a couple of really good relaxing weekends

so the week after running the marathon, my legs were just in the some pretty good residual pain, walking up stairs and down stairs, slight inclines and declines were just terrible. after a few days though things got better and i cannot wait to run the next one now. basically every day this week we ended up playing settlers of catan, for some reason our catan playing has increased exponentially - it's such a sweet game though. on the saturday, headed to this 'alpamare' park, basically just a bunch of waterslides - not nearly as good as the one in edmonton mall, but pretty good nonetheless, with some good friends it was a great time. on the sunday, just chilled out, good breakfast, played some ultimate frisbee. had to clean the apartment though, for the house inspection and subsequent damage deposit refund....the whole situation was terrible and i don't think i'll mention more than i cleaned more than i thought i really needed to.

on another note, i guess i'll just write down quickly what kind of stuff i've been cooking lately: beef stew, onion soup, herb and cheese stuffed turkey breasts, moussaka, bacon wrapped water chestnuts, eggs benedict - could go on and on haha - can't wait actually to get home and get access to more/better ingredients!

okay so basically a lot more settlers of catan playing, a night playing at the playground, and with all of this also trying to get my knee to feel better - basically just got some pretty bad IT band tightness, really want it to go away. anyways, this next weekend we were supposed to hop on a train to get to fruehlingsfest in stuttgart - basically a 'spring festival' which is just a mini oktoberfest - but with all the goodbye parties and such, basically failed to wake up on saturday morning due to friday night. in any case, turned out to be a really really good relaxing weekend, bought a bunch of bread from the local bakery - i'll miss that part, it's really good - had a nice picnic in a field, beautiful weather, made some gazpacho. head out to luzern for the day on sunday, went on a boat on the lake - very nice - and did a short hike at some point on the lake (burgenstock?) in any case, basically miss the trail that we were supposed to get on, but in the end it turned out really nice anyways. definitely a pretty city, luzern - as such, lots of tourists. there is also a badass carving of a lion in stone there. went home, ate some more bread - and it's asparagus season now (even though it's so expensive), so definitely made some bacon wrapped asparagus for dinner. it's getting to the point now where everyone's basically gearing up to leave, and it kinda feels like the dream is coming to an end..although, i'm really looking forward to going home too - things i miss from home, but also obviously things i'll miss from here. life goes on though - 'don't cry cause it's over, be happy that it happened.'

paris

so a couple days of work, and then hop on a super fast tgv train bound for paris on friday night. 4 hours later, arrive in paris, hang out for a bit, then immediately to sleep. wake up, grab a delicious sandwich from a nearby bakery, head to the catacombs. so basically there used to be this extensive underground network of quarries in the city, and then years later they decided to use it as a place to put dead people, and then now it's like a tourist thing to go and walk around down there. so down this huge spiral staircase, and then walk through a virtual labyrinth of tunnels, with some carvings and stuff in the rock as well. then came the massive piles of bones - the skulls and tibias and humerus' and femurs were stacked in some neat patterns, with countless other bones piled in behind. walked through what must have been several kilometers of these passages, with bones the whole way...countless thousands of people...by the time we went up the stairs back in to the open air i was ready to leave, pretty dark and musty in there. pretty cool though, definitely something to see. turns out it's turned into a great day outside, stopped for roadside crepes, walked by this really amazing looking market, fish and seafood and great looking fruit and vegetables, a neighbourhood type thing that i would love to be able to have the chance to shop at. the day when fresh community markets pop up in calgary, i'll be happy. stop for some pastries, take the metro to see the notre dame cathedral. yea, the one in the hunchback of notre dame. obviously, a lot of people here, tourists of all kinds and people selling 10 mini eiffel tower keychains for 2 euro? wtf, why would i need 10 keychains. pretty cool cathedral, but man oh man, i can't count the number of cathedrals i've been in this year, and harder even to remember them and compare them all. heard the organ blasting in there though which was pretty cool. took a walk around the area, stopped in at this place for some quick pasta on the go - carboloading as much as possible - for cheap too, like 5 euros for a full meal, even in pricey paris, take that switzerland. continue on this walk by some other sweet buildings, and then end up at the louvre. lots of tourists here too. see all these glass pyramids and stuff, there's a gate that kinda looks like the brandenburg gate in berlin - weird. didn't actually go in the museum, huge lineup and allegedly, not supposed to be the best one of them anyhow. perhaps, when i go back the next time i'll give it a shot. but from here, we continue down to the champs d'elysses, the biggest trendiest street kinda thing that's famous all over the world. find a good spot in an immaculately trimmed garden on the way, and join the numerous other people lounging in the grass on a beautiful sunny day. a short nap, and we're walking again, while mike and dave insist on stopping at as many crepe stands on the way as possible. pass by some cool statues and fountains, the place de la concorde, tree lined paths, all the good stuff. then we hit the busy champs d'elysses, packed with people, fancy restaurants, shops, and in general the classier things in life. meandering down the street, we end up at the arc de triomphe. snap a few pictures, decide not to pay the 5 euros or whatever it is to go to the top. now, it's time to face the inevitable, i guess i had signed up to run the paris marathon months ago. time to go pick up the race package from the run expo place. pretty cool actually, picked up a sweet asics bag, some bananas, powerbars, and then ate some pasta at the pasta party. lots of merchandise and inspirational posters and the like, which i actually appreciated so much. really helped the mindset. in fact, i was just terrified. headed back to try to get some sleep, hoping that i had eaten enough pasta and drank enough water.

wake up at 7:00 am for the 8:30 am start. at this point, the realization really dawns on me. basically, the background here is that i had signed up for this run in like, maybe october or november, purely on peer pressure, mostly from patrick meunier. so naturally, with the whole traveling every weekend, drinking, fast food eating, and cold weather all winter, rigorous training had not been done. in fact, in two months before this marathon, i racked up at most 50 k i would say. so basically going into this thing cold. strap on the shoes, and get down the the arc de triomphe to get it started. about 30 000 people are in this run, and the amount of public urination at the starting area is outrageous. also old clothes, ponchos, banana peels, water bottles etc. are littered everywhere. with 'tonight's gonna be a good night' playing on repeat forever, i start running. take it easy out of the gate, and before i know it 5 and 10 k are gone just like that. of course, the beauty of running 42 k in paris is that you get to see all the sights. so pass by the louvre and place de la concorde again, tuileries, notre dame cathedral again, the bastille...at this point we're feeling pretty good (running with chris and chan) and stop at the 5 k markers for some food and water and stretches, mitigate a blister formation problem with a handy band aid, take measures against potential nipple chafing later as well. and so, 21 k goes by, and i've just casually ran a half marathon in a casual 2:10 - seems like i'm on a good solid pace now. running next to the river now, and can see the eiffel tower in the distance. 25 k goes by, and by about 28 or 29 the legs start feeling it. by 30 k, i'm strugglin with stiff legs. this is about when i lose chris as he continues ahead, and chan has fallen back already. passing by the eiffel tower, luckily there is a massage station where i go ahead and rub on some menthol/freezing type thing which helps to numb the pain for a few km. really cramping up now. basically trying to keep the feet shuffling and stop to walk when it gets too bad. terrified of getting those dreaded debilitating cramps that seize up your whole legs, cause at that point, it's game over. by 36 or 37 i'm walking more than running, and now is when the people watching are helping me along. really amazing to get so much support from strangers - the whole atmosphere i'm liking a lot. this guy on a bike gets me going after i'm struggling to walk, gives me a little pep talk about how the hardest part i've already done and all i gotta do is a few more k's. keep pace with one or two people around me, helps me and helps them too i think. this other guy basically forces me to run with him for a while, and i get my feet shuffling again. by 40 i just want it to end. walking with this one guy who won't let me stop haha, like i said, really really cool experience how we all look for something to hold on to when in so much pain. force the legs to get going for the last kilometer and a bit, gotta run through the finish line, right? so yup. i finished it. not exactly the most respectable time at a little over 5 hours - i was shooting for 4 - but really, all things considered, i'm on top of the world. the run itself was great, in retrospect. did see a lot of paris, through some nice parks, lots of cheers, ate lots of bananas and raisins, went to the bathroom a few times off to the side of the road. got a medal, drank some powerade, hung out for awhile. turns out that three of my friends did under 4:10, chris kept it just under 5 with a sore knee, and even chan finished. all in all, pretty happy bunch. i'm addicted to running - that runner's high - amazing, better than any drug i am so sure. so obviously at this point, my legs are stiff as boards, and walking is impossible. getting through all the stairs to the metro station is a challenge, and the 6 flights of stairs back up to the hostel room are all but impossible. man taking off those shoes felt great. after all that though - i can't wait to do it again, and this time to do it properly with some legitimate training and preparation. after laying down to slightly recover from the physical exhaustion, we headed out to this nice part of town to find some dinner. needless to say the 5 minute walk to the nearest metro station took about 20 minutes, and by the time we sat down i was pretty hungry. a really solid meal of onion soup, steak and potatoes, and apple pie indeed made that night a good night. and just the relief of it all being over was really amazing. another long tired walk to try and get some sleep, before waking up at 5 am to catch the early train back to switzerland. the weekend was too short - definitely could stay in paris for a while i think - one thing i guess i'd love to do at some more is to do the whole culinary traveling thing, not like i haven't been trying to eat a lot of unique local stuff but more like being able to buy the fresh and seasonal and local food at the market and then try to cook it in the style of where it is. definitely an idea that i want to explore some more. anyways, paris was a good time just as all the weekend trips have been, especially with good friends and good laughs. back to work for just a few more weeks and then it's already time to go home!

mallorca

so, for easter weekend we got the friday and the monday off, so took the time to head out to the spanish island of mallorca in the mediterranean sea for awhile. flight was on saturday night, so this trip was preceded by going out to zurich on thursday night, went out far too early, didn't want to line up for the club originally intended, ended up in some random bar, ate way too much mac donalds and then had to wait for the train for some time before going home. also, one thing that has been terrible about this year for me is eating terrible macdonald's/other fast food. not a really significant amount, but between a combination of the routine being thrown off by the travel and the peer pressure it's been kinda terrible. looking forward to getting back to the brown rice and whole wheat pasta, spinach and salad, fruit and lean meat when i get home, where it's not an exorbitant price and there's the gym and everything else to keep me in line. anyhow, after thursday night, friday was a good relaxing day. took the camera out to finally get some more photos of the town i live in, looking good as spring rolls around. warm day, lots of people out and about and around the churches on good friday. had some ice cream, walked by the river, then packed up some stuff for the weekend.

