Enjoyment in Europe - 25 December 2005

It has been a while since I sent out one of these ePostcards so this one is long. I have so many cool photos that I want to include. It’s been quite an effort to cull them out!

Oh Italy

San Michael Angelo Piazza, Florence

How could I top the experience of the wedding? It’s simple really, you can’t. However there was plenty more of Italy to experience. Daniela, one of the guests at the wedding invited me to come and visit her city, Turin, the host of the next Winter Olympics.

I was tempted to head straight to Turin but couldn’t leave Tuscany without seeing Florence. Making the effort was so worth it! It is typical of other Tuscan towns in that it is gorgeous, but because it is a city it simply goes on. You could easily spend days indulging your favourite Italian passion, architecture, museums, people watching, eating, the list goes on… My highlight was the walk up to San Michael Angelo Piazza to watch the sun set.

Turin is better known as an industrial town and not a tourist destination, however its proximity to Courmayeur and Monte Bianco make it a great place for the Olympics. Daniela was great and I got to meet a lot of her friends. This was awesome as they were real Italians. Up to now the only Italians I had dealt with were in the tourist industry and had a somewhat jaded view of the average tourist. So I enjoyed hanging out with some genuine, friendly Italians.

Turin may be regarded as an industrial town, however there is still plenty to admire	A walk in the mountains behind Coumayer. Monte Bianco range is in the background. I can’t believe I’m not skiing here!

I had spent nearly a month in Italy and it was time to move in. I love this place and want to spend some serious time here sometime, so it was with some regret I boarded a train to Switzerland.

In 1997 I did a two year overland trip from the UK to NZ and in the process made a lot of new friends. For some reason many of them were Swiss! So I was looking forward to spending time catching up with many old friends.

Bern was the first destination and it was great to stop travelling for a while.

HEAVY METAL!!!!

The stage started up at about 10am and went through til about 1am. Lower piccy is the permanently attached wrist entry pass. The diehards were sporting many years worth.

However the guys in Bern had other ideas and before long we were off to Balingen in Germany for the “Bang Your Head” Heavy Metal Festival.

Yup, you read right, Heavy Metal. Me. Actually it was a great time. While I’m not vaguely a Heavy Metal fan, seeing it live is something else.

A large part of the entertainment is visual. It’s serious stuff. The stage has a vast array of techno lighting complete with giant metal hands and plenty of smoke and flames. The clothing is an art form and both performers and punters take it very seriously. Start with basic black and decorate! Tattoos, scarves, bright t-shirts, anything – as long as it has the look. Add copious amounts of alcohol and you have the recipe for an entertaining time. Surprisingly (to me) the crowd was very mellow and over the four days I didn’t see any aggression. Well not from the humans anyway. The weather, on the other hand, was a different story.

For most of the time we were in 38 degree heat which was really nice, however it did brew up an awesome summer storm one night. One of the five campsites was completely flattened. Ours fared a little better with only some tents destroyed. However we did end up with four ambulances in our campsite. I never found out why but I suspect the number of shredded trees may provide a clue.

From Bern I was off to Seegräben to check out a bit of Swiss family life then it was on to Zurich to help a mate shift house.

The Swiss are renown for their intense attitude towards cleanliness and I guess there is always an exception to every rule. Well I guess I found their cleanliness exception. The house we were to shift into was absolutely filthy! It took me a whole day just to clean the bathroom. Ick. We celebrated moving in by going out for a wee drink in Zurich. After missing the two night busses I caught the 6:30am train home. Gotta love bars being open all night!

While having fun in Switzerland I was actually looking for work and had possibilities in London, Zurich and Valencia. Finally one firmed up and I was off to London.

Yuk, work…

View from the London Eye. Surprisingly underwhelming!

While I was partying up in Switzerland the 7^th July bombings had occurred in London and unsurprisingly they had beefed up their boarder security somewhat. Unfortunately my number must have come up and I got put through the mill. I didn’t end up walking with a mince, however everything else got thoroughly searched! Spending four hours at Stansted Airport isn’t my idea of fun.

