Assorted Carbage:

 

I guess I have a couple of days to fill in here -
Yesterday Tim and I left Meribel headed to Bristol through Geneva. We gave up on the 20cm (8 inches) of fresh powder that had fallen overnight in the mountains, which was disappointing, and grabbed lunch in Geneva instead. I've been in a few cities where you could feel the money flowing, like Miami, but in this city the presence of austounding sums of money was everywhere. In a 15 minute walk, I saw about twenty different banks, five of them Arab, about a dozen watchmakers and more high end boutiques than I can recall. It handily beats out Oxford street in London, or the nicest bits of San Sebastian and Paris. The place just has more cash than it knows what to do with.


After lunch, we flew into Bristol (BRS), where I found that I forgot about the state of British infrastructure - which is about on par with British customer service. On the plus side, we drove home through the center of Bristol, which is undergoing some astounding changes. I lost count of the number of cranes and new buildings in the eighteen months since I was last there. Lots of the ugly post war buildings were being torn down, allowing the figurative light to pierce into the places where I hadn't dared to venture. Bristol may yet turn out to be a world class city at this pace. All they need now is a real airport - like the one they already have at Filton (where the Concorde was built), but the NIMBY's keep it at the current site in the middle of nowhere with horrible transport links to the centre of the city. Will someone with some spine please move the airport where it belongs?

Anyway, this is Tim's new home:



In fact, it's not new at all. It is almost 310 years old, and gorgeous. It was just renovated last winter and given a freshening outside. Although it looks quite small - it's not - it just happens to have 6'6" celings, so it looks small in the photos. There are actually five bedrooms, two living rooms, two fireplaces and three toilets (bathrooms) in there. It's a miracle of liliputian architecture.

The house is also well into the countryside of Wiltshire, to the west of Chippenham and the south of Castle Combe. I don't quite want to give out the name of the village, as for practical purposes this would reveal the exact location of the house, but the village isn't more than about ten houses.

Dinner for tonight is over at The Crown, a classic English country pub, in Yatton Keynell with Adam (my former sidekick) and Tim. I just hope they have John Smith's and Steak and Ale Pie! 

So the weather today was absolute rubbish. I can put up with skiiing in slush as long as the weather is nice, as it was earlier on, but today was horrid. I made it to the top of Tougnete this afternoon, and found myself in a blizzard. I just couldn't see more than 50 feet in front of me, and there wasn't enough light to make the contours of the snow apparent. It took me about a half hour to make it down to Meribel - and it's only 1000m of drop. I was very worried that I would wander off the trail, or that I would wind up going into St. Martin and then the lifts would be shut. Anyway, the skiing and weather were bad today - so no pictures.

I've just come back from a lovely dinner with the hosts of edelski.com, what a treat that was. These guys have a definite handle on how to prepare and present your meal. You know, I've been eating quite well this week, and this is one of the best meals I've had. Lots of wine, a wonderful pudding (Brit for dessert) and beautiful presentation really make it out. It was a great way to spend about three hours - which is normal for dinner in France.

Anyway, I'm knackered, and I have to be up for breakfast at 8:30. If the weather is nice, we'll go up for a fourth day. If it isn't, then we'll just drive to Geneve early and poke around a bit.

Au revoir!

I got my grades in today - and I'm pleased enough with them. I managed a pair of A- and a B+ across mirco and macro econ, and Japanese Lit. The showing in the lit class was much better than I had expected, but the 98/100 on my final certainly made up some ground for me. It turns out my gut test meter was a bit off with my econ classes - I didn't do nearly as well on the finals as I thought I did, much less what I would have liked to see. But there is nothing to complain about there. I had known that my calculus grade was going to be weak - but all I needed was a C-, and that's what I got in it. I think I need to burn that book now.

Let's see - it was my second day of skiing in the trois vallees today - and I tried to really give it today. My knees and thighs are sore as all hell, but I learned how to keep my knees together while turning, and I'm now signifigantly faster on my skis than Tim is with his board.

Our big goal for the day was to make it from Meribel to Val Thorens - a journey of about two hours each direction made by lifting and skiiing into the next valley over. We spent most of our day on the backside of the Meribel Valley, going towards St. Martin.

Towards about noon, we made it to the top of Val Thorens, 3030m (11000 ft), just long enough to look cold and feel like we were going to be blown off the mountain. The descent was onerous, to say the least, as the clouds had moved in and the lighting changed to flat - making it impossible to make out the contours of the snow.

Shortly after making it back to the Meribel side - Val Thorens was just too busy, we stopped for lunch at Les Cretes. Fabulous. We had the Tartiflette again, along with a bottle of Evian, a bottle of vin rouge and some double espressos. Again, it was a great meal.