flight was at 6:00 am on saturday morning from basel, so the only option to make the time was to catch the train the night before and sleep in the airport. from a suggestion by other interns who had slept at this airport before, i brought a sleeping pad and pillow along, which made the night actually quite comfortable. not bad at all. a quick hour and a half flight had us land in palma early enough to sit down at this little cafe for some breakfast. tasty spanish cafe con leches, and really good serrano ham bocadillos - basically baguette like sandwiches - with some olives were eaten. at this point, we hopped on an old ass train that went north across the island to the town of soller. the north coast of the island is dominated by the tramuntana mountains, which we had an amazing view of on the slow and steady hour train ride. beautiful blue sky day, with olive groves, orange and lemon trees on the side of the track made for a pretty cool trip. never seen lemon or orange trees before, and here there were about a million i'm pretty sure. arrived in soller, a small village of like 10 000 people in a mountain valley. on a side note here, there are a lot of german tourists that go to mallorca for some strange reason, and indeed, there were german people everywhere, just couldn't escape the german basically. at the airport, at least half the flights were from like hamburg or frankfurt or dusseldorf, pretty funny actually. so weaving our way through the german tourists we found our nice little hostel in a side street, owned by this 70 something year old lady. haha, kinda felt like someone's spanish grandma's house, but cool nonetheless. so dropped off some stuff, headed towards the town square where there's this pretty cool looking cathedral and a couple other buildings with some gaudi influence in them. there was a little saturday market going on, so lots of olives, ham, and white clothes were on sale. pretty crowded at this point in time, and so we made our way towards the bike rental shop. this very nice lady from new zealand set us up with some road bikes and put on on the way towards this small town called fornalutx. a short (but uphill) ride later through many many orange, lemon and olive groves, stopped at a hill overlooking the soller valley and the town, very nice indeed. and then a straight downhill to the port of soller, ripping down the winding highway at breakneck speeds. got to this port, a small cove of sorts, with a short stretch of beach, pretty windy though, and starting to get overcast. a bunch of kids skateboarding on the boardwalk, apparently it's still cool. saw some really ugly looking ducks/geese type things, and then biked/walked around the port/beach area. pretty cool, again, lots of german tourists, a few people braving the winds and hanging out on the beach, lots of boats, and lots of restaurants and stuff on the boardwalk. stopped for some ice cream, read a book, and then biked back the 4 k's to the town of soller. had a nap, then went in search of some dinner. kinda hungry at this point, so basically just found a place in the main square, had some wine, assorted tapas platter and some paella, solid meal for the day.

woke up, had a very nice breakfast of some hard boiled eggs, fresh bread, tea and some what i can only assume to be orange marmalade made from the nearby orange trees. looked outside, and it's just pouring rain. decide to delay the planned bike ride until it clears up, so read for awhile while looking out the window. also i have started reading this fantasy fiction series called 'a song of ice and fire' by george martin, apparently one of the best series out there, and now i have finished two massive volumes. anyways, the sky clears up for a little bit, so we head out and get two meat pies from the bakery across the street to put in a backpack and start on the bike ride. the plan is to ride about 200 m elevation 10 k or so up to this other mountain village called deia, but about 2 or 3 k in, nature shows up and a torrential storm begins. in the process of riding up a bunch of switchbacks we take some shelter under some small trees, and eat a meat pie which is quite tasty. thinking that i was going to a tropical climate, i had obviously only brought a cotton sweater, and now i am cold and wet. call off the bike ride, ride back to the port of soller to return the bikes, and get even more wet on the way - good times though, definitely something to remember - even got some money back from the bike rental place cause the lady felt bad for us. hung out in a cafe for a bit, then took the tram back to soller. of course, at this point the rain has all but stopped, and the sun comes out for a beautiful sunny blue sky day. after taking some time to warm up and dry off again, headed out on a very beautiful walk around the area. now that's it's sunny again, the valleys full of orange and lemon orchards are amazing, flowers, chickens, sheep and donkeys are roaming around, pretty little farmhouses, forest, mountains - amazing. in our flip flops we end up hiking through some trail, a little rocky but really cool. in the end, an awesome little walk around, kinda makes up for the getting rained on earlier in the day. getting dark, so went to this fairly classy restaurant on a side street off the main square, and definitely the best choice ever. got some tasty olives and aioli, and then this massive pan of paella arrives, definitely legit this time, lots of crab and mussels and shrimp and other seafood on it, soooo good. also some pretty good wine to go with it too. yup, without a doubt the best paella i've had, totally worth it. kinda cool on the walk back, kinda unintentionally got into the cathedral where there was some easter stuff going on (obviously) and the priest was definitely playing a nice little song on guitar. haha pretty neat actually.

got up the next day, hopped on the old ass train back to palma, but not before getting some more delicious meat pies from the bakery. a stop in the park by the train station in palma, and then a nice walk through the tiny streets to our hostal as it was called. got on a bus, then half an hour later we're at the beach 'ses illetes', it's basically a bunch of smaller coves, with just some white sand beaches and crystal clear water, that's all. on the bus ride there, we pass by many all-inclusive type hotels and resorts, and on the beach there are obviously the germans but lots of spanish and british people as well. water's a little too cold to be comfortable swimming in, but the sand and sun is nice, hang out for quite some time, don't really actually know if i got any darker but still good anyways. finally do jump in the sea for a bit, and then start walking back towards the city center to dry off. pass by another bakery for some more baked goods, and then take a bus the rest of the way back home - by now the sun had gone away and it looked as if the rain was gonna start again...so getting rid of all the sand everywhere, and then going out for dinner, at this place about 10 meters down the street. another amazing restaurant, sitting right next to the open kitchen we see all the fresh fish and tasty food going by. a fried spinach thing and an egg/potato/tuna salad and another really tasty bottle of wine precede a massive seafood platter, just so much fresh fish and squid and mussels and clams and shrimp, just grilled with some salt and pepper and lemon juice - i'm in heaven. another amazing meal complete with some real good chocolate dessert still only like 20 euros, even in a tourist town like palma - 20 euros would definitely buy you nothing remotely close to as good in switzerland. go for a night walk on the boardwalk by the sea, waves on one side and the massive cathedral on the other side, warm spring night - and then back to sleep, a day on the beach really takes a lot outta you, haha.

this next day is for walking around the massive pedestrian zone that is the old town of palma, like actually maybe a hundred blocks of narrow cobblestone streets - somehow this is the place where i really feel like walking in a really old city. pass by a museum with the obvious spanish artist names like picasso and miro, but also some really cool sculptures outside by calatrava - really cool. spend actually quite a long time just wandering the streets, looking in at some courtyards, at least a few smaller cathedrals, a street that was strictly for florists, lots of food and bread, people playing spanish guitar and such. hang out in the main square and watch a pretty random capoeira show, pass by some apparently famous arab baths, and then went inside this fairly big cathedral. some of the nicest stained glass windows i have seen, gothic spires are still as cool as ever, and some sweet architecture allowed for the thinnest and highest stone pillars i have seen. gaudi did some work on this as well which was pretty cool. weather outside got a little nicer, so yup, went for a long walk on the beach. hung out, watched this one guy just running laps on this section of beach, then went for some supper. this tapas restaurant, with some smaller cold plates of olives/salads etc. up for grabs and then other sandwich fried things as well. some octopus too, but that was really just some middling octopus i thought. overall still pretty good though. lots of walking today, so call it a day.

wake up, eat breakfast, get a couple more coffees, and then head to the airport. fly back to basel, eat some sandwiches, and then have most of the day left without work to just chill out. really, not being at work is about 50000 times better than being at work. two day workweek coming up, then off to paris!

skiing in laax

so after a week of recovery from egypt, we went from sandy desert to hitting some slopes again. rented out this chalet type thing in the village of laax, about 2.5 hours away by bus and train. headed out friday night, loaded down with some supplies for a weekend of good times. got my free sbb snow'n rail ski bag so took that bad boy out for a spin. turns out they do in fact hold skis. arrived in laax to some nice wet slushy snow on the ground. for a pretty cheap hostel price the 'chalet' wasn't too bad, good enough for a couple nights anyhow. dropped off our stuff and got right down to business, steve ate the worst smelling egg salad ever and a bottle of grey goose made it's way around, leading to a fairly short night involving a bath and a good night's sleep.


got up nice and early next morning, strapped on the gear, ran across the street to take the 1 minute bus to the bottom of the gondola. turns out there's this big ski festival called 'the brits' going on where there are a ton of british people hanging out and partying with some events and club nights etc. this was the last weekend though but there were still kids hitting big jumps and the halfpipe which we had a good view of on the lifts. first time skiing spring snow, not bad, some fresh stuff at the top and it did get a little heavy towards the bottom but overall it was really good. my second time at laax, and it's a big mountain, so there was lots of stuff to ski, had a nice lunch at the top of the mountain and then closed it down for the day with a slushy ski out. there was no kitchen in this 'chalet' so basically i ended up eating 7 hard boiled eggs this day. a quick disco nap, a game of shoulders, and we were ready to go out for some apres ski action. there was a big wind-up party for the brits festival as mentioned, so a short walk up the hill took us to 'riders palace', basically a big hotel/restaurant/bar building. some pretty good djs, some dubstep, some drum and bass, in all a pretty good night.

woke up a little earlier, had some fresh snow overnight so some good skiing to be had. cleared up later in the day, and then came the time to throw on the snowboard for a bit. so basically it had been a year or so since i went riding, and it definitely took a couple runs to get back into it, but definitely still really fun. switching from skis to the board feels really weird on your legs. so basically i have never been good at t-bars on a board anyways, and pretty much just got owned on my first time back on one. so, basically epic fail on the t bar...so impossible on a snowboard anyways, also not having done it for awhile may have had something to do with it. so just fell off the t-bar, struggling in the snow, see chris moore coming up from a distance, think to myself 'hey i think i could try and hop on with him' and flail around, miraculously manage to get up and grab the bar, lose grip on the bar, at this point chris is hanging on with just his hands, i'm holding on to his arm, we're going up this hill and i just bail again. ski down, take it back like 80% of the way up, then this other guy's like 'hey dude, can i hop on with you' and i'm like '....uhhhhhhhhhhh' so he comes and knocks me over at which point i've just resigned myself to defeat. but in the end i did get the feeling of the boarding back and it was pretty good to get going on that again. stupid t-bars, skiing is the way to go on those. anyways had another good day of skiing, probably the last in the alps, unfortunately, but had a great season with something like 15 days, which i'm really happy about and definitely glad that i learned to ski and all that.

egypt

egypt is a pretty cool place. we set off a on a whirlwind seven day tour, 16 of us in total. started off with a 3 hour train to geneva airport, 4.5 hour flight to sharm-el-sheikh, 2 hours in the airport, 1 hour flight to cairo, then a bus to our hostel. long long travel day.

arrived in cairo, the drive to the hostel was a sign of things to come. basically traffic rules do not apply, you can drive anywhere regardless of lanes, traffic lights, pedestrians, other cars, bicycles, and instead of signaling or headlights you can just use the horn. so arrived to this pretty good hostel, the guys there were super helpful and gave us a lot of suggestions of stuff to do, things to watch out for etc. settled in and quickly went out for dinner - the walk just down the street was some pretty big culture shock, not actually as dirty as i would have expected, obviously we stuck out like a sore thumb as tourists, so got 'invited' to sit down in the many cafes on the way to this recommended restaurant. lots of people hangin out on the street smoking shisha, drinking tea, playing backgammon. it's also 10 pm at this point and +30 out, feels amazing. pretty good food here, ordered a bunch of random food, eggplant dip, hummus, assorted other foods, and a kilogram of lamb meat and kebabs, pretty good. the whole meal for much less than 10 bucks. sooo cheap, this was a sign of things to come. it was a long travel day so just headed back and collapsed into bed. thank goodness there was a fan in the room.