I spent a number of years in London in the 90’s and was really looking forward to being back. I guess I’d forgotten how polluted, difficult and expensive living in the UK is. I never managed to open a bank account but did succeed in getting an eye infection from cycling in the polluted air.

However it wasn’t all bad, the great things about the place were still there, the theatre, the pubs, superb restaurants, good pay rates and the ability to visit other places.

Such as Paris and Turkey…

The Eiffel Tower still rocks!	Ephesus in Turkey

Back Home!

There isn’t much else to say about London except work, work, work! Definitely a major shock to the system! Eventually that too came to an end and it was time to head back to NZ to apply for visas, sort out a divorce, do Xmas and prepare for the coming year.

What a year it is going to be too! First I am back off to Canada to do another ski season but based in Fernie this time. After the snow I am off to London for some more work and then I plan to go to South America for another season in the snow! Wohoo, I am soooo looking forward to it all.

All there is left to say is:

Merry Christmas!!!!

Yippee in Europe! - 13 June 2005

Once again it’s been a while since I did one of these things! I must do them more often…

It doesn’t take too long to read, but if you’re in a hurry, look at the pictures!

I didn’t drive my car for a week… Somewhere under here is an Accord Wagon. It took an hour to dig it out!

Powder, powder every where and not a season in sight…

When I last sent an ePostcard it looked like snowing again. Well it did. And did. It snowed every 2 – 3 days until the end of the season. Mostly just top ups, with the occasional bigger fall of about 10 – 15 cms.

Not the huge amounts of snow that Canada if famous for but enough to put a serious smile on everyone’s face! Enough for some of us to hire powder skis for a few days… I went as far as getting some demo powder skis from the Prior stable (boutique board & ski makers) and headed for my fav trees. Uncompromising powder boards make a huge difference in the soft deep stuff. Just don’t try and use them on groomers…

Would you believe it? This is the day after the season closed.

There was one last huge dump on its way, not that we got to enjoy it. We got 40cms of fresh powder the day AFTER the season closed.

Oh cruel fate, what have you done!

The bitching, moaning and complaining could be heard in the Southern Hemisphere… Even worse, because the season had closed they didn’t clear the road so we had to drive down in deep snow. Exciting without chains or snow tyres!

Banff, again

What was the Okanogan’s loss was Banff’s gain. Many of British Colombia’s ski fields closed on the same day and most got the big dump. This left many skiers and boarders hankering for more. The Banff season went for another month so a heap of us headed off there. Unfortunately Lake Louise was well into spring skiing and I got to watch boarders wake board up to the lift across a 5m pond. Predictably some didn’t go fast enough :-) Sunshine, while still very cold, was hard and icy. After the awesome skiing we had just had most of us were over skiing in “unfriendly” snow. Banff itself was warming up and most days were about16 degrees, so we broke out the hiking boots and did a bunch of walks. In summer the place is a hikers paradise. There are trails everywhere.

58 days skiing in a season, not bad! Nearly the 60 I was aiming for. It wasn’t worth spending the money to achieve a number on snow I didn’t like! What a contrast from my last New Zealand season: if it was snow you skied it and enjoyed doing so.

In hindsight Banff was only an interlude before we had to move into the new real world - summer. I guess many of us simply weren’t ready for the ski season to end. While some headed off to Jasper to explore the Icefields Parkway I headed to Vancouver to get ready to leave.

I decided then that I was coming back for the next season so hanging on to the car was a good idea and backpacking many kilos of ski gear around Europe was a bad idea. Suitable homes were found for the ski gear and car and I was ready for the reason that kicked off this trip.

A trip to Tuscany for the week long wedding of a great friend.

If I was to go to Europe then I really had to look up some old friends along the way.

So London then?

An old haunt. Hands up who has been here?

After all the glorious clear cool weather of Canada I wasn’t looking forward to the cold, damp and grey reception that is London in May.

