Les Diablarets and the last week or so

The IAESTE ski weekend took place over the first weekend in December in Les Diablerets. They rented out a fairly large chalet for the 77 of us that featured bunk beds, a big kitchen, a dance hall, a dining hall and a game room.Unfortunately there was an irreconcilable rift between the Calgarians and the other IAESTE people from the get go. The first night, us wanting to party and thus dancing (how could we) led to the others bitching about us. The second night some of the Calgarians (ok, dave, bruce, chris and pat) got too drunk and were obnoxious and rude and provoked some conflict. Then, completely hypocritically, the other IAESTE people got way to drunk, were obnoxious and rude and provoked some more conflict. That was all bullshit though. In the end the weekend was a good way to catch up with the other Canadians, get back into the swing of winter sport, and have some fun.

The hill was, in fact, a glacier perched at the summit of a mountain. When we first arrived the conditions were prime. It was sunny, the snow was soft and it was great. The hill was less than challenging and didn't feature too much terrain or gradient. In fact, all of the runs but one were accessible solely by T-bar. We managed to find some untracked powder, though, and even a lip or two we could jump off. Sondy and I, happened to pair up upon arriving at the hill and it worked out well. I think she's at more or less the ski equivalent of my snowboarding level so we kept up a pretty good pace. We later ran into Miller and Pat and we spend the rest of the morning all together. Unfortunately, by the time we'd eaten lunch a big stupid cloud came in and robbed us of all visibility. What's more, my bindings kept failing and coming loose at the base so I was having a hard time.

The second day of boarding was also not great. A strong wind blew all day and razor sharp ice bits devastated exposed skin. We made it to lunch and then went for only one or two more runs after that because we felt it wasn't worth it. Overall though, we all had a lot of fun both at the hill and at the lodge despite the extraneous conflicts.

Last friday was the Alstom Volleyball Night. I wasn't playing but some friends were so I decided to take my camera and do some practise. Unfortunately the light was shit and my lenses aren't that fast so I had to do all my shooting at an unfortunately high ISO but I still got some good practise in. Bianca, unfortunately, had a bad landing and badly sprained her ankle. What's more, not a single team that consisted of friends had any success whatsoever. Still, had a good time watching and being a spectator with Chris, Mike and Dave. Afterwards, met up with Rachel who was finishing up with her work's christmas dinner and headed back to Baden.

The rest of the weekend was pretty lazy. Went shopping for a bit on saturday, saturday night met one of Rachel's friends for a drink, went for McDonalds afterward and subsequently threw all of it up at 3 in the morning... Not sure what happened there... Sunday was another lazy day, did some laundry and cooked a turkey curry - not bad btw.

Yesterday (monday) the interns had a christmas party of sorts. It began with a round robin of beer pong. This was followed by the results of the intern photo contest being announced (first place in the category of 'best photo of drunkeness' for which I won a nice bottle of wine - thanks Celia!). This was followed by Secret Santa (i got a big glass jar full of ingredients for making oatmeal cookies). Finally, the finals for Beer Pong took place and Pat and Bianca inevitably won.

Still going good - looking forward to going to the UK next week!

American Thanksgiving and So On...

Last Thursday was Rachel's last day of work at Alstom and as such was capped by a goodbye drink at Mojo's, a bar close to Alstom and a haunt for all of its full timers. We arrived at about 5:15, without having had dinner and consumed drinks at a steady pace until we left at around 10 because we were hungry. In this time I met a lot of her friends from Alstom including, fortunately, a good few that spoke English and even one with whom I practiced some Spanish! After leaving the bar we went and got a doner kebap and walked home in the freezing cold.

Friday night I went out with Rachel and her (former) boss for drinks in Zurich. It was kinda awkward at first as many of her bosses friends didn't speak english (or chose not to) so I spent a lot of time sitting quietly. With time (and drinks) however, they seemed to warm to me and we made our way to a club where we danced and my girlfriend got a little drunk ;)

Saturday we had to prepare for thanksgiving dinner at Duane's (had to buy pie and ice cream). Got up without showering, grabbed a chocolate croissant on the way to town and did some shopping before rushing home for a shower. Got to Duane's at around 2-2:30 and enjoyed some great thanksgiving food - a welcome treat considering I had missed Canadian thanksgiving! Ate waaay to much and drank too much wine too fast so didn't feel so awesome that evening but still managed to watch a movie.

Sunday, despite noble intentions of getting up, doing laundry and cleaning before going to play badminton in the afternoon, got distracted by a certain someone and ended up not being particularly productive until about 3.. Went and played badminton from 4-5, ate dinner, did laundry and watched another movie.

The rest of this week has been more or less uneventful, surviving work mostly. Going on a skitrip this weekend - will report back soon!