woke up early next day at 8 am, getting ready to head out on the pyramids tour that the hostel had organized for us. had a bit of tea and looked out the window to the hazy, hot and muggy streets of cairo. we piled into a couple of vans and headed out towards these pyramids - which are actually in giza and not technically cairo itself. stopped on a bridge on the nile on the way, the traffic is just insane and cars are everywhere, also passed many donkey carts, camels, cats, piles of garbage, horses and any number of random things on the way. the nile at this point running through cairo looks terribly disgusting also. anyhow, we get dropped off at this horse/camel rental place where we are unsuspectingly lured into a haggling match for a guided horse/camel tour of the giza pyramids. after a long while it turned out to be like 160 pounds = 15 bucks for entry to the pyramids area and a camel/horse. so onto the camels and horses and walking along in the sand behind the pyramids we went. a short walk later and we're on a hill in behind the pyramids and looking at these pretty cool triangular shaped 160 m high piles of rocks. took a bunch of pictures, obviously, and saw the throngs of tourists piling in and in between them. the camels/horses turned out to be not too bad of an idea as we managed to get away from most of the big crowds and tourist bus people. fairly uncomfortable, camels are, the horse was definitely better. in any case we got up close to the sphinx and jammed in amongst a bunch of people to get some more standard pyramid pictures. around this area was when the calls of 'buy this random piece of rock' or 'hey this is a plastic cat, you should get it' began. after riding the camels back to the bus we headed off through some more sketchy streets towards the next pyramid site. passed through a lot of 'checkpoints' where they would ask where the van is going, who are these people in it, where are they from, that kind of thing. also passed by some dirty canals, more piles of garbage, run down houses, donkeys, stray dogs and cats, palm trees and army guys with guns every once in awhile. this next pyramid site is called 'saqqara' where there are these 'step pyramids' as precursors to the real smooth sides pyramids. on the way to this site, we enjoyed ourselves a half-forced half-decent lunch at a nearby restaurant. after the step pyramids we entered another site at dashur, where we were able to enter the famous 'red pyramid' which is so-called due to the red sandstone exterior. the tunnel down to the inside was not at all comfortable. hot, humid, devoid of oxygen, dark and smells like it's 4000 years old. i guess i can say that i have been inside a pyramid now. but really there wasn't anything special inside. also i forgot to mention that at this point it was +40 or something like that outside with the sun beating down at 2 pm in the afternoon which pretty much equals death if we were to be caught without water or a semi air conditioned van. after escaping from this pyramid, we headed to the last site of memphis, which was the first capital city of the world some thousands of years ago. here there were just a few more old statues, relics, carvings, coffins - that kind of thing. there was also a huge carving of king ramses II who was apparently one of the most bad ass pharaohs there were. after this fairly lengthy tour, the ride back to the hostel was long, jammed in traffic and far too hot to be comfortable so i pretty much passed out sleeping. after a bit of a rest, we headed out for a quick walk around the area, then wandered the streets a bit looking for some dinner. came across a small market where there were some fruit for sale, got some custard apples to eat later. there were strangely a bunch of shiny storefronts for everything from clothes and shoes and suits. we had a recommendation from the hostel guy to have some 'koshary' at this one particular place. so in we went, all the tables were full so we got ourselves some take out. so, for 7 pounds ~= $1.25 or something like that, i got this giant tub of food that involved macaroni, cut up pieces of long pasta noodles, chick peas, lentils, fried onions, tomato sauce, lime and garlic sauce and hot sauce. it was actually the most filling meal possible, and pretty delicious. and ridiculously cheap. sitting down on the curb in some square, people would come by and try to sell napkins, tea, drinks, cola, water while we were eating. after the koshary was the custard apples, which i have had quite a bit at home since it's a pretty popular vietnamese fruit. not the best, but definitely still pretty tasty. after dinner we took a stroll down the main street to the nile, all the while i was being overwhelmed with colours, flashing lights, people, cars, horns and more people selling stuff. some kid tried to take chris' wallet but he slapped their hand away like it was no big deal. getting to the actual banks of the nile required playing several levels of real life frogger, crossing many many many lanes of insane traffic. that's how it's done though, at first i was pretty nervous but after following a bunch of locals a few times i got the hang of dodging in between stopped cars, bikes, motorcycles and jumping out a few times in front of quickly approaching cars. once we got to the bridge across the river, we saw a bunch of boats that had colourful and flashing lights on them and also loud music. although being offered repeatedly to join in on these boat tours, we declined and simply observed what was going on for awhile before playing more frogger to walk back towards the hostel. on the way back we decided to stop in this out of the way cafe where we had some tea, smoked some shisha and i learned to play backgammon. it's actually a pretty simple game but it's quite fun and i'm looking forward to playing more of it. after hanging out for awhile in the still very warm night, we headed back for a nice long sleep after a very full day.

woke up the next morning with plans to head to the big market in cairo. got up a little late, so took a short cab ride down to the market , or 'souk' as it is called, for all of about 15 pounds or 3 bucks. it was still quite early so not too much action in the market yet, but there was definitely stuff to be bought and people up and about. spending a good couple hours wandering the winding streets and alleys of the market was a super cool experience, definitely have not seen anything like that before in my life. as time passed it got louder and more crowded, more stalls opened and more hecklers trying to get us to buy anything with any number of techniques. shouts of 'everything for one dollar' were heard often. they had everything there from food, spices, clothes, pots and pans, tea, souvenirs, hookahs, fireworks, and honestly everything in between. people delivering breakfast/lunch/tea to the shop owners wandered around with trays piled with hot tea and food and shoved through the crowd never spilling a drop. at the end of the day there were some t shirts, tea, backgammon boards, hookahs and random street food bought. as the day got hotter we headed towards the air conditioning of the famous 'egyptian museum' in cairo. on a nice walk towards it we encountered yet more games of frogger, i saw a guy riding a bike with one hand while carrying about 1000 pieces of the egyptian flatbread that we had been eating on a tray above his head. i can't imagine how he could brake without dropping everything. definitely a walk on the street is the best way to see a city, lots of cars, lots of people, a cool building or two on the way too. for lunch we went for this takeaway place that was recommended by a travel office that we popped into for a suggestion. i had a kebab that i think was something like 8 pounds ~= less than 2 dollars/chf? yea, significantly less than the 10 chf that it is in switzerland, that's for sure. pretty tasty too. so headed over to the museum, after going through what seemed like 30 security checks, dropping our cameras and bags, buying tickets - we finally made it in just before it got way too hot outside. at this point i'm going to mention that if you ever go to egypt, have a valid student ID card with you!! since the card that i had was expired at the end of 2009, i lost out on literally about 50 bucks worth of entry fees - to the pyramid sites, museums, etc. yep, but that's the way life goes. in any case there was a lifetime of artifacts to be gone through in this museum. to tell you the truth after a couple hours it ended up feeling like they just found all of this ancient egypt stuff and jammed it all in a museum. of course there was some really really cool stuff, so much gold, honestly where did they get all this gold from. huge coffins, burial chambers, giant stone statues, tombs, mummified animals, mummies of the kings, tools, weapons, and honestly everything from that time period. the most appalling thing though was the famous burial mask of king tut, which is something like 10 kg of pure gold. insane, i wish i could learn more about egyptian history but that would seriously require another lifetime to really go through it. at the end of the day a very cool couple hours spent. after the museum all we had to do was to get to the train station in cairo in time to catch the night train heading south to luxor. some more wandering around the city ensued, we walked down by the nile, crossing a couple bridges, by the nice green spaces in the park on the island in the nile, this area was actually very nice and the first bit of green. lots of younger people hanging out and that kind of thing. a short walk later and we're back in the area of the hostel, grabbed some fruit from a marketplace, some drinks and stuff like that for the train ride that night. for dinner i hit up the same koshary place again, i mean you can't really go wrong with a 2 dollar meal can you? so yea just a bit more just chillin out, then got on the metro to head over to the train station. on all accounts the time budgeting for getting to the train station was a little overestimated, so we had some time to kill while waiting for our train to come in. a bit of hackysack, a bit of sitting on the platform, observing all the other tourists in the station, our somewhat ramshackle looking train came into the station. heading towards the complete wrong side of the platform, a little bit of a light jog to get to the right car had us in our 'first-class' seats for the night. turns out that they did recline and all things considered they were pretty comfy. after some reading, some music, and discussion on whether a pizza folded in half was indeed a sandwich, i drifted off to a few hours sleep.

woke to a bit of a panic, as very few people had noticed that we were stopped in luxor while the train continued to aswan. pretty much hopped off the train onto the platform as the train was pulling away. surprisingly it was already kinda light out, and it was only a short walk to the hostel. checking into this place that was pretty cool, 'bob marley hostel', and had a quick little hour nap to try to take the edge off of that night train ride. bright and early at 8 am though, we arranged for another guided tour with a couple of vans, this time to see the tombs of the pharaohs at the valley of the kings and queens, as well as a couple other ancient sites. before this though was a nice breakfast on the roof of the hostel, which was basically a big chill out space with a bunch of cushions and a family of cats. some falafels and bread and eggplant and yogurt and bean dip for breakfast. piled into the vans shortly after, for some reason though, we ended up sitting in the van while parked on the side of the street for awhile, eventually waiting for another few tourists to join our caravan. however, where we were parked allowed us to have a very clear view of basically this truck unloading a few cows into this butcher shop and so subsequently we had a nice morning show of this guy just chopping up some meat on a table in the street. certainly had not seen that before. soon enough we go to the valley of the kings, basically it's this big valley where a ton of tombs of kings long past are located. unfortunately there was no photography allowed...but the jist of it is that there are a bunch of tombs that have been excavated, like hundreds, and some of them are huge and long and go way way underground - like 50 meters! insane how much effort these guys put into their burials. in any case, we only had some time to visit a few chambers. so we hit up king ramses I and III and some other one that i forget now. more or less, these tombs consist of a nice dark and hot and sweaty passage into the earth, with intricate carvings/paintings/hieroglyphics on the walls. there are stars on the ceiling representing the real stars, at one point a lot of treasures buried, many chambers for coffins, coffins of children, mummified stuff, and basically everything. there were definitely a lot of tourists around, and some of the tombs got very stuffy and sweating and hot indeed. in any case, it would take a lifetime to truly explore the valley of the kings, and honestly the only way to experience it is to go there. so i'll leave it at that for now. so on the way out of the area though, they funnel you through a gauntlet of more people trying to sell you stuff you obviously don't need. little did we know this was to happen at all the subsequent site visits, but i guess that's how it is. after the valley of the kings we were ushered into an alabaster factory/workshop where these guys showed us how they carved alabaster by hand and other such things. obviously just a pit stop to squeeze some money out of us, but i mean if you just held your cool it was alright. some of the carvings and stuff weren't bad though, pots and cups and stuff. and 'moonstone' which was basically glow in the dark rock (although likely could have been plastic). after that brief stop, we headed out towards the temple of hatsepshut - okay well the story is that somehow through royal marriages/deaths/treachery etc. this one lady ended up becoming a pharaoh and then turned out to be one of the best pharaohs and was also a woman. in any case we went this huge temple that was dedicated to her. this was set in the side of a rocky mountain/cliff which was quite cool, and the building itself was pretty impressive. again, lots of carvings, pictures, paintings on the walls, telling of many stories such as one envoy that she had sent to 'punt' aka ethiopia that brought back some trees that were planted here and the stumps were there to prove it. by this point it was getting really really hot again and we were definitely struggling with the heat and i for one was pondering a nice nap. however we pressed on to the valley of the queens, where all the other royal family members besides the pharaohs were buried. same kind of thing as the valley of the kings, except definitely less intricately built tombs, as could have been expected. pretty much the end of the tour at this point, got back to the hostel and took a quick well-deserved nap before heading out for dinner. on the hostel guy's recommendation we hit up this place close by and on the street, where, as we were waiting for food, watched life go by. pretty incredible how different everything is, donkey carts carrying propane tanks, horses, motorcycles, cars going everywhere, and a lot of people - nowhere close to as many in cairo, but still enough to make it a lot different from anywhere i've been yet. for dinner i was so hungry i ate 2 meals, some lamb kebab and something kinda like moussaka. after dinner we hit the juice stand across the street, 1 pound for a bag of juice. they gave you a bag of juice and tied it around the straw. pretty cool, and the sugar cane juice was certainly very tasty. went for a bit of a walk after this, checked out the main temple in the middle of luxor for a bit, there was also a large mosque there as well. on the way, made some friends with some egyptian guys, played some soccer in a plaza, posed for many pictures, then got away quickly while there was a fight that broke out amongst some youth. all in all pretty ridiculous situation. in this area though there were a lot of people hanging out, except for basically we got hassled pretty well and decided it was best to head back for some sleep after a long day.