The sun was out and it was 20 degrees when I arrived! Maybe miracles still occur! Maybe this was an English summer come early…

I had quite a bit to do in London. My laptop was ailing and it made sense to get it fixed in the UK. Be warned, going on a trip with a laptop is addictive – I felt naked and out of touch without it!

Because of my decision to do another season in Canada I had started looking for work. My lack of work visa was putting people off in Canada so I decided I would work in the UK for the summer. Not the same environment as Canada but much better money.

Her Majesties Immigration Service had other ideas. My “Indefinite leave to remain in the UK” visa was anything but. It was completely definite, they cancelled it and gave me a six month visitors visa. Damn. Not good. Very bad even.

Something else to sort out during my two weeks in London. So much for a cruisey visit.

Tuscany, Italy

Finally something went right, my laptop came back before I left for Italy, even if it was only 1/3 fixed.

It had to be done… I liked the Japanese who were trying to push the tower down!

Time to head off to Stansted to catch a £29 flight to Pisa with Ryan Air. Something made me check the baggage weight limits, sure enough 15kg checked and 10kg carry on, damn, glad I checked. Time to shed more weight and find somewhere to leave it. I now have little dumps of stuff stashed in Auckland, Oxford and Vancouver. Collecting it all up could be fun.

Stansted and I’m 4kg over for my checked luggage. They even insisted on weighing my carry on luggage. 2kg under, great. I was first in the queue, which is good, as it enables you to score a decent seat during the boarding free for all. Unfortunately the Nazi on check in decided to mess with me. She says that I can be a total of 2kg over provided I move 2kg from my checked luggage into my carry on… Please leave the queue, repack then rejoin the now one hour long queue. Nice. Not sure what it achieved except perhaps some vicious pleasure on her part.

The tower area of Pisa is beautiful and the whole of Pisa is quite small. You can walk from the airport to the centre in about 30 minutes. For a change I’m visiting a “destination” out of the main tourist season and I almost had the place to myself. The tower is quite bent, the photos really don’t do it justice. Only in Italy…

I was recommended a Pizzeria by the campground staff and apart from fantastic food their claim to fame was 1 metre pizzas! Do not attempt on your own…

Siena is my destination and I have been talked into getting a hire car by the bride and groom to be.

One wing of Villa Catignano

Driving in Italy isn’t as bad as some would have you believe, but the signage is seriously dodgy. Siena took this concept to new heights then dashed it to the ground. I arrived in Siena early so I decided to do some exploring… After pointlessly driving around for about 30 minutes I gave up when I found an open shop – fortunately one that sold maps.

Once I figured that North wasn’t “up” on the map (a small detail they left out) I headed for “Villa Catignano”. Comparing war stories I found out that only one group managed to get to the villa without getting lost. The girlie swats had cheated and printed out the detailed instructions that had been provided on the wedding web site.

Villa Catignano is a restored Italian country side residence that sleeps about 80 people about 10km out of Siena. Historically it was the residence of the Sergardi family, one of the local names. While it is still in their ownership it is now used for upmarket accommodation. It is booked up for weddings over a year in advance.

Our setup was to be a week long party at the villa with a wedding in Siena sandwiched in the middle. Suffice to say it was an awesome week, helped in no small part by the endless supply of tap beer. I’m embarrassed to say that the Irish contingent made far more use of this service than did the Kiwi crowd!

Marriage Ceremony Room – El Campo

The wedding itself was impressive. We were bussed to the edge of the walled part of Siena and walked from there to El Campo, in the centre of town. 50 odd people walking through Siena in 30 degree heat in their Sunday best made for quite a sight. The tourists, Italian and foreign, stopped, stepped aside and watched in amazement as we trooped past. Fortunately the streets are quite narrow so we weren’t walking in direct sunlight.

The wedding was held in the Civic centre in El Campo in a room set aside for weddings. Unfortunately no one had a wide angle lens with their camera so it wasn’t possible to get a picture that did this amazing room justice. You’ll have to cope with a shot of the ceiling!

I give you …. Graham and Caroline Cluley!!!

