i’ve been skiing today, demoing skis, and it was great fun, but ssooooo much more tiring than snowboarding.

they were huge 185cm and wide for powder, twin-tips. and different.

i’ll try some different skis another day.

at the weekend we had at least a meter of snow, so things are looking good for the winter.

so tuesday was nicola’s birthday, which was fun.
monday i snuck out and drive to chamonix, which was fun considering they had barely plowed the road, and i couldn’t work out how to fit my chains, but the car works fine in the snow.

driving from verbier to chamonix in the snow

so in the morning we had croissants and champagne. nic went for lunch with her boss in bosses restaurant with the kids she looks after.

in the evening we had a treasure hunt for nic, and when she came back in cold and snowy there was big fondue! so lots of merry fun.

appartment hunting is a little like a rollercoaster. i went to visit the flat with the couple, and the girl said no way she wanted to live there, and they didn’t have the cash up front anyway.
so today i now have the descion over who gets to stay there, as there is lots of interest. it had been a trouble to get half the season’s rent up front for people, but now there are so many people so desperate that there’s no problem.

job wise, i keep getting optimistic responses, but no jobs have yet materialised.

i am ACHEY!

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i had an great time with ben, harry, amy, leona and felix in barbate near cadiz in the south of spain. it was lovely to be by the ocean, rather than the med. to sum it up, 1.65 euro cava from lidl, long blonde beach, chiringito, waves, sun burn, digging holes, and fussy eating.

then i had a pleasant few day in the north of england. i stayed with ben’s family, saw the sunnyest weekend the north had all summer, and had a nice cool weekend.

there were a few short days in mataro including taking the rover to be scrapped.

then i came to switzerland. my goals for this trip were:
- buy a car,
- find a place to live for the winter.

so goal one, i flew to zurich on the friday, and got a rental car, which was great, just 20pounds per day. it was a big renault scenic automatic. i now know i don’t like automatic, but i guess that is my style of driving. i couch surfed for 3 nights with lisa. in the day time i’d drive around and check out cars which i had found to fit my bill on autoscout and stopping at every garage i passed along the way. and by evening i did things, like walk and dine with michelle another couch surfer from brazil, goto the freestyle festival with lisa followed by the after party, go indoor rock climbing. watch a couple of films on the projector.

on the monday i stayed with another girl, kim, but we were exhausted, so just chilled at her flat. so i found 2 cars. one racy Audi S4, and a more conservative Audi A4TDI. I wanted the diesel for economic reasons, but in the end i had no contact from the garage, that and desire lead me to buy the S4:

So i spent a night with one of dad’s friends from uni, which was very nice, so much chatting and cheese.

i dropped the rental car off at the airport and a 2 hour train ride later i was across the country and there to buy my car. I had gone through a bit of stress to get temporary number plates. You get the plates after the car, and only in the region you live in, so i had to get the actual ones later. It was a lovely drive from there to Verbier. Which is where my worries began. They refused to give me plates, my permit for residence being for last winter. I have tried asking for assistance from everybody, but no luck, the car is now parked here, no plates, and un-driveable

The biggest problem is that i can’t drive to spain to get my stuff (clothes, computer, cat) and i have had to fork out for a last minute flight back to barcelona. The rush being that I fly to london on Monday.

Swiss people don’t take risks, and the beaurocracy is absurd compared to what i’m used to, and I thought the UK was bad.

As for finding a place to live for nic+Toto and I is nigh on impossible. It’s possible to find the odd free room, with people who have rented a place bigger than they need, but not a 2 bedroom place. So I tried other resorts. Crans Montana wasn’t to my liking, and no places available, likewise Villars. But in Leysin I not only found lovely people, lovely vibe but also a great place to live.

So now i must decide whether I goto Leysin on my own for the winter, or lump Verbier again. You can tell that Verbier isn’t such a hot place in my opinion. I’ll try to bag the flat, and see what happens later on this month when I return.

This leaves me sat here in Yoan’s flat with his lovely big cats listening to VH1 on his ginormous TV. My plans have not worked out this time. So much for being organised, i’m better at last-minute disorganised.

Oh and its snowing here yay

The trip to england, I promised to spend time with izzi, and after trawling the net for a cheapish place to meet her in the sun I thought gran canaria would have to do. But lo and behold an email from British Airways and they had a sale on holidays, and I chose Barabados as it turns out to be cheaper

So off to the last sun of the year for me, and I can’t wait.

Oh and I can’t express how happy I am to be in the mountains.

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so leaving verbier, nic and i went to Chateau Chillon(may 1st), and then Vevey for lunch, was nice to see other parts of swissland. i took her to the airport and she was off back to england.

i stayed at Lillianne’s which was a nice place over the lake in Lutry. she has some very nice wine, with her name on the bottle!

then i set off on the friday morning for Florence, got a flat tyre before i left Switzerland, with all shops closed for the holiday weekend!

so it was the first time for me to stay in a hostel. called Bigallo al Spedale it was out of town, a village called Bagno a Ripoli in the olive groves on a hill over looking the city located in a 13th century hospice/pilgrimage place. the guy wrking on the desk seemed surprised that i didn’t want to go out partying, but i had just driven about 800km.

i went to sit outside and read my book, and a girl offered me wine, turns out she worked there as the night shift and had her school friends down for the weekend from Milan and Rome, so we drank wine, she cooked pasta, and we had a great night chatting.

so saturday i spent in florence. which is very pretty, wonderful architecture, and lots of scooters, and art(at least a 4 hour queue for the museum di Uffizi(Office Museum) which needs to be booked 3-4 months in advance to avoid the queues). but it is woo touristy, there is little escape from the hoards. i spent the morning walking around viewing the sights. then had a lunch, some lovely food. by the time that was done it was too hot to be in the sun. unfortunately i was changing lenses on my camera and one slipped and the fitting got bent, which is sad. so i went to Palazzo Putti, due to reading that it was the place to go for modern art. their idea of modern art being at least 500 years old! but at the back is the Bobolino gardens which was a nice place to walk around and relax after walking the city to extensively. what was great is that it was half price as i am under 26!

i wondered some more, and waited until the sun was setting to photograph the bridge with the sunset behind it, and got some great photos, but that will have to wait to be shown until i have time.

i ended up walking back to the hostel, being picked up by a nice old couple staying there, 2km from the hostel. there was a bit of a party going on, and many more people staying there that night, so bbq, and wine outside was great, along with chatting to other travellers.

in the morning an american girl (23) was fretting so much about her camera not working, i tried to help her find a disposable, but being sunday nowhere is open, and we ended up rushing everywhere for an hour before she gave up and i could get on my way to paris.

yet again i was lucked with the busiest traffic due to the end of the holiday weekend, and found the auto strada barely moving at times, but i did see the Mediterranean which made me feel like i need to go and be by the sea. it was the longest distance i have ever driven 1200km, and took 12 hours, with a stop in Chamonix for pizza.

it’s got to that time of year that i have to stop to clean the bugs off the wind screen more often than i stop for fuel.

oh and it’s practically impossible to park in central Paris, there are no spaces!

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