up next morning, headed down to the market, see what there was. this one was less crowded, cleaner and more organized than the one in cairo - apparently the government had it cleaned up to appeal to the tourists. however this kinda took away the feel of it, without the locals around. basically what that meant was it made us easy targets for the people selling stuff. in any case it wasn't too bad, and some of us bought scarves and jewelry and that kind of thing. walking through the market we headed down towards the nile, enjoyed a very nice walk along the shore, spied some monster cruise ships docked here, as well as a lot of smaller boats that would take you for a short cruise on the river for a price. walking along the river, we ended up at this site called the 'karnak temple', which is the equivalent of something like st. peter's basilica in terms of religious importance to the ancient egyptians. and this place was huge. like, bigger than you can imagine, temples, shrines, statues, towers, walls - even had it's own holy lake in it. really really amazing. spent a lot of time just walking around and exploring all the little rooms and the whole area of the place. lots of restoration work going on, and saw some of that happening as well while we were there. definitely worth a visit - and in my opinion better than all the pyramids and the tombs, cause at this place you could really step into it and get a personal feel about the significance of the place. really cool. getting really hot in the afternoon again, so headed back for some shade, and anyways, we had organized a nile tour on a falucca in the late afternoon. grabbed some more food and some more juice bags, and then chilled at the hostel until it was time to grab our bags and head to the river with our guide to go on this nile cruise. from what i could tell was that there are just a ton of alleged guides that would take you out on the river in more or less motorboats, while our guide definitely knew what he was doing. like 20 years or something he's been doing it, nothing but one big sail, and a couple big oars if the wind wasn't blowing. amazing experience though, nice and quiet without a motor going. in any case, made our way to this place called banana island, where, sure enough, we ate a bunch of bananas, saw a bunch of different fruit trees, hung out, enjoyed the view, and then back onto the boat to catch the sunset while on the river. docked back on the shore with some amazing guidance from our guide. overall, a fantastic experience, definitely worth the 60 pounds - 10 bucks?? that it was, really incredible, i mean the sunset on the nile - so cool. quickly hopped onto a van to take us to the airport after this, and we were headed back to sharm-el-sheikh again. arriving fairly late at night, we were met immediately by a driver who would take us to the town of dahab, about an hour away. we had 15 people in a '15 person van', with all our bags, which ended up being a pretty tight ride. with lots of checkpoints on the way of course. arrived at our penguin village hotel, greeted with some nice cold hibiscus tea, and settled down for the night. however, not before me and chris went in search for something to eat. eventually we found what perhaps could have been the sketchiest food stand possible, this guy just grilling some stuff on the side of the street. so, armed with 5 pounds - 1 dollar, chris got a 'beefy' which was some canned meat in a bun - more like a 'cat food sandwich' though - and i got some chicken/chicken insides on a bun. without thinking we ate it up and headed in for bed.

woke up real early the next morning, had some breakfast at the hostel restaurant, which was actually quite good, eggs and ham and such - one note here, the 'hostel' is located directly on the ocean, on the boardwalk, with the restaurant literally on the side where if you looked 2 feet over the wall you would see the sea. amazing. in any case, we got together and piled into a couple old jeeps, drove through some dusty roads, picked up some snorkel gear, and headed to the coast. so the coast of the sinai pennisula is supposed to be actually one of the best places in the world to dive and snorkel, with a ton of coral reefs all over the bay of aqaba and the red sea. dahab is on the east coast of the penninsula, and so on the gulf of aqaba. it was a cool drive in the jeeps, pretty much just rolling over the rocky shore on 4x4, would have been real fun to drive. in any case, we got to this place called the 'blue hole', which is literally a blue hole in the middle of shallow water, this 'hole' goes down many meters. this was where we started our journey towards a national park close to the town of nuweiba. we packed away our gear in some bags, got on some camels, and started walking north along the sea. these camels looked to be in much much better shape than the ones in cairo, that was for sure. and more comfy saddles too. the walk along the coast was amazing, rocky, red mountains on one side, beautiful azure water on the other. at some points the path got really narrow, on cliffs right next to the water, but the camels were sure footed as ever, and you could even get them to run faster with a kick or steer them left and right with a pull of the reins. really cool experience, much better than the first camel ride in my opinion. after a bit of walking, we got to our destination, a good spot to jump in for some snorkeling. at some point this was a bedouin camp, and a few locals and some children were still around. got pretty windy towards the end of the camel ride so it was good to get in some shelter. had a nice hot sage tea before heading out for a swim. so this was my second time snorkeling, but it was pretty good, as soon as you realize that you can indeed get enough air through that tube and relax a bit you're all good. but the coral reef here was absolutely amazing. obviously i have never seen anything like this before, and the only thing i could think of was the magic school bus episode when they went in the coral reef. sooo many fish, so much colourful coral, sponges, anemones, urchins, just everything. saw nemo and dory! yep, some really, really amazing fish and wildlife. pretty awesome. did a few dives down too, it's weird though clearing the snorkel. but again i cannot stress how many fish there were. the snorkeling in the caves in sardinia was amazing too, but there were so many more fish here. anyhow, it was pretty windy as mentioned previously, which meant going out a little further was pretty choppy, and in our amazement with the fish, we drifted with the wind and the current quite a ways down the coast. also, at this point i should mention that coral is really, really sharp. like knives. i was a little careless and kinda got caught too close and scraped the leg a bit. so yes, me, rachel, and chris, he who had never snorkeled before, ended up something like a kilometer away from the coral free entrance point to the sea. now, about 50 meters off of the shore, we were kinda trapped on the open water with a giant stretch of rock hard coral between us and dry land. the water's getting choppy and chris is starting to struggle, we're all freaking out and it's not looking so good. several attempts and trying to get through the coral are terrifying as the water's only maybe half a meter deep and shallow enough so that your belly would be scraping the coral if you tried to get past. as we're floating out there, alex and chan come up with big goofy grins as we tell them of our predicament. 'how do we get outta here??!!' basically in the end, we forced our way through the shallow water and manage to make it to dry land and safety, with nary a scratch except for chris who after looked like he had fought about 30 cats and got cut up pretty good actually. in any case, somewhat of a near death experience made chilling out and eating a delicious lunch that much better. of course we're all laughing about it now, and chalk it up to just another ridiculous story. hahaha, oh man, just the panicked shouts vs. the goofy grins was pretty funny i'll have to admit, afterwards. yea so a good lunch of some salad, chicken, rice, tahini, and bread. also one point about the rice in egypt - it's really tasty, they kinda mix in some small noodles and some other flavourings which makes it real good. had this rice pretty much at every sit down meal actually. after hanging out seaside some more, pictures were taken and we mounted our trusty camel steeds and headed back. at this point the sun had lost most of it's heat stroke power and it got pretty windy. it was an eventful ride back as some of the camels had enough of the walking it seemed and a couple straight up just sat down and refused to walk again, leading to some camel switching etc. at the end we all ended up getting back safe and sound, tired and happy from really an amazing day of camels and ocean. after a quick shower, nap and stroll on the boardwalk, we met up with some of the other kids who had gone scuba diving that day (i really want to pick up scuba diving, it seems amazing, i can swim and i don't see why not - i'm gonna start getting my certification as soon as i get back to calgary) and sat down for some dinner, again just at the hostel restaurant. sitting on a bunch of cushions by the sea, watching the sun go down, smelling the salt air, eating some fresh grilled fish, drinking a fresh mango juice - life could not get better. also there were a lot of stray cats that were hanging around and eventually became quite vicious in stealing food but that was besides the point, as we had spray bottles of water to keep them at bay, with the one waiter eventually tossing a cat into the ocean. played some more backgammon, smoked some shisha, drank some beer (well, since egypt is supposed to be a muslim country ie. no alcohol, it would seem difficult to get beer - however in places like dahab where there are a ton of tourists, it's pretty easy to find a liquor store or two - in fact, the place that we got it from was called 'liquor - tourist supply') and walked down through the town a bit. nothing like cairo or luxor though, the 'market' area was more like any other beach town, just with more guys hassling you about buying stuff as per usual. definitely more laid back than anywhere else in egypt i think, and would be a cool place to hang around, do some diving, some beaching, and take it easy. after another long day, it was nice to finally hit the sack and get some sleep.