There was no music, the congregation had to “sing” the wedding march and departure song (help, I don’t know what this is called). To my surprise the congregation rose to the occasion and the music was very moving. Caroline (the bride) obviously wasn’t expecting the singing and was quite blown away. She wasn’t the only one.

The ceremony was short and in Italian. Fortunately there was an English translation, which gave me some idea of what was happening! It was still typically Italian, which just added to the occasion.

Ok, I’m having difficulty here – I’m trying to put into words something that was an amazing experience, with quite a bit of emotion thrown in. It’s cliché time – It really is impossible to put into words. Nuff said.

Leaving Villa Catignano was quite sad, it had been an intense week of partying, visiting amazing Tuscan villages, making new friends and doing the wedding thing.

This wasn’t the end of my Italian experience, there is more to come! However this ePostcard is finished, so you will have to wait until the next instalment…

Take care, have fun!

Cheers

Mark

Ski or Die - 24 March 2005

Yo!

The last ePostcard was a wee while ago so this one is a bit of a summary. I’ve been a little busy skiing to manage small details like ePostcards…

Super at Silver Star

The village is very cute. The snow sculpture competition was incredible.

So where to after Big White? It ended up being an easy choice. Silver Star is Big White’s sister resort and it had reasonable snow, even better it was fairly close. Silver Star is owned by the same Aussie that owns Big White and the resort is very similar, except in some indefinable way it is better. Perhaps they did Big White first and learnt some lessons. The resort is smaller, steeper, the village works better and is much friendlier.

I so got it right. The night I arrived it dumped 35cm of new snow. I must have the snow Midas touch. The first two resorts I visit get new snow when I arrive, what more could you want?

They don’t muck around at Silver Star. The “CAUTION” signs are everywhere… Yep, that’s me on the left.

The day started with me turning up to the main lift 10 minutes early to catch “First Tracks”. The queue was already 10 minutes long! While in the queue I was lucky enough to hook up with a Snow Host on her day off (60 year old snowboarder) and she showed me and a bunch of her mates where the best snow was to be found. She took us straight “over the back”. When we arrived at the back runs they were still closed – there were 50 people lined up along a tape waiting. Ski Patrol gave the Ok and everyone was off. Skiers were still skating at 25 km/h in an effort to get to the new snow first! I’ve never seen anything like it. Fortunately our guide knew a few tricks and we got plenty of first tracks. There were a bunch of double black diamond runs that were closed that she knew would be Ok – we even beat the Ski Patrol down them!

Unfortunately that was the only snow and it wasn’t long before I was back to slumming it on packed powder. Enter Chris the Craigieburn man. Chris has his Stage I Ski Instructors ticket and as part of his Canadian holiday was doing some training towards his Stage II. He was looking for a guinea pig, so what was I to do ;-> Score! He was quite good and I learnt a lot.

Getting air and doing a trick is the “easy” part. Landing in the middle of a nasty mogul field is something else.

In this part of the world there are heaps of competitions and the Boogie in the Bumps was one of them. It is an insane mix of a steep slope, very short, sharp man made moguls and a couple of big kickers for good luck.

It didn’t take long before the week was up and the snow was getting decidedly firm. Where would be next?

Beautiful Banff

Once again I was on the hunt for good snow. Where to this time? The snow reports were still quite dismal and deciding from reports on the web was dodgy, what resort web site was going to tell it like it is? Talking to recent arrivals in the hostel had to be a safer bet.

With three ski fields and mostly Ok references Banff looked like being the place to go. The Banff township is in the middle of the Banff National Park and almost all the accommodation is off mountain, thanks to the Parks Board (I wonder if DOC talks to them, some of the attitudes seem very similar…). Banff is probably the best known ski town in Canada, there are a huge number of beds and heaps of different things to do. It is similar to Queenstown in many ways - when Queenstown grows up it will be just like Banff. ;-)

The nutters climbing the waterfall made it look easy.

Johnsons Canyon is one of the myriad of winter walks that can be done. It is a canyon that pretty much freezes over but the water keeps flowing behind the scenes. This leads to some amazing formations. The more amazing are the waterfalls.

