TravelStream™ news feed for member skngpunk on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/skngpunk en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Wed, 08 Jul 2009 22:19:04 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/skngpunk/the_alps_05-06/1148339640/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/skngpunk/the_alps_05-06/1148339640/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/skngpunk/the_alps_05-06/1148339640/tpod.html Wed, 08 Jul 2009 22:19:04 -0400 The Alps, 2005-2006

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Corfu, Greece



Greece

Finally I got my courage back and decided to travel down from Bulgaria and into Greece. What an amazing, beautiful place. It was about 12 hours from Sofia to Athens, and every hour I could see the plants changing from continental European forest to Mediterranean scrub, palm trees, and even to desert plants sometimes. Athens is a crazy place. The bus dropped us off at this random lot between city buildings somewhere in what looked like a downtown area. Hmmm... what should I do? I had an address for some hotel but no idea how to get there. I asked somebody from the bus company in mixed Bulgarian/English if they knew where the street was but they just told me to take a taxi. I hopped in a taxi and asked how much he would charge for my luggage and pickup etc. but he just told me to get in. Well about 4 minutes later we were on the right street, I saw the hotel, we stopped with the meter reading 1 euro 75 cents. He hit this magical button and the meter read 3 euro 50 and then he tells me that will be 6 euros, you know, luggage charge. Ok... so I show him my wallet and tell him I have just enough cash for my hotel room and then just a bunch of change to give him for the taxi ride. He says how much, I say here's 3.20 in change he says whatever. Cheats.

One day was plenty for me in Athens. I saw the Acropolis, ate some souvlaki (a gyro), wandered this really nice, lush park, saw the original Olympic stadium, and went down to the beach. Enough... then I raced back to my hotel, picked up my luggage, ran down the streets of Athens looking for some other hostel from which a bus was leaving at 8 pm for the island of Corfu. Every block I walked the people looked darker and scarier. Glad I didn't stay in that hostel. Well I was late for the bus but they called the driver and he and the 20 other kids waited for me. I think I actually enjoy being late for some reason.

6 am after a long tiring bus ride, a surreal and dark ferry ride, and a dawn trip through the mountains and forests of Corfu we arrive at the Pink Palace, this hostel hotel thing in the middle of nowhere. I swear it is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. The weather was perfect and everyone is there just to have fun. Not to show off their money or fancy clothes, but just to have fun. When they checked us into the hotel at 7 am of course all we wanted to do was sleep but instead they hand out a cup full of ouzo to everyone. Though drinking was the last thing on my mind since I felt so crappy from the bus ride it actually hit the spot.

The Pink Palace is mostly full of Americans doing study abroad programs in Europe, and also Canadian young people doing their summer traveling. I met this guy from New Zealand named Chris and we wandered around chatting to people a lot. They had this toga party that night and I remember seeing girls crying because no guys were talking to them... there were these hired Greek guys in costume doing traditional dances and breaking plates on peoples' heads. That was really cool and the music was really cool with some stringed instrument playing really loud on the speakers.

Chris and I hired some four wheelers to cruise the island on which was really cool. These quads were street legal so we checked out beaches and lakes and mountains and stopped at this restaurant with only one woman working in it and only one thing on the menu (souvlaki). It was really good and we got stuffed on lamb and sauce and salad while the lady drank her coffee at the next table.

The island of Corfu is like 30 miles long and about 7 or 8 wide and is up near the border between Greece and Albania. I remember looking across the little bay that separates Corfu from the mainland and seeing some high snow-capped plateaus. This is while it is 85 or 90 degrees down on the seacoast. There were actually some waves on the Pink Palace side (west side) of the island, enough to body surf. The water is a perfect blue, and there's lots of coves, rocks, and cliffs to explore. The first day Chris and I went out with kayaks and wiped ourselves out by plowing straight into the wind. I found a little cave to take my kayak into which was cool.

Corfu is a really nice place and the Pink Palace is a really good place to go for a couple of days.


]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/skngpunk/the_alps_05-06/1147734600/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/skngpunk/the_alps_05-06/1147734600/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/skngpunk/the_alps_05-06/1147734600/tpod.html Wed, 08 Jul 2009 22:17:25 -0400 The Alps, 2005-2006

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Sliven, Bulgaria



Flying to Bulgaria

My flight to Sofia had a connection through Budapest, Hungary and so the plane flew straight northeast from Rome. I was really surprised to see lots of very high, snow-covered mountains right next to the sea on the eastern Italian coast. I guess those are the Appenines and there was still plenty of snow on them in mid-May.

Most of the Eastern Europeans I know have this way selling where they live whenever they talk about it. "You should come in the spring, it's very beautiful and the women are very beautiful and the sea is beautiful..." So I guess somehow I had gotten it into my head that if I went to Bulgaria in the spring (May), it would be a completely different place than I had seen it previously in December and January. Well, it is different because the air is warmer, the trees are green, and the air's a little cleaner (but not much)... but Bulgaria is still Bulgaria. There's still huge potholes in the roads, missing sidewalks, stray dogs, trash on the ground everywhere, and just this savage, decayed, we're too tired to fix things up feeling.