woke up early - again! - next morning, and hopped on yet another mini bus, this time heading for ras mohammed national park, south of sharm-el-sheikh and on the southern tip of the sinai penninsula right on the red sea. a longer drive this was, about an hour and a half, but the views were quite nice as the drive up from the airport had been in the dark. really cool to see red rock mountains, deserts, and camels running around everywhere. a lot of goats too, and of course passing through all the checkpoints (really though, i am so glad of these checkpoints and all the security - all of those past terrorist attacks in dahab, sharm-el-sheikh, taba - when you think about it, it's really scary actually, because the thought of something like that hardly ever crosses your mind when you're in canada, or switzerland, or anywhere else like that. so yea, it might have been a bit of trouble to have to carry your passport around everywhere, but for the safety factor of having at least some army guys and guards making sure the resorts and parks are safe, it was worth it.) getting into ras mohammed national park was amazing, white sand beaches that somehow seem to spill out from the desert. dropped off at this fairly busy beach, full of european holiday-ers going about their business, but as soon as we pulled the snorkels on and got out in the water it was immediately clear why we had come here. again, there was a bit of a shallow coral shelf which then spilled out onto the open water, and once we got out there - absolutely amazing. like, the day before was amazing, but this was actually mind-blowing. not to mention that the water was incredibly warm as well, even in march. so there were actually just thousands, and thousands, and thousands of beautiful, colored fish, coral, everything! i saw a sea turtle! it was just swimming along, hanging out, coasting, and was like the size of me i'm pretty sure. floated into a field of jellyfish - they feel like jello. kinda freaked out at first by the potential of them being poisonous, but turns out they're nothing to be afraid of - although at one point i was swimming through what seemed like a thousand of them and i did kinda panic when every kick and stroke i punched some jellyfish. this experience was beyond words though, and if you ever ever get a chance to go scuba/snorkel in the red sea, please do it. huge fish also, definitely at least one was the size of a person. enjoyed the sights, and then got out of the water to check out some other cool stuff in the park - there was this big mangrove grove that seemed to be growing in a sea of desert, in salt water, and yet was green as ever. nature is amazing, i'm awed every time. there were little crabs hanging out in the sand and it was cool to see them all scurry into their holes in unison any time they were disturbed. after this was checking out a couple canyon like formations where the sea had eroded away the rock and formed these kind of underwater cave like things. really, really cool. again, all of this is nothing i've ever seen before and it's still surreal to me even now that i actually experienced all of this. for lunch, we headed over to another little bay, where there was a little camp set up. this was the first actual white sand beach that we got to hang out at, and finally got in some nice hot beach time. a bit of sun and already i'm tanned well. lunch was a couple of salads and bread....which now we are all regretting that we ate. it was delicious, and yet we were warned about any salad at all. let's just say that this was the beginning of something horrible. in any case, after lunch, we had just 20 minutes to quickly go snorkel a little bit more before the park closed and we had to head back to camp. so in and out we went, same story, beautiful fish and coral and the only thing i could have asked for was more time to hang out in the water. alas, all things come to an end and we piled back into the van, hot, wet and super happy about another beautiful day out in the sea. back at penguin village, we all took good naps, in preparation for the mt. sinai hike that night. what we were in for, was an overnight hike beginning at 1 am, sitting at the top of a mountain, and watching the sunrise. before this though, we took a nice stroll down the boardwalk, looking for something good to have for dinner. lots of restaurants, lots of advertising, but eventually, we ended up back at this pizza place close to the hostel. 'egyptian pizza' it was called, and we all ordered the one with all the toppings on it. while waiting for it to be cooked, we grabbed some more beers, chilled out, some more backgammon, and really, what's better than pizza and beer? except for maybe wings and beer, or steak and beer, or hot dogs and beer...anywho we got this 20 pound - 4 dollar pizza, which in fact was a pastry like thing that wrapped toppings inside and then was topped with more toppings on top. really, really good. like amazing, i think that they should have egyptian pizza everywhere, and somehow before this i had no idea something so delicious could exist. ran over quickly to the store to get some supplies for the night hike, a bag of chips and a liter of mango juice - which i would regret later...now, it was time to set out on our midnight adventure. so, at 11 pm, we got in the vans, drove for about two hours in the darkness. we had worn all the clothes that we brought, as it gets real cold in the desert at night, luckily i had brought my fleece sweater (thanks magic school bus desert episode) which i thought would be fairly effective. arrive at 1 am, in the parking which is actually quite full of people. pull out the headlamps, and we start following out 16 year old guide up the mountain. offers of camels for hire are somewhat tempting at this point, as sleepiness starts setting in. quite a few breaks on the way left us not terribly tired, just sleepy. towards the top, there are these rest pavilions, with the price of hot tea increasing exponentially in relation to the distance to summit. whereas you could probably get a tea for less than 1 pound anywhere, it was like 10 pounds for a cup of tea at the last rest station. at this point, it was already getting really cold, and even the fleece sweater wasn't holding out too well. also, one of the camels on the road was doing this stupid thing where it spits out it's tongue (stomach?) out the side of it's mouth and making this hilarious (probably only cause it was 3:30 am and we were so tired) noise as it was doing so. for the last few hundred steps to the top, another sort of sensation besides the fatigue was setting it however - revenge of the salad that we had for lunch!! ahhhhh. it was horrible, the stairs and the climb and the lack of sleep and the coldness, and then the stomach troubles. let's just say that if mt. sinai had eyes, i probably couldn't look straight into them cause of what i left on it. blargh, terrible. well, by the end, almost all of us that ate the salad had gotten terribly sick on the mountain. at this point also the 5 pound/per use toilets were not illuminated so i couldn't have even used those. after this ordeal, the 20 pound blanket/mattress rental for the summit was well worth it. sitting at the top of the mountain, we prepared to watch this sunrise. trying to get in a comfortable position, i sad on my backpack...with the mango juice and bag of chips in it. disaster. as if things could have gotten worse, hahaha. mango juice, everywhere. at least, i had a towel in there that i had planned on using as a blanket, so that managed to soak up most of it. so i left a bunch of mango juice and a lot of chips on mt. sinai as well. the sunrise though, was beautiful, and the whole situation was definitely pretty cool. once the sun came up it got warm enough to cast aside the blankets and everything was all good again. also the blanket smelled like camels. also camels smell, and not good, i don't know if i've mentioned that yet. with our stomachs still in turmoil we made the long descent down the mountain. i was legitimately scared for another attack but managed to keep it together until we'd reached the bottom. fatigue at this point was reaching a tipping point, and while waiting for this famous st. catherine's monastery to open i fell asleep on a bench. this monastery is really old, and apparently a clipping from the famous burning bush in all the bible stories grows here. it was cool, don't get me wrong, but at this point all i wanted was a bed and a bathroom. oh yea, i guess if you haven't figured it out yet, the reason why we (and a bunch of other tourists) flocked to mt. sinai is because it was where moses received the commandments from god and all that good stuff about it being a holy mountain, and then at some point people decided that the best way to add to the holiness is to watch the sunrise from it's summit. in any case, a short while later we're all asleep in the van as we head back to our beds.

this was our last few hours in egypt, and after a quick nap, packing up the bags, paying for all our excursions and van rides, i had one more tea to try and calm the stomach before heading out to sharm-el-sheikh airport to catch the plane home. a bit of a kerfuffle at the check in desk ensued, with us being allegedly late to the flight, even though easyjet is late all the time (and was) anyways. the 4 hour flight was not the greatest due to the stomach troubles and somehow like 4000 babies being on the same flight. we get back to geneva, hit the train to zurich, then wait in the station for an hour before the last train gets back to baden, and then home. ate a burger at bk in the train station while waiting, that was a poor choice on account of the newly coined name for the salad sickness - 'the pharaoh's curse'. the sunday after this trip was sorely needed, to recover from something like 36 hours of zero sleep, the pharaoh's curse, and above all a one day buffer to try and get over the euphoria of an amazing seven day trip before getting back to work. absolutely amazing all things considered, and all i can say is GO TO EGYPT! it's awesome.

xc skiing

so last weekend was pretty relaxed, watched the movie 'moon' one night which i suggest, it's quite good. saturday was just hanging around, went out to zurich for a bit although it's still quite snowy and cold. had some good fondue for dinner then went out to zurich again to check out a jazz show. really really good, talented band and played some good music, soul and reggae beats too. expensive drinks though, like 20 bucks for a cuba libre...

woke up pretty early next morning and took about 2 hours to get to this place called langis, where we rented some xc skis and headed off for some xc skiing. another first for me, just tried the 'classic' style this time, but pretty much just immediately fell over as i clipped in. feels weird, skis are so light. but pretty quick i got the hang of it and was going with the nice glide as well as the kick double pole technique. there is very little to no transferable skills from alpine to xc skiing. maybe herringbone up hills but that's about it. pretty fun though, a bit of a foggy day but a good workout with some good friends nonetheless. ended up going about 15k or so, but it really was tiring and definitely felt some hip flexor soreness the next day. tried a bit of 'skating' style at the end as well, and i will for sure be picking this up at home. haha, now i'll need like 5 pairs of skis...there wasn't too much bus service up to this place so we ended up hanging out at the restaurant and had some soup and a beer, good end to a good day. man those guys on the olympics make it look a lot easier than it is.

on tuesday night, imogen heap was playing in zurich so we grabbed some tickets and headed out after work. it worked out that there was a vietnamese restaurant right next to the bar/club where the show was, so we went ahead and had some dinner there. had some bun bo hue and tried a bit of hu tieu as well, and it was definitely the best i've had yet since i've been here. pretty legit, i was impressed. still, can't believe it's 20 chf/20 bucks for a bowl of noodles though, outrageous. in any case we headed off 'abart' to check out the show. some random band from iceland was the opening act, 'helgi jonsson' i think it was, not bad, but probably played far too long of an opening act and kinda emo. after a lengthy stage set-up (later on proved to be completely appropriate) the show started. she's from the uk and it was nice to hear some english music live too. it always nice to be able to understand stuff. she's very musically talented and had some pretty cool/weird instruments, a great voice, and i'm sure about a million loop pedals as well. really good show i thought. it was too bad that it was getting close to midnight, and the last train back to baden was at quarter to - didn't really feel like sleeping on the streets of zurich so unfortunately we had to go home. still, from what i heard it was totally worth it.

not too much else happening this week, just kind of getting ready for the week trip to EGYPT starting on saturday, should be really good, +40 weather, sun, will be perfect, really looking forward to it.

ireland

half day of work on friday with a spicy thai food lunch and then off to the zurich airport. about a 2 hour flight to dublin on aer lingus which was actually not bad at all. so glad to hear english the whole way there. landed and hopped into some rented ford fiestas to start the drive over to galway on the west coast of the island. thankfully i didn't have to drive standard on the left side of the road. all worked out in any case, the walkie talkies that we brought were a brilliant idea. got across the island in a couple hours or so. pubs stop serving food at about 9 pm so very unfortunately didn't get a good pub meal. instead got a sub. and then went drinking at the pub. pretty tasty 3 euro pints of guinness. the first place had some ridiculous old guy playing essentially the 90s playlist on my ipod, pretty good and pretty funny actually. moved on to the next pub which had a couple guys playing some old irish folk music which was very cool. after wandering around a bit we found another pub with a live band that was playing kings of leon at the time we went in. shortly after they had to close it down but did play 'all you need is love' by the beatles to end it off. there is this local beer in galway called 'hooker' and it did actually taste pretty good, very strangely like lychees. the night ended by me and chris going to 'supermacs' which is basically after pub heaven. inside there is everything from ice cream to subs to pizza to fried chicken to burgers and fries. needless to say at 2 am 100% of the patrons were intoxicated. so funny but the cheeseburgers were good.