Seriously cold at Sunshine

Sunshine’s claim to fame is that they have no artificial snow making. Most years they simply get stupid amounts of snow so this is not an issue. This year… well lets say some snow making would have been useful.

The nutters climbing the waterfall made it look easy.

They love moguls in Canada. They’re everywhere and some of them are the size of a small elephant.

Sunshine lived up to it’s name and it was always sunny – this didn’t help with the temperature! It was always freezing cold. Typically it was well under minus 20. Brrrrrr. Two pairs of socks, glove liners, lots of wool and covering the face as much as possible. Even then you still got cold on the lifts, especially if the wind was blowing. Then any exposed skin felt like it was being surgically removed. The cold also stopped the sun warming the snow. The result was that in high traffic areas the snow got very hard and highly polished. You could almost comb your hair in it. The trick was to head to the low traffic areas, mainly double black runs and anything you had to hike to get to. There the cold kept the snow on these runs in good condition and the skiing was quite pleasant. Unfortunately the steep runs tended to have the most rocks.

Lake Louise – Living the Life

Then there was Lake Louise. This is my favourite mountain for its varied runs over three separate ski areas. It also did the most damage to my skis! There were lurking rocks everywhere! The “Front Side” was not a happy place to ski. I want to come back here sometime when there is heaps of snow.

Yehar! You had to ski over this drop to get into this run. Excellent planning, it kept most of the punters away! Shame you can’t see the actual drop…

Like Sunshine the best snow was to be found on the low traffic areas – once again these were mainly double black diamond runs. The “Back Side” had a whole series of very steep runs with drops to get into them. Marvellous skiing, albeit standing at the top of each run was somewhat scary!

The last week I had in Banff I stayed with a friend in the staff accommodation at the Lake Louise Chateau. While the staff accommodation was quite basic it was a whole lot better than the hostel. Every morning I had to walk through the Chateau proper to get to the shuttle bus, it was nice being treated like one of the “other half”. And how the other half pay. Rooms start at CAD400 a night!

Calgary Cars

Using busses is a pain, but up to now, bearable. Banff had shown me just how much you miss out by having to rely on public transport. The Johnson Canyon walk wasn’t cheap but could have been done for free, if you could only get there. I decided it was time to find some wheels. Some of the boys wanted a break and had heard that Calgary was a fun town, so off to Calgary it was. While I bought Car Trader magazines and trudged around bookshops and the library looking for “Lemon Aid” (2^nd hand car guide) the boys sampled the pubs. Calgary really is a party town and I was more than a little envious of the fine time they were having while I was working my way through the mire that is buying a 2^nd hand car.

I ended up with a reddish brown 1992 Honda Accord Wagon with a maroon interior. Those of you with any fashion sense should avoid looking at any photos of it! It is a desirable but rare car so hopefully easy to re sell (in spite of the colour scheme).

Back at Big White

Now I was mobile it was time to hot foot it back to Big White to meet up with some friends who had hired a condo for a couple of weeks. What a condo it was too! Complete with hot tub and I had whole floor to myself! Excellent!

Spring conditions create some mad “G” tans

While there was more snow than in Banff, there was far less than when I was last here. However while the conditions were firm they weren’t nearly as polished as Banff and playing in the trees was where the good snow was.

Then the spring conditions arrived. It was almost t-shirt skiing and the snow disappeared rapidly. One major lift closed and it looked like there wasn’t much season left. Damn.

Then it snowed, not a lot but it went on every day for four days. Much rejoicing was had! Then it dumped! Heaven will be like this. The closed lift turned out to be a blessing. A bunch of us hiked from one lift across to the top of the closed lift and had access to acres of 30cm of untracked powder. Wohoo!

Today it dumped again…

Gotta go, tomorrow will be awesome! ;->

Mark

Wohoo at Big White - 8 Feb 2005

Big White got the nod.

I arrived at 8:30am expecting to find icy hard packed snow. To my surprise I found that there had been an “official” 3cm of snow overnight. Up the top this translated to about 10cm.