But on the other hand all the things that have appealed to me about Bulgaria still hold true. There's a bit more of a cultural life going on in summer than in winter. I love how much music the Bulgarians have surrounding them all the time. There's like 4 free music channels on TV in Bulgaria, all with either pop music or pop-folk (Chalga). Even MTV is free in Bulgaria. I went with some people to a concert with Dicho (Di4o in Bulgarian shorthand), the hip hop group Absurd, and some young blond singer whose name I can't remember. There's all these exotic and beautiful dancing girls on the stage, all super confident and powerful looking, prancing onto stage with short skirts and long ponytails and then prancing off again to change into another short skirt backstage.

I actually met Dicho once, in 2004, when he was the lead singer for D2 (deh dve). He was so excited to meet an American and he asked me how he did when he sang songs in English but I wasn't very impressed. His Bulgarian songs are really, really good though.

Here's a music video for D2, Az i Ti: (video)

He was planning to take D2 to New York and Chicago and he wanted me to try and arrange venues for the band. Well he was kind of wasting his breath on me since that's not really my thing but I think it's funny now, especially since last year he dumped D2 to start his solo career as a little bit more of a hip hop singer than a guitar pop singer. His big song in the last few months has been "Az Nyamam Chef" which means "I Have No Boss." The video for the song has lots of big-chested dancing girls in bikinis, Dicho with a cigar in his hand and singing "I don't have a 'chef'"... this same guy who was begging me to be his tour organizer.

The blond singer whose name I can't remember had this really cool dance that was like the hip hop girls but in slow motion. Her skirt would flip up with every beat and all the guys and girls in the crowd would go crazy. Then there was the group Absurd, who are huge in Bulgaria with their Beastie Boys kind of style with political lyrics. I'm sure I would have appreciated it more if I could have understood what they were saying. It's funny to me how somethings I hear in Bulgarian are absolutely clear as day to me, as clear as if they were in English but then other times I have no idea what people are saying.

Well I stayed a couple weeks in Bulgaria but started to go crazy again because I felt like I was slipping into the lifestyle too much. What I mean by that is the pace in Bulgaria is almost too slow for me to be comfortable... sleep late, take your time, go get a coffee, walk around, talk to friends, sip some drinks, maybe go to class, maybe work a little on stuff. I kept feeling stagnant so I tried to go out running a couple of times. Well the thing is, Bulgaria's not very good for running unless you have a car to get out into the mountains or country or something. All these people kept telling me "Watch out for the dogs!" And they were right! There were so many stray dogs around that running past them would start their chase instinct so I had to trick quite a few dogs into leaving me alone. That and there's no good sidewalks, the air's dirty, and everyone (literally) was staring at me whenever I ran. I'm quite sure that nobody exercises in Bulgaria unless they are training for the Olympics and are rich or something. Well I heard of one girl that went jogging in Sofia but she never came back because she got attacked by a stray dog. I just feel like it's hard to live a really healthy or active lifestyle in Bulgaria. But they sure eat healthy, and drink (very slowly) a lot of alcohol. Stress control, I guess.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/skngpunk/the_alps_05-06/1148511900/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/skngpunk/the_alps_05-06/1148511900/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/skngpunk/the_alps_05-06/1148511900/tpod.html Wed, 08 Jul 2009 22:06:07 -0400 The Alps, 2005-2006

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Rome, Italy

After my couple weeks in Torino, Italy, in April, eating la cucina di la mama di Lorenzo and pretending to catch up on my thesis work, the travel bug got a hold of me again and I knew it was time to go. I know Lorenzo understands. Lorenzo is this cool dude who I taught skiing with back in Courmayeur, Italy. I think I left his house during the first week of May. Well I got on a train headed for Rome, since I had bought a cheap plane ticket for a few days later from Rome to Sofia, Bulgaria. Against Lorenzo's advice I took the long train to Rome (7½ hrs), which to my good surprise traveled the Mediterranean coast through Genova and Pisa. I think I cried when I finally saw the beautiful blue water and all the big huge palm trees on the coast. That's how much the cloudy, cold winter in Switzerland had affected me, I guess. I was so ready for summer and the beach and wearing flip-flops and everything... Well anyway the coast on the western side of Italy is gorgeous, with mountains dropping into the sea and palm trees and everything. I hear that the Amalfi coast south of Napoli is even more beautiful.

Rome

85 degrees (30 celsius), sunny, and humid seems to be normal for Rome in the warm season, and so the trains drop you off at Rome Termini station and most tourists have no clue where they are in the city. All I knew was that there were a bunch of hostels somewhere to the north of the train station so I wandered around, sweating, with my rolling suitcase thing and my normal sized backpack. Most of the places were booked but eventually I found this crappy place to stay. A word of advice: if you don't have a hostel or hotel reservation in Rome just find the hotel information desk in the train station and someone will probably grab you and start writing down an address for you to go to. Things just tend to work out.

