sunny South Africa was on the agenda and was only met a week later. Grey clouds and water falling from the sky filled up most of the week but didn't make much of a difference when you inside, at the grind stone, beating the molten steel.
It's been an interesting week back. Unfortunately, it has only just been 9 days, it feels like months already.
"I just never got round to procrastinating" is my saying of the year. Together with a 'new years resolution' of drastically decreased stress levels. I believe there will be a new way to my operations.
I say 'New years resolution', because they never last, but my intention is more than new, it's permanent.
Thanks to the Star Bucks coffee machine operator in Paris, who at one point was making 11 coffee orders all off the top of his head. I have decided, there is no better way to work, than at the pace most suitable for yourself. Excluding any variable of procrastination, ie; facebook, twitter, bigpicture which will affect the speed of production, but it's up to the operator to decide, does he waste the time on an information station or does he use the time wisely and gain as much as possible. So that he himself has a little to add to the information station.
Together with balance, days are becoming more productive. Less painful. Less Tiring.
Once the year gets into full swing, I will be swinging it!
Gazing at the arse of an amazing trip, I look up ahead on the horizon for the next. Not a sh$t hole, but another world completely!
The world of America is the next destination. The plan is to leave South Africa on the 16th December and meet up with Sam in Los Angeles. Traveling in a halfmoon(R) northward from LA, stopping at San Francisco for either Christmas or New Years, which is then followed by a steady return back to LA and then back to SA on the 6th January.
Blogging in considered a procrastination activity, hence, I am able to compensate with a fortnightly or monthly posting. If you are receiving this via e-mail, please could you let me know if you still want to receive the postings, otherwise, I will remove all mail addresses, as to avoid aggravation.
Cheers!
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Patience...
Much like my movements from seat to seat at the airport.
The day started early, packed and ready waiting for the bus at Kleinarl, when the rain started to fall. If it were snow, leaving was on the cards.
Boarding the bus then the train we made our way to Salzburg Airport. Just in time for Beer o'clock!
Fighting the Russian's and Brits to get through we wait at our boarding gate. Much like East London airport the chairs are scarce and people plenty. Never the less it's warm and doesn't smell!
Off to Frankfurt where duty free awaits our paper work. Followed by inflight shopping on route Johannesburg.
Choos!
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Friday, January 14, 2011
Ouch!
When it's the end, it's the end.
I went down the last slope once more, using time that wasn't mine, I ended up hurting my shoulder, knee and neck.
Karma paid me back.
Tomorrow we make our way back to Home town, Jozi!
Brain fart now oosing!
Friends have started to pester me for news on the holiday. Which to them is over, but not for me.
Clients and the office have sent through work already. It seems as though whether I'm ready, or not 2011 is gonna hit me.
In a form of prep, I'm gonna try get into my working hours routine. Although it might be a bit late, it can only do good.
It's now 1am and I'm meant to be up in 5 hours. That's not gonna happen.
Tomorrow is Friday! Whoop whoop!
Looking forward to a hug!! When I get home.
Ciao...Romano
Brain fart...
Waking up in a hurry, with the intention of getting as much boarding in as possible, we managed to find out it was raining.
That subsequently means, more drinking. Unfortunately when it rains, the water melts the snow. And being cold melts it into ice.
It doesn't make sense to you, it didn't to me at first. But, a good part of that all depends on the temperature of the air and surface to which the particle drops.
When the particle travels through the air, the air is not cold enough to freeze it to make snow or hail. It then lands onto the snow, melts the snow slightly and drastically changing temperature it freezes. Causing an ice layer.
This builds us on top of the snow and creates a sheet for your to work with. Ie: not snow boarding conditions.
This lead to a slow morning following the bad news. Breakfast was delayed with the slow motivation, as was coffee and the rest of the day. Simply because we didn't have anything planned except boarding which we now couldn't do.
In the rain and cold we decided to go for lunch up in the village. Making our way to the top of the village we found a partially frozen lake with ducks and geese on it. Coffee, gluvine and beer were served as starter drinks before we made our way back into the middle of the village to a little restaurant names Olympia.
Olympia was opened by the olympic medalist of the town who started the restaurant and turned it into a medal and trophy storage display, and thus entertaining the guests and diners as they ate their meals.
Yes we were apart of that.
From that we headed past spar on the way home to pick up some coke (Essentials!) for the afternoon.
Tomorrow the routine is much the same. Rain is predicted, except we will be going out onto the mountain, before returning the hired board and boots.
Saturday is a lengthy jaunt back home, with multiple transport methods once again. A bus to St Johann Train Station. A train to Salzburg airport. A flight to Frankfurt and then Johannesburg 36 hours from leaving. I might smell fresh by the time I get there.
Sent from my iPhone4
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
An announcement...