First tracks started in fifteen minutes so I needed to hustle.

View from the top of Big White. Its nick name is Big White Out. Every day had fog on the mountain somewhere.

I had to stash vast amounts of luggage, find a ticket and get onto the slopes. 15 minutes was a big ask. I did it in 60 and resigned my self to finding all the fresh snow being carved up. I was wrong. The dump had been unexpected and there was untracked powder everywhere. Light and fluffy, this is what I had come for. What a welcome to North American skiing!

The next week was an orgy of snowy exploration and partying. Big White is huge and a week isn’t nearly enough time to explore it all. To make your exploration more challenging there are celebrations every night for nearly anything.

One of my favourite areas is “The Cliff”. Most of it is double diamond scary with a long, soft run out down to the chair. The rest, well lets just say it is “steep”. Check out the photo. Yup, I did do it. It wasn’t pretty, but I did stay upright. The hardest bit is to drop into it over the lip.

A very steep entry into “The Cliff”. Those people are up there pumping up their courage. Some turn away.

There are a surprising amount of Aussies and Kiwis. 70% of the people working and playing on the mountain are from Oz. 70% - how did that happen? Ask for a Long Black in Vancouver and you got a blank stare, at Big White, no problem. Out of the remaining 30% about 15% are Kiwis. Where are all the Canadians? The Americans? The anyone else? Maybe it is all a cunning plot.

After six days of solid skiing I had run out of food. It was time to get off the hill and buy some more. Seemed like a good time to try another mountain. Big White still had good snow, so where else would measure up?

Cheers

Mark

Vacation in Vancouver - 7 Feb 2005

It looked like being a vacation instead of a ski trip.

I got into Vancouver and had a vague feeling of disquiet - it was as warm as Auckland and hosing down rain. (At least I felt at home). In my rush to get away I hadn’t been checking the ski reports in Canada. I figured I was going anyway. I’m glad I hadn’t checked, the entire Rockies was reeling under the assault from a tropical high that had popped up from the Pacific for a visit. Unfortunately it didn’t want to go home and snow up and down the Rockies was melting fast.

It doesn’t rain in Vancouver all the time. This was as good as it got and it only lasted an hour…

For Vancouver this meant endless rain and very mild temperatures. A few days after I arrived all the local ski fields closed for the season due to lack of snow. However this was wasn’t terminal, the big ski fields further east were still open and I had come to Vancouver to shop!

My list was fairly short, but not too cheap. Skis, poles, ski bag, laptop, an MP3 player and a digital camera. Surprisingly the skis were the quickest purchase. The end of season specials had started and the shop staff had very definite views on what the season winners were.

Next easiest was a laptop, the portability/price requirements eliminated most.

Buying a Digital camera was a mission. The choice was huge but the amount of useful information to help you choose was abysmal. Sure there was a heap of info on features, but virtually none on quality and usability. NZ Consumer came to the rescue and hopefully I’ve bought something useful.

An MP3 player was next on the list. I quickly decided that the iPods were out due to their difficulty to use with multiple computers. There were a few other contenders but for the amount of space I wanted they were verrrrry expensive and from what other travellers were saying, somewhat fragile. I decided to save my money. I don’t need the “in pocket” portability so music from the laptop was the way to go.

While all this intensive shopping was going on I discovered that Vancouver was a music lover’s paradise with many good acts on each night. There was even a Jazz/Blues venue that compared favourably with Ronnie Scotts! The SameSun hostel was in the middle of venue land and this led to some bizarre behaviour. Most people went to bed between 1 and 4am, those few who had jobs/interviews going earlier. Breakfast started at about 8am and stretched out to about 2pm! Before about 11am the place was like a morgue.

Finally I had sorted myself out and checked out what ski field to head off to. It was a dismal list to choose from: My original plan was to go to Whistler but its season was in trouble with closed runs and wet snow. Some of the other choices were Kicking Horse, Fernie, Silver Star, Banff, Big White and Red Mountain. All were short of snow and the reports on snow conditions varied wildly. It was time to take a stab and go for it…

Mark