Well the first night I met these Australian guys to roam around town with and we went to the Spanish Steps (La Piazza di Spagna) which is this beautiful staircase that leads from this square up to some church. It's kind of in the center of Rome (if there were such a thing) and that's where all the young people go to just hang out, and maybe drink some coca cola or water. Italians aren't binge drinkers, which I think is very cool. If you are obviously not Italian and you go to the Spanish Steps you will be approached by some American college kids with flyers in their hands advertising Pub Crawls. These guys are cool and they drink a lot every night.

The Australian guys that I was with didn't want to spend 15 euro to go on a stupid pub crawl so they made friends with the flyer people and tried to figure out which bars they were going to. Well the plan kind of worked and we managed to find one of the bars. There was this kid at the bar who was sitting alone and some girls started talking to him. The second they found out that he had come to the bar on his own rather than in some big group they ran away. Somehow I thought that was sad... Americans insist on traveling in packs and think anyone who goes alone is weird. But then go out anywhere and you can meet all kinds of Kiwis and Australians or South Africans who don't have a care in the world when it comes to just going out to some far away place like Turkey, Italy, Puerto Rico or Hawaii, completely alone. There's always people to meet. Thinking back on my four months in Europe this trip I can hardly think of any days where I was actually alone. Somehow there was just always someone around, so I was basically never alone and usually with really cool, fun, smart people. But still the first question out of an American's mouth is "You mean you went alone?"

So the next day I wandered around Rome, checked out the Sistine Chapel and the Coloseum. The Sistine Chapel was very cool since I was able to see all these frescoes by Michelangelo, da Vinci, and Botticelli that I had learned about sometime when I was in college. On one hand I think that art is really amazing, but then sometimes I wonder what all the hoopla is all about since sometime the art is just plain weird.

That evening I met my friend Marco Amici who is from Rome at the Spanish Steps and we got some dinner and gelato. I really like Rome... something I never expected to feel. It's just a cool place, with all the crazy streets and big old buildings and coffee bars and palm trees and stuff. I once read a description of what Rome was probably like 2000 years ago during the days of the Roman Empire and it really wasn't much different than it is now...
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/skngpunk/the_alps_05-06/1146524520/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/skngpunk/the_alps_05-06/1146524520/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/skngpunk/the_alps_05-06/1146524520/tpod.html Wed, 08 Jul 2009 22:04:50 -0400 The Alps, 2005-2006

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Torino, Italy

Living in the Alps, Part II



Switzerland



After finishing a couple of weeks working in Interlaken, Switzerland for the British tour operator Skiing Europe, I made my way up to Zurich (also in Switzerland) to take a German course at the Benedict Sprachschule (Language school) for a month. I rented a room in a house in the nicest suburb I have ever seen, on Lake Zurich. The family I lived with, the Bezzolas, dont even have a car because in Zurich you really dont need one. Every day as I was taking the bus or tram or train into the city, at rush hour I could see the rich people with their shiny expensive cars, waiting forever at traffic lights while the public transport zoomed by... and unlike most places public transport in Switzerland is actually a pleasant experience because everything is so unbelievably clean and nice...



Madlaina Bezzola (my host mother) is from St. Moritz, Graubuenden, Switzerland, but moved to Zurich as a kid. St. Moritz is kind of like the Aspen of Europe, high in the mountains and big skiing area. Madlainas first language is Romantsch, a Latin-based language that very few people speak, and nobody else understands, but is actually an official language in Switzerland. Then she learned Swiss German by coming to Zurich, and High German in school, and then she did an exchange year in Oregon and learned English. She says that when she arrived in Oregon her English was about the same as my German... which is enough to survive and understand people but not enough to really be social...



Well anyway over the course of my stay I heard Madlaina speak perfect French, and apparently she also speaks Italian, and is a science teacher... busy busy lady!



Roadtrip to the Czech Republic



At the language school I made a few friends and got invited out to have Italian food with some people on the Niederdorstrasse, the cool little (narrow) pedestrian street in Zurich that is lined with bars and restaurants. While out I met Petra and Tsonam... a cool couple. Tsonam is Tibetan, and Petra met him in Tibet during her travels. After a few years of phone tag while Tsonam lived in California with some of his family they got married and she brought him to Switzerland. So Tsonam is basically the closest to an American that Ive met since Ive been in Europe... and not just that but a Californian and it was strange to hear the way he talks and thinks like a California kid.



Well upon going out later in Winterthur, about 20 minutes outside of Zurich, Petras twin sister Marlen invited me to go on this random weekend trip to the Czech republic. So Marlen, myself, and her friend Maria got in this little Finnish car one Saturday morning and drove about 9 hours from St. Gallen, Switzerland, through Austria, Germany, and into the Czech Republic. We stopped in Munich for an hour or two just to check it out and our jaws dropped when we saw how cheap the food was... I had forgotten how incredibly expensive it is in Switzerland. A doner kebab (like a burrito or gyro, basically a meal in a tortilla) in Switzerland costs like 8 dollars but in Munich they were going for about 2 dollars...



