friday was fondue and big party, and lots of fun! and sunday after 3 hours sleep on the mountain, over at Bruson. it’s great over there, it’s a little less accessable, so it’s aways empty, so there is always fresh snow days after a fall.

so saturday Apres Ski bar opened, which was mental! it too 30mins to walk to the end of the bar, 20m away, and everybody dancing on the tables, bar, everywhere, topless and throwing beer everywhere. didn’t stay long as ian got too drunk and had to be ready for work, so we came home.

so again 3 hours sleep and on to the mountain, this time with rob. we had a great day, but he wouldn’t trek anywhere with me, without us both having avalanche detection systems, so today i’ll see about getting ne, because i don’t want to miss out on the fun. but we fancied an adventure and dropped off the opposite side of the mountain, seeing many tracks going there. it was awesome the gentle powder field through graceful trees. it got a bit sticky after that, us not know where to go, in dense woodland. but in the end we arrived at a farm, and gradually made our way through fields and farms on foot and board. we arrived in orsieres, a town in the next valley, on the way to italy. time enough for a quick beer, and catch the train. followed by another train, followed by a bus, before we reached the car! quite an adventure.

i went to emma’s last night to hook their internet up and to have my hair cut, but she refused to saying that she feared my wrath if she did something i didn’t like. so i’ll get my hair done next weekend in london!

bring on london and partying, and maybe christmas is it happens here!

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

so mr mac is repaired, and for no charge. the logic board was broken, and would have cost a lot if i hadn’t the extended warranty, so i’m very glad i forked out the extra £250 for it!

and then:

day 8 in switzerland and i have totally lost the ability to semi touch-type, due to getting used to toto’s french mac.

i have been job hunting in leysin and verbier, and even applied for a job in zermatt. the general response is that it is too early to hire, being that people are waiting for whether people from the previous winter return, and if they don’t then the jobs are open. so i will continue to hand out my CV, and hope.

we’ve gone from 30cm of snow in the town here to 0, but its early yet and the lifts open tomorrow, so the town will begin to get lively.

oh and i need to start looking for a home!

other than that i’ve been getting my car winter ready with winter tyres and snow chains.

i’ve also had loads of trouble trying to replace the car stereo. the audi unit has a cd player and a cassette player. the speakers are great, but i desired something up to date. so i bought a stereo with usb and bluetooth. but…..getting a facia to house a standard stereo has turned out to be a night mare. apparently audi only used the stereo i have for 9 months, and only in this car. the local audi garage suggested i scour scrap heaps. somebody in a car stereo shop in the uk suggested i carve something from a piece of mdf, and he was the most optimistic of all of the people i have spoken to!

summer is over, and it’s been great, i’ve seen more countries than i can remember.

barbados was ace with izzi. it was the end of the rainy season and we caught the tail end of a tropical storm, so a little wet, but still sunny at times. we rented a little car, mini moke which was great fun to drive, and explore the island, and a great colour!

it was great to be in london for a couple of days, though i will be back there this weekend coming.

i hope to go to the metro snow show at olympia, and the festival at battersea.

so im in spain, and leaving here tomorrow. i think i’ll miss it and marta a bit. but i am hugely looking forward to winter.

i’ll be driving back with harriet to verbier tomorrow, dad is convinced she’ll be sick everywhere, but we’ll have to see. she’s very good, and hasn’t needed sedation at the vets, which is great. she now has her european pet passport, so she can travel around europe easier than many people can!

so off on the next adventure.

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.

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite