gletchersee

on the trail (2)

summer flowers

overview

resting

on the trail

wooden fountain

blue-bells

two more pictures from Kaunertal

back in office

I'm back in office, dizzy and dreaming of snow.

Anyway, I started processing pictures from the trip.






Edit: Three more:

In Kaunertal

I'm in Kaunertal. It is a small town in the middle of nowhere, 30 minutes by car from some nice slopes, on top of a permanent glacier, near Innsbruck, Austria.

We are staying at FeichtnerHof, a pretty impressive 4 star hotel, and the food is to die for.

Other impressions ... let's see:
The ski slopes are good, except their color coding is wrong: there is one black slope which should be red, a couple of blue ones that should be red also, and no slopes that should be black at all.

The snow started melting on the lower slopes, but each night it freezes again, each day it snows and the guys there take great care, so the upper slopes are good every morning.

I got mysself a pair of skis (atomics). The ones I had been using were crap (vibrating like crazy once I got any amount of speed to speak of).

The Alps are great to see, great to drive through and great to capture in pictures (I'll post some once I get home and make the time to process them).

My brother is a maniac behind the steering wheel (though luckily he seems to generally know what he's doing).

I haven't fallen yet on the skis and my favorite slope is the black one. I've had a few close calls though.

Weissbier (usually Edelweiss) is great to have at the restaurant on the slope, but it tends to rouin skiing afterwards).

Statue in Vienna

some more pictures

The weekend is over. I arrived back from Moldova on Friday night, and spend most of Saturday outside. Today I got my rest.

I don't have anything interesting to say right now, except that I finally took the time to process four more holidays pictures.

Enjoy:

Palinkopf Peak, Ischgl, Austria

Back on Earth

I'm back in office, working.

We arrived at five in the morning and it was a pleasant change to walk outside in temperatures over the freezing point.

I'm in office now, muscles still aching from the skiing, tired and busy.
I'll post some pictures over the week, and try to answer my mail backlog.

back to work ...

something sensible

I should probably do something sensible and go to sleep. It's a quarter to four AM, and I just arrived from Vienna (via Frankfurt).

It was a good trip (I almost finished another Terry Pratchett book) although we left Vienna almost an hour late, due to the storm (that was interesting!)

I didn't see much in Vienna (didn't feel like walking a lot) but I got myself some stuff (starting with t-shirts and ending with a proper meditation bowl).

Either way, that's about it -- I'm going to sleep. Don't let anyone tell you I'm not being sensible (well ... after updating my blog-thingy).

random update

I'm writing this mainly, because I'll be spending two days with no internet, just going through Vienna (oh, the horror!)

I left my photocamera in Cyprus, mainly to lower my luggage volume, and I'm not really regretting it: my trip here was at night and I'll be going back the same way; when tiredness is an issue (that is, most of the night here and back), an extra luggage just spoils your fun.

Because of this, I might get a small pocket camera tomorrow morning (depending on what I find), just for the mobility of it (that, and my phone camera is a joke and the phone battery is out).

Also, I've moved to a smaller hotel (Sofitel is very nice, but it's also very 'over two hundred dollars a night').

What else ... what else ... what else ...

Tomorrow I'll go on a small shopping spree (need a new backpack and I'm sure there will be a lot of junk that will 'seem a good idea at the time'), and maybe see some more stuff (I've been recommended to go see Hundertwasserhaus by two different people, so I probably shouldn't miss that).

What else ... what else ... what else ...

... Oh, yeah! Everybody keeps saying how Austria is famous for it's Snitzels and it's Apfelstrudels. I can't say much about the Snitzels but the Apfelstrudel I've eaten confirmed it: it was in a class of it's own.

Also, I still have to check out the Sachertorte: it's apparently a speciffic thing, designed for Austrohungarian emperror this or that, because he was a workoholic and liked to have 'a byte of something fresh'; in the middle of the night, that is.

Wish me a Happy Apfelstrudel!
(yes, another one)

steam-like

achievment unlocked: workoholic

random impressions

Well ... Sofitel is nice ... and so is Vienna; the flight was a bit too long to be nice.

We arrived yesterday afternoon, after an escale in Zurich, and I only managed twenty minutes of sleep or so (that's what I get for bringing good books with me on the way).

I took some pictures with my camera phone, but I'll probably manage to put them online only after getting back :(.

Doesn't matter much though.