I didnt really like Munich much... but whatever. By the way on this whole trip (at least in the car) we didnt speak English and the Swiss girls were nice enough to speak High German for me instead of Swiss German which was cool.



I ended up driving most of the way to the Czech Republic, which was fun because on the freeway (Autobahn) in Germany theres no speed limit... so we were going as fast as that little Finnish car could go (160 km/hr or about 100 miles an hour)... and all the BMWs and Mercedes were zooming past us. Wow!



When we finally got to Pardobice (Par dO beee chay) in the Czech Republic east of Prague, it was nighttime and we were trying to find this bar where Marias boyfriend was playing. The girls were all scared because they think its really dangerous in Eastern Europe but we finally found this place and went inside. Wow were we underdressed. In Switzerland I had gotten used to dressing down. Well in the Czech Republic the people are kind of poorer but they take real pride in looking good. And all I can say about this bar is that Ive never seen so many blond and blue-eyed supermodels in my life. Wow... The people there are unbelievably beautiful...



Swiss Hardcore Punk Rock in the Czech Republic



Well we were trying to surprise Marias boyfriend who is the drummer in this Swiss and German hardcore punk band called Mr. Willis from Ohio. The band had been touring Germany and Poland for a few weeks so Maria missed her boyfriend. Turns out that we were in the wrong city (Pardobice) so we left the posh supermodel party (we all felt a little bit plain after that) and started driving towards Nachod (Nahhhod) which is on the border with Poland. To ask for directions, I made a lame attempt at speaking Czech, which ended up being some mix between Slovenian, Bulgarian, and English. Actually I understood what the people were saying because to my surprise a lot of Czech words are the same as Slovenian words... Well finally we found this little public hall where all these European hardcore bands were playing and it was a totally different scene. Whereas in the supermodel bar in Pardobice there was no mistaking that I was in Eastern Europe (no bars in America are that nice and clean inside), as soon as I entered the public hall I was right away back in California at some underground show. All the skater kids and metalheads in Nachod were out at this punk show, and Czech people have this really neutral Caucasian look so they could definitely pass for Americans whereas that doesnt work in Switzerland or Italy or Germany or wherever...



The music was really hard and really cool. It was funny to hear perfect English while the German guys were singing, but then when they would talk between songs it was in the middle language of English (not Czech or German) so they had fluent bad English....



All these blond girls were following us around (meaning all the German and Swiss people) wanting to talk to us... I wish I could know some language as well as all these people speak English...



Well anyway the show was finally over at 2 am and we were all exhausted and checked into this public hotel on the town square in Nachod. Turned out to be the nicest hotel Ive ever stayed in in my life... honestly because everything was absolutely brand new. Apparently the European Union had given some funding to the city of Nachod to boost tourism revenue...



When we woke up and had breakfast and the old guy who served us surprised me with no English but German... so it turns out that old Czech people usually speak some German but young Czech people usually speak English as their second language... so I guess its good to have a little artillery of languages sometimes...



And when we went outside we were shocked to see this beautiful castle looming above the town square, and this old church, and all this amazing stuff... in this no name town in the middle of nowhere, Eastern Europe.



5 countries in 1 day



We had to turn around and go back to Switzerland that morning because we all had school or work the next day... but we looked on the map and saw that we were only 5 km or so from the border with Poland... So we just had to go to Poland to say we had been there. We crossed through the border, drove around, were kind of disappointed and came back. They took a long time with my passport at the border control because I have this confusing mess of stamps in the back of the booklet... so they check it in the computer and have to wait for that. The funny thing is that going into Switzerland they just basically look at the blue cover and hand it back to me... I dont know what theyre so worried about in Poland.



Well we stopped in Prague for lunch, which was cool and packed full with tourists like Disneyland... quite a difference from those little cities we visited out in the country. 5 years ago when I was in Prague before I stumbled into this dark, hidden restaurant for lunch and had this amazing dish for like $2 with dumplings, beef, this secret sauce, and a dollop of jam on top of the beef. It was awesome. So from time to time for the last few years Ive really wanted to have that Czech dish again. I didnt know what the heck it was called, but just by chance I happened to order the same thing again... it was soo good. Except this time it was about $10 instead of $2 since things are on the move in the Czech Republic.



Oh yeah so in conclusion we ended up driving through 5 countries that day: Poland, the Czech Republic, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Whoop dee doo.



Bottomless Powder, back in Interlaken!



After my month in Zurich I went back to work with Skiing Europe again in Interlaken. This time it was way less stressful because I was the veteran and knew that I basically had no responsibilities whatsoever except to teach skiing. Life is so much better when you can just cruise through it. Plus I managed to get a few lunchtime powder runs in...