Times are tough out there.
The snow is ice and the ice is melting. The 5mm of snow received this morning turned into water very quickly.
Please note: snow boarding is meant for the weight to be on your from foot. When you place weight on te back foot the board will shoot up from underneath you.
Especially when going over a mound of snow shaped like a ramp. :-)
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Some few thousand miles
Clients have called. E-mails have been sent and it's only two days into the working week and I'm already nervous to be back.
Boarding today was great!
At the point you know you doing it right is when your body temperature is low and the energy generated isn't sufficient to keep you warm going down the mountain.
Covering up from head to toe except a nose sticking out, I've managed to go down the slopes successfully! And with only two falls today, tomorrow looks frighteningly good!
The falls were immediately after lunch and caused by a heavy frontal region. Yes, I face planted, both times!
While up on the mountain, my brain makes up all sorts of gadgets and goodies. Much like any other day really.
Today I invented Ice Boarding. Yes, it comes after snow boarding because the snow has to melt. Much like ice skating but much faster and more painful.
Ice skating, the principal is that you have a sharp edge working against you to keep you up. Ie: the skate.
Snow boarding is much the same. Yet the edge is larger and not sharp. It's the bottom of the board which resists your efforts to push it down.
Ice Boarding is a mixture of both. The motion to move forward is there, but contact with equipment on the ground is not feasible. Some call it bum boarding, but my board was on my feet not bum.
Tomorrow we plan to go down a hard blue run, from that a red run.
If I didn't explain before.
Blue is an easy run.
Red is medium and
Black hard.
So there are varying degrees. And if it wasn't for the little appendix in me that said "don't do it", I would have done a red run on my way home this afternoon. Whether home or hospital was the destination, we won't know.
Lunch was an amazing German dish consisting of fried potatoe and (a German sausage-name is lost) with herbs. Proved to be very tasty. Photographs to follow.
I was able to stand infront of the web cam today, it's just that snow boarding seemed more interesting at the time. Yes, I know earlier in the week I said I wasn't sure how people did so much of it. But I'm learning. And learning is fun!
Off to watch slalom on TV with the hosts up stairs.
Crazy thing: the slalom is on the otherwise of the mountain, the lights reflect off the clouds and sound reverberates down.
Much like watching the Jumbo Jet fly over Ellis Park when we won the world cup, but closer. Much closer!
Cheers
Monday, January 10, 2011
Falling today was an experience. Much like re-cutting a cut. Or grazing a graze.
Shore shoulders and wrists don't enjoy the "day-after-jolting".
After regaining our vision, we headed back to the beginner slope where falling is accepted. Making it down the hill successfully a few times, we called it a day and went for Apre-ski. (drinks after the day)
Currently trying to waste sleeping hours. I've had enough waking up at 5 because I'm finished sleeping.
Till tomorrow.
Ciao!
From another land;
Where milk supplied to the spar is from the barn across the road.
Where white blindness is a reality to more than black blindness. And it's not a racial thing either.
Where Snow hasn't fallen in days.
Where a 1.5 liter coke is more common than a 2 liter.
Where Magnum Ice creams come in boxes.
Where drinking is more common than boarding.
Where falling is painful...must be international.
Where someone who can speak english is your friend. Ie: no friends yet.
Where work is a 8-12, 3-5 thing.
Where Jet Streams in the sky are no less than 4 at any point.
Where McDonalds doesn't exist!
Where luxury is traded for simplicity.
Where 5 o'clock seems like 8.
Where salt is thrown on the road to melt the snow and ice. Try figuring out that scientific elements quiz!
Where 11hours sleep is a regular thing and having coffee is the highlight of the day.
Why as humans do we have to complicate things?! In a matter of day's (I'm not counting) I'll be back home. In what i've read to be cold and wet.
Back to the rat race and the challenges it brings us, or to use what I have learnt to make my own way in life, at the pace I am comfortable with.
The village definitely stimulates those thought patterns and possibilities.
We set certain standards
By doing that we've lowered our carbon footprint, a compensation for the erosion caused on the mountain.
Body is sore, neck is not fully functional. But yet we still hit the mountain.
Cloud cover has blocked the sun, giving us snow blindness.
Much of a contradiction: blindness is assumed to be black but snow blindness is too much white. Without being able to distinguish the hills and mounds on the mountain falling and getting around is much more difficult.
There is predicted snow with this cloud cover, holding thumbs! No, not because they cold.
Till a later time.
Oh yes, we going for drink after the afternoon board session, they call it something. Something "ski", will listen intently for you.
Bitte
Cheers
No snow board yet.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Getting the hang of it...
It's been a fun day! We got out early with the first of the ski lifts and made our way to the opposite face of big daddy mountain. Finding 2 other ski runs to attempt.
