December 2010
11 posts
4 tags
Why So Serious?
Christmas time is so busy, there is little time for anything other than stress, eating, and stress eating. There is so much to do. But this year…
No tree. No presents. A few well-placed calls to family, but no communication to the outside really. Just a few screw-ups: a five-hour long wait for the plane at the airport, a lost bag of very important snowboard gear, a dead battery with a...
1 tag
“They should make cheese-flavoured lollipops.”
– Rose
3 tags
“You get the best view of Paris from the Eiffel Tower, because you can’t...”
– Unknown, Anthology of Paradoxes
5 tags
Welcome Back
There are homes and there are free houses. They can be synonyms, but not always.
Home is where you feel at ease, where you hang your hat, dry out your sleeping bag, shuffle your papers, fall asleep in front of the TV, walk around naked. Where you are safe. Sometimes it’s where you grew up. Sometimes it’s where you wish you had. But it is always where you are Yourself, and there you can...
6 tags
Francify
Here are some French info quickies for those of us who might fall asleep during the lesson.
Raclette: A variety of cheese with a variety of cured meats and a ton of potatoes. Little metal paddles with even smaller wooden ones to scrape. A small oven on the table that melts the cheese on the metal paddles to cover the potatoes & pork products. Delicious. In Sweden they say white wine, in...
2 tags
From ugh... to ARGH!
Swiss keyboards are nothing compared to French ones.
It took a while but I finally got the hang of this tiny keyboard that is not a QWERTY. After the first tests, my m’s come out as commas and my a’s as q’s. Everything is wonky. I could either borrow a UK Mac that doesn’t have a working shift or enter button, or learn the European standard.
AZERTY keyboards… Who...
5 tags
Two Thumbs Up
The ride into Bex is one of the best places to see Switzerland. The mountain you zigzag down dips into the valley and climbs back into white peaks that back on the Alps of France. Every winding turn through a hamlet or village narrows into an alley clustered with three-storey houses & shuttered windows. The first sign of human activity are two shepherds and their flock of sheep taking up the...
5 tags
Wrong Buttons, Gaijin
Probably the weirdest culture shock is the keyboards on computers. I miss the simplicity of North American typing. In Sweden there are å and ä and ö to contend with. And the underscore is where the question mark should be, the apostrophe is very hard to find and the whole thing seems to be longer than usual.
Okay. The oldest typewriters were anything but portable, but as soon as they became so,...
1 tag
“Just because I slept you doesn’t mean I’ll ski with you.”
– Unknown source
3 tags
Anonymous asked: CHYEEEEAAAAA!!! What are your top 5 ski songs? Try riding without the muse eh.