The thing about skiing in Switzerland is that the mountains are really huge, and most of the time the snow is only so-so at best. And the weather can be cloudy and windy for days on end... But then every other week or so a cold storm would come through and drop some powder. The day after these storms were always the clearest. Information about snowdepths tends to be really hard to come by so you never know how much new snow there is unless youre actually on a mountain somewhere... which so many times this winter ended up being a pleasant surprise. On the Schilthorn (about 10,000 feet at the top) I had a good 4 or 5 days this season where at the bottom of the mountain there was maybe 10 inches of snow but at the top there was 3 or 4 feet of snow, enough to call it bottomless...



Add to that the fact that the Swiss do not like to ski Off-Piste which means off of the marked runs and trails. I hear that its actually illegal to ski outside of the colored poles on the outside margins of the ski trails unless you have some special guide certification... which is really kind of silly in the end.



But the end result is that in a ski area with tons of open powder in a high alpine bowl, and a marked piste down the middle of it, most the Swiss wont even touch the powder on the sides because they honestly believe that something bad will happen if they do. Plus they dont really know how to ski off-piste...



So skiing the Schilthorn, for me, has meant skiing more untouched powder than I have ever experienced in my life! If you dont ski, its this amazing floating feeling...

Right after finishing up the last classes in Interlaken I headed with Jon-o over to Aosta, Italy. We taught for a week in Courmayeur, and got thoroughly baked in the southern sun, ate antipasti all day, and both decided that we were going to marry italian women and sit on the piazza in the center of Aosta drinking caffe all day long the rest of our lives.

Working for Interski in Courmayeur, I met Lorenzo and we decided to ski the Vallee Blanche on Mont Blanc together and he invited me to his home near Torino for a while. His mom's cooking is AWESOME.

Skiing Mont Blanc marked the end of the ski season for me, so I left my skis in Lorenzo's basement. I am going to pick them up soon... like I needed an excuse to return to the Alps!




Italy

A few of the ski instructors for Skiing Europe mentioned that another British tour operator, Interski, was desperate for instructors in Italy. So I found their website, sent an email and my resume, and got myself a job teaching skiing in Italy. Italy!

One of the other guys with Skiing Europe, Jon-o, was going to the same place so we traveled together to Italy from Interlaken. Jon-os cool, and not a big drunk like most of the English guys. The last six months hes been teaching snowboarding in the Snowdome, the UKs Premier Indoor Real Snow Slope. What a cool but silly job to have.

We took trains over the Bernese Alps, then down into the French speaking part of Valais, Switzerland. From Martigny we had to take a bus up and over the Walliser (valliser) Alps and into Italy... at the border we switched from a Swiss bus to and Italian bus... and whoa you could smell it. Things are a bit more run down in Italy than in Switzerland.

Anyway as we descended into Aosta we started to see some spring leaves, and Mediterrenean plants... getting warmer... It was pouring rain as we were dumped out at this random bus station on the industrial side of Aosta... luckily after wandering around with our super noisy rolled luggage we finally got directions to the tourist office and from there got a little one star hotel room. Food is way cheaper in Italy and we had this amazing huge italian meal for like 8 euros apiece.

The next morning, in Aosta, was something that Ill remember for the rest of my life. Nothing really happened, but the sun was shining, it was on its way to be in the 70s, which was the first really warm weather I had felt in a long time... All the families and people were out on the street and on the main piazza... So Jon-o and I sat for a long time sipping cappucinno and eating pastries, in the sun, surrounded by beautiful old buildings, somehow an atmosphere that I cant imagine experiencing in Switzerland, or England, or the US... we just dont know how to do it the same way as the people south of the Alps.

The Courmayeur Life

The next week, working for Interski was in the end pretty cool. Courmayeur is a pretty good ski area right in front of the Italian face of Mont Blanc (the 15,000 foot highest mountain in Europe). Really an amazing place. And the sun was shining like crazy. That was the best part... now Im really brown. After work we would take the tram down to the town and go the Bar Roma, where Interski employees got half-priced drinks and a huge table full of vegetables and antipasti... theres no way I can convey how nice it was to have a table full of delicious salads and bruscetta with a drink after a warm day in the sun skiing... only in Italy.

Jon-o and I had been eyeing this chute that came down through the cliffs at the very top of Courmayeur. Skiing in Europe has kind of made me timid and paranoid... mostly because skiing at European ski areas is really tame... though the mountains are really huge somehow the ski pistes are always laid out with super safety in mind so you never have the really steep stuff that you can have so easily at an American ski resort. Well anyway Jon-o and I finally got over our stupid paranoia and just went for it one morning. We had to give our names and phone numbers and were only allowed to do this run because we were ski instructors (apparently the general public is not allowed to go without a guide). Well the run was really amazing, the snow was nice, it was really steep... but really just like all the stuff that is fair game inside a ski resort like Kirkwood or Squaw Valley or Snowbird. So Im just convinced that Europeans are really really paranoid about skiing off-piste in a way that I cant really understand. As in whats the big deal?

There was one Italian instructor working for Interski at Courmayeur, named Lorenzo. The three of us would take morning warm up runs, super fast, before our lessons. The thing that irked me about working with Interski was that all these drunk ski bums had this big attitude about them, like they were really something special. Its this cocky attitude that people develop sometimes when a hierarchy develops. So there were these guys who had been working in Courmayeur for several weeks and were just cocky as hell because they had the BASI level 2 certification instead of level 1 (BASI is the British ski instructor certification organization)... or they thought they skied better than everybody else.