woke up the next day and didn't really get a chance to take a look around galway because the whole cars and parking situation was a bit of a struggle so we made our way out and on the road. beautiful day, green fields and blue sky. driving south along the coastline is beautiful, taking in everything as we drive by. stop at this old castle on a bit of an outcropping in a bay, the tide was out so you could see all that was under it. really cool, nice place, beautiful pictures. further along we stop in the middle of 'the burren' which is basically natural limestone hills of rocks in cool formations. all the walls and fences in ireland seem to be made of stone, probably cause there is so much stone in this place. the farmer's fields are fenced off with stone walls, and obviously along the way we see sheep and cows and some llamas even. and of course some baby lambs frolicking. pretty cool. in any case the burren is quite the sight to see. driving along the coast of the atlantic ocean is one of the most beautiful places that i have seen, absolutely incredible. stopped at the edge of what seemed like the earth, looking out to open sea and scrambling over a few hundred meters of interesting rock formations to get to the water from the road. really cool. hopped back in the car to head to a tiny town called doolin where we were going to spend the night. stopped in to check out the friendliest hostel and most chill hostel i have ever been to, a refurbished 19th century farmhouse or something like that. really cool. walked down the 20 seconds to the nearest pub for some lunch. two pints of guinness, soup and delicious fish and chips later we head out on the road again to the cliffs of moher. driving on some narrow roads on the 'wrong' side of the road is pretty cool. these cliffs are breathtaking, like more that 200 meters straight down for quite a long stretch. walk along them for awhile, and the lay down and peer over the edge - reminiscing about bungee jumping...haha although this time there was no rope attached to my feet. amazing though, really worth seeing. after the cliffs we head back to doolin, check out this ruined church and graveyard with some old celtic crosses on them. see some more sheep on the way. pretty cool. head back to the hostel for a short nap to get ready for another night in the pubs. woke up to a nice picture slideshow from the hostel owner, beautiful pictures of the area in the burren and the cliffs. learned a lot about the area too. lots of ancient burial sites, tombs, history and about the aran islands just off the coast near doolin. these islands hardly see any visitors and the people still strictly speak gaelic. well, most of the people on the west coast speak gaelic as well. went in search for some dinner, unfortunately the two pubs within 30 seconds walk were full to the brim - ireland had just beat england in the six nations so people were getting happy. ended up putting down a few pints and then shoveling down some terrible pasta from the italian take away place. but that's besides the point. returned to the pub and heard some amazing live music, banjo and guitar and tin flute and some other traditional irish instruments. talked to a bunch of irish people who are very friendly. enjoyed many a pint and towards the end some irish whisky and in general had a great night. one of the best experiences i've ever had to tell you the truth, small town pub in ireland with some live music, tasty beer, good friends, happy, friendly people - there really isn't too much more you could ask for.

got a good sleep in and headed out again on the road early in the morning. drove through some more picturesque countryside and then stopped at in some small town to find some breakfast. ended up in spar (a fairly popular grocery store throughout europe (except for switzerland)) to see what there was. apparently, they had a full hot food section where i purchased, for 3 euros, the most awesome 'breakfast roll'. a large sandwich filled with two sausages, grilled bacon/ham, eggs, black and white pudding (blood sausage and some other sausage). so delicious. meat paradise. and apparently, at essentially every store in ireland more or less these breakfast rolls are available. amazing. it was a really good sandwich okay. and then for some reason, out of 12 adults, 50% of them thought that milk would be a good purchase for a road trip beverage. inexplicable, but i did also buy a liter of milk so i don't know. moving on from this breakfast experience, we headed towards limerick, where on the way we stopped at this castle in bun ratty. at first i kinda thought it was a tourist trap with the 10 euro entrance fee, but it's actually quite well repaired and there was a nice man who showed us around the castle as well. pretty well done - i guess i have never been inside a legitimate castle before and this was it. from the outside it didn't seem that big but there was for sure a lot of stuff inside. all the rooms and the halls were decked out in 15th century stuff which was also really cool. climbed up all the towers and saw all the rooms and got a pretty good view from the top. there was also a reconstructed village within the castle walls as well so it was cool to look around for awhile in there as well. saw some chickens and some pigs. and some dogs - on that note, i saw some absolutely beautiful dogs on this trip, the perfect sheepdog/collies/retriever type dogs that i would love to have. can't wait to get myself one. after the castle, we drove south through limerick and then headed east again back to dublin. a short while later, we drop off the cars at the airport and take a bus into the city. settled down and went for a walk into the town in the 'temple bar' area and then to this cafe for dinner. very cool place, apparently been around since 1840. bewley's i think it was. in any case had a really tasty dinner of leek soup and bread, some sort of spicy pasta (100000x better than the horrendous pasta the night before), and some brownie for dessert. really good. headed back to the hostel and picked up a few more beers on the way to watch the GOLD MEDAL HOCKEY GAME. canada and the united states again in the final, and it was a great game to watch, so glad that we could in the hostel common room. iginla to crosby in overtime, just perfect. great olympics too, i've been staying up a few nights to catch a couple hockey games, saw the first states canada game when we lost, then when we beat russia. kinda sucks not being around when the games are so close to home. but made due, following as best as i could on the internet. really great results though, most gold medals! pretty tired from being on the road for the past few days so settled in for the night after that.

woke up next morning nice and early, took a nice walk around the center of town, through the university with the greenest lawns, also all the universities that i have seen in my travels make u of c look just terrible. wish i had more time to hang around dublin but unfortunately we had to catch a flight back to zurich at noon or so. stopped in before leaving at this nice little park, and then to this cafe for some good breakfast and a good coffee too. not too much for the rest of the day, a relaxing afternoon at home and not work, that sure feels good. playing some guitar, watched the movies 'city of god' and 'drag me to hell'. city of god is an amazing movie i thought, really suggest it.

that's it for now, think i'll be heading out to do some x-country skiing this weekend, inspired by the olympics and i'm also curious to try it for the first time. also tonight is a chicken nugget party, somehow a few interns managed to get over 20 people to eat a bunch of nuggets together - we're so weird.

warsaw

took a nice swiss air flight to warsaw on friday at noon, as always great service and a beer and a sandwich on the hour and a half or so ride. looking down on the city it was pretty clear that there was a lot of snow on the ground, little did i know then how wet my feet were gonna get. it was about a 30 minute bus to the hostel, which was on the top floor of an old building on one of the main streets. really great place, friendly staff and a tv (for olympics) and just pretty awesome overall. threw some stuff down, went to some random cafe for a fish and meat and vegetable skewer and then some sort of wheat berry and egg salad? tasty though. and also doughnuts filled with jam and some sort of dairy product. tasty also. tried to go to this nice park but the gates were closed after 5. so the girls went shopping and the boys went to the bar. a couple hours and a few 6 poland moneys (about 2 bucks) beers later, we went to meet up for some perogies for dinner. they were pretty tasty. wandered the streets and got some cuba libres(!) and ended the night with some subway.

woke and grabbed some coffee - by the way everything was super cheap here and was so appreciated compared to switzerland - and walked through the old/new town, since pretty much all of it was bombed to pieces after the second world war. but the streets and the buildings that were rebuilt are very nice and the what remains of the castle are quite nice as well. checked out this 'portrait' exhibit at the museum for awhile, it was very well done actually just a nice bit of art in the morning was great. it was kinda cloudy but mostly the ground was very wet. there were a lot of puddles and my feet got quite wet. after walking around a bit more, stopped at this 'milk bar', basically it was during the communist era that these were like on the corners for cheap food with milk related products. now they're still there for super cheap food and it still looks like it's from the 60's, old ladies serving up greasy spoon type food. looks like somebody's kitchen. pretty cool though. i ate some beet soup with beans and some potato dumplings with bacon on top and a pork schnitzel type thing. with a cola for a whopping 5 bucks or something. hahah so awesome. also that meal sat like a brick in my stomach, so full. walked around some more, found some random vintage store, then headed over to the park that we had tried to go to the day before. it was quite a nice park close to the former royal palace. lots of snow everywhere but still some people and a lot of ducks and even a peacock. nice walk for sure. stopped after to have a bit of coffee, chilled out at the hostel and watched some olympics. went for dinner at some random vietnamese restaurant (in warsaw of all places) which was actually pretty good for under 5 bucks too. take that switzerland. drank some more polish vodka which is both tasty and cheap at the hostel, then went out to the conveniently located bar around the corner. good night full of cuba libres. and more subway afterward.

woke up on sunday morning to have some of the delicious breakfast that the hostel had prepared. some sort of tasty apple pancakes and all the regular tasty breakfast stuff as well. good start to the day. then went on a massive trek towards this 'warsaw rising' museum, through all manner of puddles and snow. walked past some cool buildings and also this one called the palaces of arts. then made it to this pretty cool museum about poland during world war two, and all the resistance there was to the nazi occupation. very well done and a lot of information, i definitely learned a lot and totally worth seeing. a big plane in there as well. after the museum we went in search of food, ended up in some random mall, ate some food. proceeded to go to this super sketchy flea market that was kinda like district 9 where people were just selling random stuff everyone on the street outside. an experience for sure. somewhat tempted to buy a phone off of some random guy. but i didn't. anyways, after this, just went to chill in a restaurant for a bit and then off to the airport to go home. swiss air flights are the best. also snagged a bottle of polish vodka on duty free. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%BBubr%C3%B3wka

not too much happening this week, although i think spring has sprung. it's really quite nice out and i managed to get out yesterday for a short run to test the ankle. feels good. will run A LOT starting right meow. going to ireland this weekend, renting a car, super excited, will be so good.

hamburg and kiel

so in an unfortunate badminton accident on monday night (read: rachel destroying me at badminton and then me spraining my ankle) i only went to work 2/5 days last week. haha the badminton was fun while it lasted though, definitely not my best sport but good exercise anyways. my foot swelled up to the size of a football and i took the next couple days off work to hang out and read a bunch. miraculous recovery to be able to more or less walk in a few days and then it was off to hamburg on thursday night from basel. got in pretty late, and met up with a friend of ours that was working here at alstom. hence, we got a place to stay and after a few beers went out to see what there was to do on the town on a thursday night. after walking around for awhile, we settled into a pretty cool retro/oldies bar. pretty much nobody in there but the six of us danced the night away regardless. really cool music, some drum and bass on top of 60's big band music, a crooning version of wonderwall, and solid old music. played some pac man on the atari that was there, and drank one or two or three cuba libres for cheap! thursday night meant no s-bahns after midnight, so after some mac donalds and an hour night bus later we got to sleep.

a good sleep in meant a late but delicious and cheap breakfast bought from the grocery store. it was really awesome to stay and hang out with people from hamburg, it's completely different being shown around by people that live in the city and makes you feel so much less like a tourist. after breakfast we headed out on a bit of a tour around the city, walked through some of the main parts of town, the rathaus, the lego store where i bought a lego stormtrooper, a miniature model of the city, this very cool shops/cafes trendy area. it was super cold out though, windy and a lot of snow - a lot like home, more so that here in switzerland. definitely cool to see everything though - really there's not too much that is blatantly striking or amazing, but the whole atmosphere was pretty laid back, lots of cool art and graffiti, great little shops and cafes - i would say it's a really 'livable' city if that makes any sense. after sitting down for a cup of coffee for awhile, we headed towards the harbour to see what was up there. basically it's the biggest harbour in europe, connected to the north sea, so more or less all of the shipping out of germany that goes anywhere has to go through here. there were huge cranes as far as the eye could see, docks, ships, freighters, pretty much any type of sea faring vessel could be found here. the fog and the cloud and the snow just added to the atmosphere, pretty cool place. proceeded to eat another pickled herring, onion and pickle sandwich - it sounds horrible and the bad breath after is horrendous but tastes delicious. a nice walk along the boardwalk took us towards this underground tunnel that stretched under and across the river - basically this is the only way to get across the harbour - obviously bridges would get in the way of ships! this night we had purchased tickets to go see 'walking with dinosaurs' in an arena close to hamburg. massive animatronic dinosaurs complete with sounds effects and dino battles, pretty cool i thought. too bad the commentary was in german, but really giant very lifelike dinosaurs are cool no matter what. i would definitely see it again in english, they were so cool. after the dinosaur show we hopped onto a train for about 1.5 hours to kiel, pretty much the most northern city in germany to visit our friend holly for awhile. got there quite late, chatted and the went to sleep putting 5 people in a one person room.

