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.