Well the truth was these cocky guys did ski better than almost everybody else (most of the other English, that is) because the whole of them arent very good at all. They just dont have enough experience, living on their little island, unless theyve spent a season or two at a ski resort... But nevertheless they really felt like they were something special...

All I know is that these cocky guys who wouldnt talk to Jon-o and I on the first days were suddenly friendly after they saw that we can ski 5 times as well as they can because weve spent whole seasons skiing and riding whereas your average English ski instructor can only count the weeks that he has practiced... so of course we were better... and I was completely uninterested in talking to these cocky guys who were suddenly nice to me... so does that make me cocky?

Skiing the Vallee Blanche on Mont Blanc

Somehow Lorenzo and I had cooked up this scheme that we wanted to ski the Vallee Blanche, which contains this huge glacier (called the sea of ice, the Mer de Glace, in French) that descends from Mont Blanc. There is a cable car that goes from the valley floor on the Italian side of Mont Blanc, all the way up to 11,400 feet at Punta Helbronner, on the ridge that divides France from Italy. From there it is possible to ski on the glacier down to about 6,000 feet, then take a train down to Chamonix, and then a bus through the Mont Blanc tunnel back to Italy. The ski run is something between 10 and 15 MILES long, with a mile of vertical drop. It is crazy.

There is a business on Mont Blanc of guides offering to take people down the Vallee Blanche from Punta Helbronner, and if you ask any tourist or tourist officer or guide, it is deadly dangerous to do the Vallee Blanche without a guide. And if you go to the guide society or tourist office in Courmayeur and ask for information about the ski run, they refuse to tell you anything except that theres crevasses and avalanches, and you dont know the way, and you need a guide. Minimum of 100 euros for a day, including all the tickets. Expensive. Ask any of the English ski instructors, the tourists who may have skied the Vallee Blanche with a guide once, they will say you really really shouldnt do it without a guide, its very dangerous.

But if you ask anybody who actually knows, as in an experienced ski instructor or a local skier, anyone who has lived in the area and knows it well, they will tell you the truth, that theres a well-beaten path, you can see the crevasses from a mile away, the slope is far to flat to have any avalanche danger, and that its a really fun run, you should do it, ive done it several times! So there is risk, but quite small compared to what it is described as. Its just paranoia...

So theres this myth that is partly fueled by the guide business and partly fueled by a fear of everything that isnt paved and groomed, that a guide is required...

One day at Courmayeur I happened to bump into two ski instructors that I knew from 4 years ago, at Heavenly in California. A total crazy small world coincidence. Well they were in Chamonix for a PSIA (Professional Ski Instructors of America) conference, and over the course of their conference they had skied the Vallee Blanche, with a guide. When I shared with them our ideas of skiing the Vallee Blanche without a guide, we were sternly warned not to do it... the same canned answer...

Well Lorenzo and I really werent sure what to believe, so we looked for pictures on the internet, descriptions on the internet by people who had skied the Vallee Blanche before, and were lucky enough to be sitting in a cafe one time where a guide was making arrangements with a client to take her and her 8 year old son down the Vallee Blanche. So we tried to weigh the evidence, and finally decided just to try it! Our plan was that if we were ever in doubt, we could just wait for a guided group to come along and just piggyback on them. Sly.

When we woke up the morning of our trip it was raining, with thunder. So we decided to wait for another day. But then within an hour it was clear, and the webcams on Mont Blanc showed blue skies with some lingering clouds around, so we ran out to the car and headed up the mountain. Turns out that the Punta Helbronner ridgeline was socked in with clouds when we arrived, but we decided to just go up anyway and try to wait out the weather. The guy at the ticket counter told us to have a good time...obviously a local skier... but then on the ride up in the cable car Lorenzo got chastised (in italian) for going without a guide by some random guy with a big camera. But take note, the man was a non-skier, and in my opinion was just giving the canned, paranoid answer.

Well when we got to the top we felt a little stupid because it was really foggy, and as we looked around we couldnt even find the way to get out onto the glacier, let alone ski it. I definitely felt the altitude, as in I felt light headed, short of breath, and a little sick. Whats strange is Im quite used to being at high altitudes, even up to 12,500 feet, but Ive never felt that way. And Im in pretty good shape now. This 11,000 foot ridge was about the highest I had ever been in Europe... so what Im thinking the explanation is is that Europe is quite a bit farther north than the mountain peaks I had been on in California, Utah, and Colorado... ive learned before that the rotation of the earth causes the atmosphere to be basically thicker (depth-wise) at the equator and thinner the farther north or south you go from there... So 20,000 feet on Mount McKinley in Alaska has the same amount of oxygen as at 23 or 24,000 feet on the Equator. So maybe, 11,000 feet in France and Italy is more like 13,000 feet in California... or something... i dont know.