When the body is strong after 11 hours sleep, it's capable of doing nearly anything. As soon as it takes a break and realize's how much work it's done, all of a sudden things change.
The minute my left leg got tired, I fell...face forward. Right leg got tired, fell backward, banged my head. And when you're body is tired how do you fall? On your bum after caterpaulting yourself with the board an additional half meter into the air.
I then made the effort of finding the others and called it a day.
Hamstrings, tendens, knees, neck and back are all talking. Will see how the others feel when they return.
I hope the evening is spent at home, going out into the cold might prove more painful.
From the old and cripple, till tomorrow, auf vitazen!
Spectacular views to spoil you with. ;-)
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Location location location!
It's amazing!
Tell you a true story;
The baker of the town gets up at 1am to bake for the town. Bread orders are gathered by e-mail the night before, which is delivered at 6:30 the following morning.
How sweet!
Day1 Boarding: Pass!
The lessons paid off!! Out on the slopes, I was a champion!
Started well and only managed to fall several times! :-D
Made good turns and carved the snow/ice well.
Legs aren't too sore, although tomorrow might be a worse. We shall see. There is expected snow for tomorrow night. Let's hope it materializes into more that 2cm as they predict.
We got out there at 10ish and came back for lunch and shopping at 1. Then back out from 3-4. Definitely quality 4 hours boarding! Tomorrow we hit the big slope. The big daddy! And his friends!
Working here would be great! Lunch hour starts at 12 and ends at 3. Majority of the day is spent relaxing, but then again, it's German efficiency, so when it happens or says it's gonna happen. It does!
No photos yet, other than the one below. It's fairly tricky to photograph and board. Will get it right in the week.
Dinner included Spagetti and Cabanara sauce without the Ham. Yum!!
Came close to burning the sauce. Understanding German cooking instructions is somewhat harder than a few alphabet alterations.
Friday, January 7, 2011
Oh golly, I love GMail
So the last post had descriptions and everything which didn't come through. To re-cap:
We've arrived in Austria after 7 hours across the Alps. Via bus and train.
We're being looked after by Jen and Charles Moore, whom RJ and I have built a website for.
http://www.hausfamiliemoore.at/
We plan to get our ski passes tomorrow and get some boarding in. I'll try get a video out this week.
More to come.
Photos were as follows:
Coke in snow
Reserved 1st Class seats
Luggage in a non luggage zone.
Adios Amigos!
Austria it is!
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Today's itinerary was to eat as much breakfast to save on paying for lunch. Get to the train station to book bus and train pass. Get to sights and home.
With temperatures below zero for the morning jaunt, the exploring wasn't quite the same as what we were spoilt with in Rome.
We found ourselves back at our hotel by 2 to either thaw or sleep, depending on the person.
Dinner was at the train station with the affordable food, it's not often you'll find a chicken burger in Europe, so I dived in head first! At least it was reasonable this time, diner came to R75 including a large coke.
On the thought of coke, I was at the super market today and the cokes were the cheapest we have ever found in Europe.
For a 330ml can! It costs R6
For a 500ml can! It costs R12, so I doubled up on the cokes, filling up the spare weight in my luggage.
Trust me, they won't last till I return, it's coke, let's get real!
With thy cheap spree, the wine at the shop was also R12, so I coke, beer and wine next week and we all good!
Chances of me not having Internet for the next week is high. If I don't have, I'll blog, but they'll come through in one bulk send when I do have Internet.
SPAM here we come! :-)
More like Snow Boarding here we come!
FYI: we head to Austria to a town called Kleinarl. They have a website; Kleinarl.at where you'll be able to view the mountains and space in panoramic view.
From the moving bed on solid ground. I wish you well for the week ahead.
Ciao Romano!
Sent from my iPhone4 on a boat, always.
"Quote.."
"Good memories don't have a price tag."
"it's like a drive by shooting"
-photographing while on a boat-
"They don't use the street names"
"I don't think it's gonna...DONG!!!"
-standing underneath the bell in the tower-
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
When in Rome...
2 planes, 3 airports, 9 trains and 5km's of walking to get from Paris to Rome.
Safely in out hotel we are short two snow boards. Apparently they didn't board the plane to Munich and then couldn't go through to Rome. Tomorrow we shall find out what the deal is there.
Apologies
My sincere appologies for the spam mail. I've now posted a post with three photos which has been posted previously.
The reason for the confusion is...
There was a bug in the iPhone 4.2 software, which didn't allow the alarm clock to work from the 1st of January till the 3rd, 2011. To solve the problem, I fast tracked my phone so the feature is enabled.
Which generated a second problem in that the blog posts were fast tracked too. So when I checked that my resent posting had been published, I saw an old posting. Continually reposting in different ways, I've managed to spam you with the same posting.
I shall use my brain next time.