woke up and had some chocolate sprinkles+peanut butter on toast for breakfast, went out to explore the town of kiel. it was quite cold and windy and there was about a foot of snow on the ground. there was a pond where there were about a thousand waterfowl gathered in the small part of the water that they cut the ice out of. attacked by geese, and swans which are kind of terrifyingly big. kind of just wandered through the town, and ended up at a kebab shop where i was defeated by one of the biggest doners i've had. tasty though. we headed towards the train station to hop on a train for about an hour to another city, luebeck. it is a quaint old town that has a bunch of old buildings and churches and a neat city gate. walked around for awhile, ate some marzipan, got the feet nice and soaking wet, and then settled in for a coffee before taking the train back to kiel. went shopping for some dinner at the grocery market, food is so cheap. and also beer as well. went out to a student bar that night - terrible music really but still a good time, and then ate the sketchiest kebab at 5 am before going home to sleep it off. sunday was a bit of a write-off as we had to get back to the hamburg airport, and after a late night out we all slept in. on the way to the airport though, we managed to miss the bus, the train, the train to the airport, but fortunately did not miss the flight. also drank a lot of iced tea on the way for some reason. in any case it was a wintry weekend with some great friends and more or less hanging out more than sightseeing which was really nice actually.

back to work for the week, ankle is healing but i'm sure it'll be nagging me for awhile yet. it's finally a bit sunny outside and i hope this is the start of spring. not too much planned for the week, going to warsaw on friday so another bit of a short week.

skiing in lenzerheide

chilllin out on saturday, slept in and had a good breakfast, then went out to zurich to walk around and see what was up. pretty cloudy and gloomy day, but made the best of it really. went to the zurich design museum where there was a small exhibit of 'formless furniture' basically just a bunch of chairs - but pretty cool nonetheless. walked around zurich hardbrucke for awhile, stopped in a cool store and also went to the freitag store. they make bags out of truck tarps and seat belts and stuff like that, the store itself is like 6 train containers stacked on top of each other so it's pretty cool - thinking about getting a bag but they are expensive. i found this vietnamese restaurant in zurich on the internet, so for dinner we headed over there to see what was happening. haha, for 18 chf the noodles better have been good. pretty legit in any case but obviously nothing like at home. it was good to have though after 9 months or something like that. didn't do too much else that night except watch iron man again (i'm gonna build an iron man suit) and went to sleep to go skiing the next day.

caught the 7 o'clock train to go to lenzerheide, about 2.5 hours away. it had just snowed for a couple days before so there was a bunch of fresh light powder. this place is pretty cool because you start at one side of the mountain, and then take the innumerable lifts all around the place, through villages, past chalets and people's driveways, until you've gone in a big circle, all the while exploring and traversing to find all the powder stashes. had one good faceplant from trying to absorb what seemed like small bumps rather than skiing them. sunny weather until about 3 pm when it got so foggy on the one side of the mountain that i could barely see the piste markers. crazy and a bit terrifying, but an adventure and overall a great day of skiing. and plus with the half price train card it was half price for all the food at the lodges! pretty cool. a pretty quick train ride home and it was perfect to sit and relax for the rest of the night.

so far i've gone about 11 or 12 times and skiing is awesome, got one more ski weekend planned, and maybe another one or two days, but the experience has been great. the hills here a bit different than at home, but skiing is more or less the same the world around. the chalets were nice, the apres ski was really cool, the gondolas a bit ridiculous, the queues in the lift lines anything but polite and orderly, the snow is great at times, when the sun comes out it's beautiful. really glad that i got to experience this - even when it's icy and cloudy and there are 5000 people jammed into a sardine can gondola, i just remember that in another life i probably would not be skiing in the alps. good times all around.

skiing in saas-fee

so somehow alex managed to find a chalet in saas-fee that we could use for just the last weekend, and it turned out to be just an amazing trip. about 3 hours of train and bus into the car free village of saas fee, walked up a dangerously snowy set of stairs with a ton of gear and happened upon the most awesome chalet. 3 floors, enough beds and room for the 12 of us that were there, balcony, kitchen, wood floors, and jacuzzi! yea sweet digs for sure. with all the snow that night, we just knew that it was gonna be a powder weekend. played some settlers of catan, the most intense game of settlers ever actually, made some ice, chilled out in the jacuzzi, good times all around. went to sleep too late, got up too early, as is usual for ski trips, walked/skiied 10 minutes to the lift. off we go, powder day number one. it's a bit cold, but beautiful snow. lots of lifts, lots of snow, great day. dropped some cliffs, skiied some pow, fell in the soft snow, all good.

walked all the way back to the chalet, partaking in some apres ski drinks to people dancing in ski boots, hot wine, and jaegertee which i do not need to have again. 80's pop music, pretty much oktoberfest round 2 in a ski town. very cool walking/skiing through the town, there are no cars so narrow streets, people walking, chalets everywhere, ski shops, very very cool, once in a lifetime experience that's for sure. settled down and had some hearty beef stew, played some innocent card games, ended up going out to the town, hit the apres ski bars, danced a bit, in particular in sneakers and long underwear and sweat pants. going home and to bed early again didn't work. felt really great the next day though, sunny day, warmed than the last, and still just as much snow, with the runs all groomed to corduroy too. explored a lot of the mountain, found lots of fresh powder stashes, carved some beauty lines, took some lifts. also there is mountain train/funicular type thing at 3000m that takes you to the glacier at 3500m or so. that thing was whipping along like at 50km/h i swear. so ridiculous, only in switzerland would they build that. definitely a bit short of breath at the top though, but it was a nice long run back down to the bottom. went back to clean up the chalet, chilled out, a nice long (almost direct) train ride home with some great friends and great conversation, definitely one of the better weekends for sure.

good times all around, it's been snowing a lot in baden lately, feet are kind of wet and the sidewalks are slippery. nothing like delicious leek potato onion soup on a cold day also. this weekend, thinking about trying to make some beef noodle soup, maybe go sledding, also want to go ski one day as well. work is still the same, the rate at which is read news and comics is appalling. almost olympics, i am looking forward to that.

skiing at st. mo's

went out for a weekened trip to st. moritz, about 4 hours by train..stayed at the top of the mountain at 3000m so got 2 full days of skiing in. some crusty pow but there was a few decent off piste bowls. also nobody goes off piste, it's ridiculous. snow everywhere, and they will not go on it. hit a 10 k run out to the next little village which was about half moguls but was really fun. chilled out and had some beers outdoors, good times. ski progression is going at about an exponential rate right now, it is great.

it was a weird combination area in switzerland where it was half german half italian, and st. mo's is the engadin valley in the canton of grauebunden where the 20 000 people or whatever that still speak romansch are from. pretty cool i thought. anyhow it was beautiful weather both days with a pretty good lift system, not a ton of terrain but definitely enough to be happy with. all in all a great weekend. managed also to not buy any food there and live on a peasant diet of bread cheese wine and cured meats. reverted back to the 12th century for a bit there.

it's been snowing a ton and it's still cold out, slush everywhere. still people using umbrellas in the snow, so weird. a guy from work, frank, had his 40th birthday and had a party at his house, where we proceeded to do this thing called the feuerzangenbowle, basically a sugar cone, suspended over a pot of hot wine, drenched in overproof rum and lit on fire and dripped into the wine. pretty tasty, but so much alcohol, it's apparently a german student tradition at the universities and is based on a movie of the same name, pretty cool.

skiing in laax

some sick skiing at laax on sunday, it was sunny and the snow was good. logistically it was finally good, just the one gondola and short chair until skiing began. skiing is sick, slayed some dragons aka bumps, struggled through powder for awhile until i figured it out, hit some beauty rollers and a couple kickers, good times.

last weekend holly from germany from calgary also came for a visit, went to zurich on saturday, wandered around, some ridiculous antiquity store browsing, sketchy flea market, ate so much cheese fondue for dinner, still have a bowl of cheese remaining also. also went out on saturday night as well, got home too late/early? to catch the 6:08 train to skiing the next day, but it all worked out in the end.

ate more cheese at cheese fondue again on monday, at work at lunch, they set up this deal at the cafeteria for all you can eat fondue basically, it was great, the best fondue i've had yet i think. there was also bread and potatoes and corn and pickles and tea it was great. except for now i have had so much cheese in the past 4 days that i think i am still full of cheese.

i am going to st. moritz this weekend to slay more dragons, but other than that i am just chillin.

skiing in engelberg

so i finally got caught up on the christmas trip post. now, let's see - last weekend i just went skiing, in engelberg-titlis which is about 2.5 hours away, it was 2 train transfers though, which is far too many while carrying skis and boots, i am really not impressed with this whole swiss skiing thing so far. i think one, it would be better with a car obviously, but still, two, it takes forever from the time i walk out of my house to the time i start skiing. for example, at this hill, it took 4 gondolas about 30 minutes to get from the base station to the top, and then walking up 5 flights of stairs, and about 500 m before you can strap in - ridiculous. in any case, the snow there wasn't too bad, the weather was great for awhile, then it got pretty foggy and the light was pretty flat. in any case - i got some good skiing in nonetheless, and by the end of the day i'd dropped a couple cliffs, caught some air, and skied some bumps. can't wait to go harder and hit bigger stuff, i'm really enjoying this skiing thing. the ski out at the end of the day was pretty good too. unfortunately had a bit of a backpack debacle, but at the end of the day nothing bad happened so it's all good. heard some german pop music at the apres ski hut, played some chinese chess waiting for the train home. had a nice relaxing sunday, didn't do too much really, just play a bunch of guitar - can play some barre chords now, somehow. can't wait to go home and get an electric actually.

in other news i also got a new ski jacket, the old helly one was finally giving out, the zipper broke and it was actually really really old. from sport fabrik i got a nice north face jacket on 70% sale from 750 chf, such a good deal actually. also got some running tights - haven't taken them running yet though...something about this winter is making me really lazy. it sucks. gotta get my act together soon though, 3 months is not a long time for a marathon...

inspired by 'mayham' and the best ham i've ever had in my life, we held a 'ham and mayham' party last week as well, centering mostly around ham and beer.

all is well at work, maybe the one important thing that i will do here is present my work at a design review, surprisingly some of my work has been useful. in any case, this will probably be the extent of my involvement here at alstom.

going skiing again this weekend, at laax-flims this time, should be good i hope, less gondola and backpack debacles. excited though, can't wait to get more air.

also, the dream seems to be dying. i am kinda sad, i got a job for the summer in calgary, so i guess if anyone reads this, i will be home by may 10th.