After a few minutes I felt better, but the clouds were still thick around the top station at Punta Helbronner. Lorenzo and I were completely comfortable with turning around and not skiing down the glacier if it was foggy. Too dangerous if you cant see the path or the crevasses.

Turns out there were quite a few people waiting out the weather at the top station, all without guides. Some Italian 20 somethings and some American guys. The Italians were just in their old ski clothes and cheap skis and the Americans had like harnesses and brand new high-tech jackets and boots... just goes to show that both methods work!

Well the Italians had a walkie talkie and were talking to some people down lower on the glacier who said it was absolutely clear and marvellous just a few hundred meters down... so we just waited, and then suddenly a break in the clouds, sunshine, and blue sky. It only lasted for about 4 or 5 minutes, but we decided that if another break in the clouds came we could at least make it down below the level of the clouds. Well as luck had it we had a good solid 10 minutes without fog so we were able to make it a good way down before it fogged up again... Then it was a complete whiteout for a few minutes and we just waited. We skied around one big crevasse and then the whole run was cake after that.

As it turns out probably the most dangerous part is the Italian side because far fewer people ski from Italy into France. And really it was just a matter of skiing around one big crevasse. Almost everybody who skies the Vallee Blanche skis from the Aiguille du Midi, which is a ridgeline above Chamonix, France. At the point where the French route converges with the Italian route, the run became a lot like Disneyland... with literally hundreds of people skiing down from high above. It was even crowded sometimes...

Well as soon as we were in the Vallee Blanche itself the weather was far better, with blue sky... The Italian side had clouds because there the wind was blowing upslope, but in the Vallee Blanche and the French side the wind was going downhill so it was dry and clear.

The run was really a lot of fun... so many people had gone over it that there were mogul fields...
All told the skiing took 1 hour and 45 minutes.... but think about it, skiing downhill, continuously, for more than an hour and a half. What a great run, and when we finally arrived in Chamonix we got a hamburger and a beer with the hundreds of other skiers who had done the Vallee Blanche that day, without a guide.

Torino, Italy

So now Im staying at Lorenzo's family's house in San Gillio, which is a town outside of Torino, Italy. The weather has been really warm. The first day when we drove out of the Alps away from Mont Blanc and down the Aosta Valley, it was over 80 degrees in the plains that are called the Piedmont. It was a gorgeous drive, with waterfalls and huge mountains, all the leaves on the trees beginning to come out. Whats cool about Aosta is that it is a valley surrounded by 13 and 14,000 foot mountains, all with glaciers. Some of the best ski areas in Europe are just an hour away, like Chamonix-Mont Blanc, Cervina and Zermatt (where the Matterhorn is), and Monte Rosa. Unfortunately Ill have to ski those places another season, but now I know where to go...

Torino (or sometimes Turin in English) is just warm enough to have a few palm trees, which is really astounding to see since this is still so close to cold Switzerland where I spent the winter. The Alps are right there all the time, and it is very green here. Torino's a bit industrial and lacks jobs for the educated and everyone I talk to seems to really want to leave... but it is a nice place anyway.

Now I'm learning some Italian and I absolutely cant believe how in the world I am able to understand so much Italian... I cant really say much except what is that and he is over there and this food is good and stuff like that but I can actually follow peoples conversations... after 2 weeks in Italy.

Here in Torino Ive been enjoying Lorenzos mamas cooking which is amazing, and catching up on some of my grad school readings. Waiting for the next adventure...


conclusion

Well I know this is long but I can't even scratch the surface of all the stuff i've been doing this winter and spring in europe. and especially the amazing people that i've met like tom, sophie, jono, lorenzo, celina, marlen, tsonam, petra, maria, castriot, erica, doug, galeg, madlaina, jan, and... so here's just a sample of the things i've been doing and what i've been thinking and stuff...








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Zurich, Switzerland

Before heading back home for the holidays, I stopped off in Zurich, Switzerland to see my friend Celina, who has suffered my painful German for several years now. It is pretty much thanks to her that I speak any German at all.
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New York, New York, United States

In New York I said goodbye to my friends (in the rain) got on an overnight flight to London.
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Ljubljana, Slovenia

I love Slovenia because my brother Gasper lives there and there are lots of great clubs in Ljubljana. Slovenians really know how to have fun and for better and for worse they all dress like male models.
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Rome, Italy



From Corfu a group of about 10 of us caught a ferry across the Mediterranean to Bari, Italy. It was Chris and I, these two Australian girls, and these Canadian girls. We had to sleep on the boat which kind of sucked but then we woke up and wow there's Italy. The Canadian girls (from Edmonton) were going to follow Chris to Croatia but then they changed their minds and decided to go to France instead. I had to go to Rome to catch my flight home so we went on the same train. It was a long trip but the weather was sunny and there were views of big blue water and castles and we crossed through the Appenine Mountains which was really interesting. Even in the end of May there was still snow up on the peaks.