While I'm typing, I'm busy rocking and swaying in a boat. Well that's what it feels like.
6hours of travelling on the train today has given me montion sickness which hasn't helped being in Venice either.
Sleeping on a solid bed on solid ground seems like a rocking boat.
The day was successful. A tiny stop at Pisa of 10 minutes allowed us to push the tower and run.
I skipped lunch so I could spend the money elsewhere which came in handy as the fee for dinner was excessive.
There is a R20 cover charge per person, and then 12% service fee ontop. So our R255 meal became R360 before our eyes. It's just too much to even conceptualize. The thought that goes though my head was;
'it's just money, the experience is priceless'
Tomorrow we've planned to hit the train station to book the remainder of our trip, then we'll be going past the grocery store to get food and other goodies on the way past some of the touristy sights.
Off to bed.
Sent from my iPhone4 in the conceptualized boat.
[delayed] When in Rome...du twa
Not in the light that I was part of the Romans, but I was a part of the people visiting Rome. Scattered with tourists our photos were polluted.
"bloody tourists!"
I tossed the coin, climbed the steps and ate' da pizza!
Was great!
Thankfully I tossed a sufficient amount into the fountain for a return trip, I could definitely return here.
The alleys are safe and calming, the people are friendly, it's cheap and the food is good. What more could you want?!
I know RJ wants his snow board that's for sure! Kirsty's board arrived at 9:30 this evening, we shall see what happens next.
Above is a picture of our view at the colosseum. We were placed with seat numbers and watched the performance of time. It's absolutely mind blowing. Unfortunately, that is one thing a photo can not achieve.
Seen this somewhere? Yes, my sister took a picture of this too. :-)
We've completed our touring of Rome and tomorrow is the Vatican City. Without enough Vatican Dolar around, we've had to book tickets in Euro's. Such a pain but we'll get in tomorrow.
Off to bed for another early start. ;-)
Gracia
Sent from my iPhone4 in bed.
Infected!
For the remainder of the flight, I find myself planning more trips to Europe and America. Not healthy!
A statue from the Lourve below.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
The Eve2
I saw I posted the video twice, my apologies, just making double sure you get the good bits. :-)
Sacre coeur, Moulin Rouge, Pont Neuf and Saint Chapelle were just a few of the locations we viewed today. With the weather above zero it was nice not to have to layer up and down each time we enter an attraction.
Last nights atmosphere was great! Thanks to the government, the trains we free from 6pm, which is awesome for those who wanted to party at the right spots and not drive home. And if you weren't sober by 12pm today you'd have to walk.
Being free, the whole of Paris tried to board the trains, proved to be warm and cossey most of the way.
We celebrated in style with a bottle of true Champagne, no glasses, just straight from the bottle much like the rest of Paris.
One very interesting observation was their ill-awareness of fireworks and their dangers. There we crackers going off everywhere and shooter crackers that didn't shoot off which ended up displaying their beauty all over the floor. Thankfully, I didn't witness any injuries or get involved in any of the sorts.
The day started on an interesting arm. Our alarms didn't go off when we needed and nobody woke up, because of our 2am decent. Apparently there is a bug in the iPhone 4.2 software that up until the 3rd of January, no alarm will go off. Sounds like a holiday for the phone to me. Today my phone is living in the future, the 4th January.
Below is another panoramic picture from Sacre Coeur and the steps leading up to it. On the left is a view over looking the city and on the right, the Sacre Coeur.
From the future, I wish you a good night, may it be a good start to the year.
The trio
Duplicate post
but I see it didn't get onto the blog.
I'll be post again tonight. Look out.
Some pictures to follow.
Sent from my iPhone4
Not in the light that I was part of the Romans, but I was a part of the people visiting Rome. Scattered with tourists our photos were polluted.
"bloody tourists!"
I tossed the coin, climbed the steps and ate' da pizza!
Was great!
Thankfully I tossed a sufficient amount into the fountain for a return trip, I could definitely return here.
The alleys are safe and calming, the people are friendly, it's cheap and the food is good. What more could you want?!
I know RJ wants his snow board that's for sure! Kirsty's board arrived at 9:30 this evening, we shall see what happens next.
Above is (not) a picture of our view at the colosseum. We were placed with seat numbers and watched the performance of time. It's absolutely mind blowing. Unfortunately, that is one thing a photo can not achieve.
We've completed our touring of Rome and tomorrow is the Vatican City. Without enough Vatican Dolar around, we've had to book tickets in Euro's. Such a pain but we'll get in tomorrow.
Off to bed for another early start. ;-)
Gracia
Sent from my iPhone4 in bed.
When in Rome...de twa
Not in the light that I was part of the Romans, but I was a part of the people visiting Rome. Scattered with tourists our photos were polluted.
"bloody tourists!"