christmas trip

so went on this trip over christmas and new years. the day before leaving i had to eat the rest of the food in the house, that was not very pleasant overall really. night train on christmas eve to vienna, austria. pretty cramped night train, awoken at 7 am with a bun and coffee, the bun more or less thrown at my face.

since it was christmas day there wasn't really anything open, took the u bahn through a ghost town basically, dropped stuff at the hostel, headed off to schonbrunn palace. pretty elaborate place, there was a small christmas market outside. coulda gone inside, but the 15 euro or something didn't really seem worth it, seen some palaces before anyway. wandered around the gardens and the 'yard' more or less, there was a zoo that i tried to snipe pics from outside, a big hill, no snow, just green grass on christmas day. some weird looking squirrels, runners with incredibly poor form, and a lot of tourists. got a hot wine at the christmas market, also eggnog with essentially 2 shots of rum and whipped cream on top. after this we headed towards the main part of the city where we stumbled on where all the government buildings, national library, stuff like that were. there were a couple art museums, so, after getting hit by some solid rain, we headed into the kunsthistorisches museum, art history museum. there was a ton of stuff in here, a lot of older art that i'm not a huge fan of, stuff like portraits of a million dudes. some of it was definitely cool for sure, the building itself was beautiful also. there was also an egyptian section, a badass statue of thesius clubbing a centaur, and some history on the habsburg empire as well. too much though, definitely pretty tired from walking around this. after the museum, went back to the palace to see a really shitty concert, scammed by some guys selling tickets outsides basically. not good. enough on that. went to eat some sushi at 'wok and more' which was pretty good, then just went back to chill at the hostel, played some pool and hung out.

woke up the next day, went to check out this st. stephen's church, there was a big mass going on, it was very cool actually. definitely one of the top 3 churches that i have seen so far, there were a lot of people though - but good to see nonetheless. took a short walk to some random park, where they used park benches to fence off the grass, rather than using benches. went to a nice small cafe 'kleines cafe' actually it was called, appropriately, to try some of this famous austrian coffee. i ordered a brauner, which is basically something like espresso with just a bit of milk. really good, i thought. and had some apfelstrudel as well. took the metro to some random stop cause we wanted to see the danube river, and ended up next to this pretty cool church, completely deserted, got some good pictures of it too. it was a nice walk on the bridge across the river, beautifully sunny day. visited this museum called haus der musik, just a pretty cool music museum. there was a room of mozart remixes that would have been perfect for a dance party. had supper at some badass restaurant in a wine cellar which was quite good actually, and so intense from the dark environment. it was like we were meeting to discuss important news from a faraway land. then we went to go see avatar in 3D. it was very, very awesome. i want to watch it again in imax 3D. such a cool movie.

woke up the next day, went for another pretty good viennese coffee, walked around a bit again, checked out the royal library and stuff like that, looked from outside of a butterfly garden, had a photoshoot in a park. went to eat at the centimeter, where we ordered 'the sword', far too much meat and fried food in one place at one time. schnitzel, pork chops, chicken wings, fries, and 5 L of beer at the table also did not help. post centimeter nap was very necessary. after this, we went to the opera for some standing room tickets for like 4 euro. the opera was 'la forza del destino' - i liked it very much, i love live orchestra anytime so i would have been happy just with that. but the singing was incredible and the translator screens on the seat in front helped a lot. it was really incredible and the opera house itself was very beautiful as well. saw all the austrians wearing their coat and tails and fur coats...one day, i will be classy enough to go back and get front row seats. great experience for now anyways.

next day the main goal was to hop on the three hour train to budapest, the ride there on the austrian train was great, equal in comfort to the swiss trains, the countryside was really awesome to see because mostly i just get to see big cities. but it was still green, in december, old looking houses and farms and little villages, great to see because it's something i don't usually think about while traveling. the train is good for that. arriving in the station in budapest was a bit hectic, got heckled by a bunch of sketchy people offering hostels and taxis and stuff, but overall not terrible at all. after withdrawing about 40000 from the bank machine (haha 1 chf/1 dollar = 180 hungarian forints) made off to navigate the metro system to find our hostel. got a nice sit down chat with the guy running the hostel and he basically told us what to do and where to go. went first to go check out these two super cool new buildings, one was an arts center where we found out that we could see a concert for about 1.50. it was nighttime and they were lit up, and right by the danube so the bridges and river and the lights were just amazing, took some time to check it out and take some pictures. went back to the main train station to meet up with everyone else, then just had some supper, went to sleep.

woke up the next day to hit up this really cool indoor market - basically they had everything there, food, clothes, fur hats, more food. whole pigs, foie gras, liquor, fruit, so many eggs, veggies, bread - yea i love markets, especially farmer/food markets. very cool. grabbed some food, cabbage roll and goulash - so hearty and cheap also and tasty. after the market we headed toward the buda castle, walked up a bit of a hill and checked out a great view of the city, and the river. after hanging out here and seeing the hungarian changing of the guards, we headed towards the thermal baths - budapest apparently is famous for them. on the way, somehow stumbled on a christmas market in the main square, which was actually really well done. had a nice warm hot white wine, and sampled the hungarian christmas delicacy known as the steaming bread tube. basically dough wrapped around a cylinder and roasted over a fire and covered in sugar/nuts/cinnamon etc. so good. hit these thermal baths - there were a lot of people there, a lot of pools as well, but besides being pretty big and looking bad ass it wasn't as great as i expected - the roman baths that i went to on the wellness weekend in switzerland were really amazing i thought, compared to these. still good though - after some good relaxing we headed back towards those awesome art buildings to catch a show - a hungarian pop star. grabbed some super cheap kebabs on the way, and the friendly shopkeeper offered all of us a small cup of cola. weird haha, they didn't really know what was going on, hadn't really heard of canada and we were just kinda wandering around in some random part of the city as well. the 1.50 tickets to the hungarian pop star meant we had to get there a bit early and standing room towards the rafters - still really good though, more comfortable than the standing room in vienna at the opera (where it was also packed and really hot) so this show was pretty good in that regard. i love live music as long as it's not horrible so this show was actually quite good. obviously had no idea what he was saying, but he was definitely rocking out. towards the end there was a violin solo type thing which was very good also. also there was an electric mandolin. went back to the hostel, to sample some 'unicum' which we had picked up at the grocery store earlier - it is a herbal liqueur of some sort - tastes absolutely horrible though. it is like jaegermeister gone rogue, and i really like jaegermeister also. yea, haha glad that i had the unicum experience though, apparently hungarians just love it. also had picked up some hungarian beer earlier - not so good, in my opinion. hung out for a bit more and just chilllled.

next day, headed back to the christmas market in the main square, of course ate some more steaming bread tube. went shopping for some ridiculous clothing, in four stores that were pretty much exactly the same. pretty cheap though and i got some sweet shirts. walked down through more of the market as well, was cold and cloudy and foggy though. walked along the river, towards some bridges and towards parliament. the buildings themselves are pretty cool i thought. didn't get pre-bought tickets so didn't actually get to go inside but it was a nice walk nonetheless. randomly took a metro and ended up somewhere in the main part of town by the food market earlier. just hung out in a restaurant and had about 70 beers before heading back, grabbing backpacks, and hopping on a night train bound for prague.

this night train arrived in prague at 3:30 am in the morning, it was tooo early. had some wine on the train, the guy running the car tried to sell me some beer also. in any case, arrived in prague in the middle of the night and proceeded to start wandering. found a mac donalds, a main square where there was a christmas market set up, walked towards the river and ended up just wandering around some cobblestone streets looking for a metro station. somehow we ended up at the hostel, which opened at 7 am, at around 6 or so i think, so just chillin in a tram shelter for awhile. luckily they had a room for us right away so grabbed some well deserved sleep for awhile. the next day was new years eve, so woke up and by the time we shook off arriving at 3 am, it was already time for supper. found this good place for some hearty food and good czech pilsner urquell. a nice little walk over charles bridge and headed over to some big famous club for new year's eve - 5 floors, nothing really that special though. a lot of guys. also handed out some terrible champagne at the door. in any case, that was another year to add i guess. got home pretty late, and then just slept and had another bit of a lazy morning.

next day, took the metro and went to walk around the town, stumbled on this beautiful hotel restaurant cafe where i had some delicious onion soup and eggs and breakfast. the washroom there also had the most majestic golden swan tap. then we found perhaps the nicest mall i have ever been in, and proceeded to walk around the city until we got to the main square where there was another christmas market going on. here was where i got the best ham i have ever had in my life, it was amazing. there were also freshly made stroopwafels as well. very cool christmas market - i think either the prague or budapest or basel ones were my favorite. somehow we ended up eating some more at another restaurant, and then basically just headed back to the hostel to chill. me and chris decided to go on a night adventure on the metro and ended up wandering around, taking some great pictures, and somehow ended up at the train station that we had arrived in. prague is really a beautiful city, in terms of buildings and architecture, cobblestone streets it is hands down the most 'badass' city i have been in. lots of architecture styles, but i would like to think that the prominent one was 'gothic' so lots of spiky spires which are really awesome. ended our adventures at mac donalds again, got some beer at the mac donalds, no big deal, some family was there with their kid, just havin some beers at the mac donalds. in any case mac donalds is pretty good once in awhile. as we were heading back, it started snowing! the first snow on the 'christmas' trip. it was very nice actually.

last day in prague. tried to get to the walking tour, ran up and down the longest escalators in the world i'm pretty sure in the prague metro - well i guess that's just one more side comment here - you never really know how far underground you are in the metro, like in madrid, munich, budapest, vienna, prague, berlin - how far are you underground?? like there could be 3 or 4 huge escalators before you get to the ground surface, it's incredible. anyways, ended up finally making it to where we're supposed to meet for the free tour. really great guy, keith, showed us around the city, pointed out some super neat things. took a bunch of pictures along the way obviously, the main churches, the lame astronomical clock, some defenestrations, the river, the bridges, the castle, jewish quarter, synagogues, and this cool bagel place also. great tour, it was definitely snowing a bunch and pretty chilly though. after the tour, i got more of the best ham in the world, and purchased a prague hat. then went grocery shopping for supplies for the long train ride home. also 10 dollars bought enough food for 3 people for like 3 days i think. so cheap.

hopped on the night train bound for home, hung out in the train car which was pretty comfortable i thought - side note, between the three night trains i would say that this last one was the most comfortable. talked to this very awesome german guy, otmar, who told us about what it was like living in germany when it was still east and west germany. super, super cool. also german people in general i have found are very outgoing, friendly, super cool, speak great english. really amazing i think, really like german people. it was a 14 hour train ride from prague to baden, but somehow the train got delayed by like 3 hours because of the snow on the tracks over the mountains, so basically didn't end up getting home till 17 or 18 hours after we had left. in any case, it was an amazing trip, and i just wish that i had more time. i would love to go back to vienna again to see some more ballet or opera or orchestra, back to budapest for sure, very friendly people that just want you to enjoy their city, lots of museums and things to see and do that i didn't really get a chance to, and back to prague because i didn't even get to go explore the castle. or have enough absinthe.

for the rest of that weekend, just chilled out and relaxed and cleaned up before having to head back to work, sigh, on monday. happy new year everyone!