We also went over to the Kart sur Glace tonight - what a riot that was! Twitchy little buggers, though, but at least when I wasn't spinning out I was romping on the British 12 year olds. Haha!

This one is short - It's 11 pm, I've had my tartiflette, and I am correspondingly sleepy.


But I must brag about the weather: It was almost 20! (70?), so I had to lay out in the last half hour the sun provided. Speaking of which, SPF 60 is great stuff, when you put it on. I can tell where I missed on my face by the burning, and I've become a redneck.

Adding to my collection of the World's famous mountains:
A postcard to the first person to guess correctly! 

Tim and I took advantage today. It was almost always above freezing in the Alps today, and by jove we had a good time with it.

Remembering how to ski took about a minute this time, so I got on with it all day. Tim discovered a fascination with the off-piste areas, though I found I couldn't share in the joy, as the snow was too heavy for me to effectively make my turns. And I crashed. I guess you're allowed at least once of those a day, though this one was massive. I was in the off-piste following Tim when a tip dug in, then the other one, and then I faceplanted into the snow. I actually had to dig myself back out again, haha.

As always, the Alps are gorgeous. Sitting on top of the mountain at 3000m this morning, it all felt simply epic. North American ski areas just aren't like this place. Yes, there are marked runs, but they are always at least half a kilometer from the next run, leaving lots of open off-piste areas to play in. This place is just huge, and we only partially covered two valleys today. I have another one to explore (trois vallees), and another two days to do it with. Tomorrow we will head for Val Thorens - I'm told it is 20 km away from top of the mountain above Meribel, and should take us about two hours to reach it by lift and skiing down. Yeah!!

As always, Penny is spectacular in her hosting. I try to help out where I can, but plainly she's better at it than I. Breakfast this morning consisted of about eight different cereals, three yogurts, boiled eggs, fresh bagguetes (there is a delivery box outside - how cool is that), prosciutto and about ten marmalades and jams.

It's time soon for something I've been craving - Tartiflette. It's a southern France specialty consisting of Potatoes, Ham, Bacon and Reblochon cheese. (Pomme de Terre, Fromage de Reblochon, au lardons). Huh - and in my research it turns out the Savoy word for potatoes is tartiflia, while the normal French word is Pomme de Terre (Apple of the Earth). Way cool. Anyway, that's what I'm having dinner tonight.

Thanks for reading, and let me know if there is anything I can reasonably grab for you. 

For comparison, this is what the valley looks like in the summer. That was fun, too, but I can't wait to go skiing today. I feel good this morning - I slept all night and I think I made the ten -hour time zone shift alright. My body isn't pissed off at me like it was yesterday, either, so maybe it'll stay that way.

Anyway, it's shaping up to be a gorgeous day here - sunny and 10c - time for me to get on with it! 

Welcome to Savoie!

I have to say, though the process of travelling was an absolute cunt, this is all worth it. I have never been so physically desirous of wanting to not be on an airplane. Or in a car, for that matter. I actually threw up on my up here from Geneva. It wasn't that Tim wasnt't being nice, as a RAV4 only goes so quickly, but rather that I was at the limit of the level of stress my body could contemplate taking.

The village above is Les Allues, (sp); it's on the road up to Meribel, where I am staying and skiing for the next several days. Three and a half days of skiing in the Alps? I'd be crazy not to! Tonight, we had dinner with the other guests of Penny and Lester, who were my neighbors in England and who own the Chalet in which I am staying. It took a couple of moments, but I rediscovered how to conversate with upper crust English. Yes, they want to know about Bush, and about New Orleans, but mostly the key is to give the proper grunts and huffs at the right times. I won't pretend to be one of them, and please shoot me should I try, but I can at least hold my own in their conversation - who knows where that came from.

About the travelling itself, I flew from Portland, OR to Minneapolis to Amsterdam to Geneva today. I was physically ill from all that. Maybe if I hadn't rolled straight from a bitchy finals week, I'd have been alright. I dunno. But the flight from AMS to GVA was hell. I felt like I was suffering from heat stroke, mostly.

It hasn't fully registered to me that I am in Meribel again. Much less France. Like my other jet-lagged moments, nothing seems entirely real. On the upshot, no one really expects much of you on your jet-lag days, so you can get away with being less than brilliant.

Oh dear, I've just rattled on about myself. I must mention that it is wonderful to see my Friend, Tim, again. I know he's been through quite alot since I've last seen him, and I think I've grown and changed a fair bit since then as well. It'll be nice to get back to normal with a dear friend of mine. For those who have never understood the dynamic at work with he and I, I think it works like this: He is a mentor to me and constantly pushes me to do it bigger and better.

Anyway, if you're seeing this, it is likely because I wanted you to know how and what I am doing. Please feel free to send any postcard requests along to my e-mail adress, and as always I'd love to here from you.

B