Being in Rome for the second time was a lot more relaxing and really nice because I knew my way around. For me it was kind of the perfect way to end my four months in Europe somehow. I was sad to go but what can you do. I found a hostel through some guy hanging outside of the hotel desk at the train station, helped the Canadian girls figure out how to get to the other train station in Rome for their trip to France, and we went for dinner and ice cream in Rome. I woke up at 5 am to go to the Rome airport
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Sofia, Bulgaria

I flew into Bulgaria to see Natalia, Irina, Marto, and Troyan, who I all know from working in Alaska. I went skiing in Bansko and it was really cool...


here's what i wrote while i was there:




fast food and vegetables



other than a random dirty taco stand I know in southern california, bulgaria has the best food in the world (better than french food sometimes). and there's generally a rule: the more expensive it is, the worse it is. so when in bulgaria, go cheap, and don't spend your nickel all in one place. oh and you ever wanted a hot sandwich with lots of meat and mayonnaise and corn salad and then put more mayonaisse on top and pay just 50 cents for it, go to a bulgarian fast food place. there's tons of them. you need all that fat to absorb the Rakia and vodka.



oh and bulgarian vegetables are the best I've ever tasted. I think it's all the garbage that they leave in their fields. they still expect the communist government to come pick it up for them.



they sure know how to drink



you have to try rakia. it's made from either grapes or plums and is basically homemade schnapps. you don't drink it in shots. you drink it at the table with family, with a plate of pickled vegetables in the middle of the table that everyone picks it off of. go to a student party in the middle of the night in a desolate block in Student's Town in Sofia and you'll probably have some hard liquor with salami and cheese. oh and they'll throw fireworks out the window so all the small town americans think they're in Baghdad or Kosovo for just a minute and dive beneath the bed.



gypsies and horses



in Sotirya, this little village at the foot of the Stara Planina (Old Mountains) in eastern bulgaria, for the first time in my life I saw people who actually ride horses around because they have no cars and no public transport. imagine a dark-skinned, maybe turkish looking 8 year old kid riding 40 miles an hour down a potholed dirty road in Bulgaria and look up on the hill towards the gypsies' houses to see them surrounded by trash and huge fires probably burning the trash to keep warm. what a weird place!



worse than L.A.



bulgaria is the only place I have ever been where the smog is worse than L.A.. it's disgusting. but the food's good!



chalga



any bulgarian who has any self-respect hates chalga music because it's what the white trash listen to. on my first day in bulgaria a friend explained to me that the lyrics are all about love triangles

I happen to like Chalga music because the singers always have big boobies and sing in really Eastern modes that you can never hear in the U.S. it's really cool music, like a cross between pop and eastern folk music.



Then as time went by and my ear started to tune in a little better to the bulgarian language, I heard the lyrics myself:



"I hate you because you love her but I love you." "Here there here there, I'll give it to you."



It's kind of the bulgarian equiv. of dirty hip hop. So sure it's trashy but I dig it.





the united states of England



Bulgaria is now a colony of Britain, and the ski resort Bansko is the capital. now that all of Brighton has arrived in Bulgaria to buy real estate, listen to cheesy touristy songs in the mexani (taverns), and to ski,



the prices are now twice as high, the food half as good, and the locals are twice as nice to you if you try to speak to them in Bulgarian rather than in the queen's english. Obicham bulgarskiat ezik.



the lucky fulbrighter



in one formerly charming 150 year old mexana (tavern and inn) in Bansko, the Dedo Pene Inn I saw this very american looking blond blue eyed girl speaking bulgarian with the owner of the hotel. I said "where did you learn bulgarian?" and she said she had been in bulgaria for four months. bulgarian's not easy to learn since there's no good dictionaries, and no good textbooks. you literally have to be in bulgaria or with a bulgarian to learn it.



so it turns out that this girl (Sasha) is in Bulgaria for an entire year on a Fulbright scholarship (lucky dog) to study ecotourism and economic development in Bulgaria. she's now a ski instructor at Bansko ski resort (4,500 vertical feet, bigger than the biggest in the U.S.) though by the sounds of it her main qualification to be a ski instructor was that she spoke English



now she is constantly trying to keep her image clear of being a shpoinka (spy), seeing as she just kind of wanders around bulgaria, asking everybody lots of questions about who owns what, especially in areas like Bansko where gangsters pretty much supplied the money to start the ski resort development a few years ago and developing right on protected national park lands glad it's her asking the questions and not me I'll just sip my rakia quietly in the corner.



skiing in bulgaria



the mountains are really big and beautiful in bulgaria. and the ski runs at bansko are really long. I like skiing in bulgaria.



the DBLers



the reason I am in Bulgaria is that while working in Alaska at Denali Backcountry Lodge there were a bunch of bulgarians and they are all darkish-haired, long-nosed and terribly hedonistic. I admire that. so Troyan, Irina, Natalia, and Marto, here's to you.
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Paris, France

Finally back in Europe, I stopped off at Deyan's place to drop off my skis. Deyan introduced me to all of the strange cheeses of France. I guess I'm not man enough to handle most of them...
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