Sarah's ramblings about her trip to Europe March-July 2003
I miss Vancouver so much! There's nothing to do at night here, excpet watch german shows which i can't understand. The snowboardings pretty good though so that makes up for it. I'll be leaving here tomorrow, then heading to St. Anton's in Austria, or Zermatt in Switzerland, depends on which has better snow right now. The snow isn't too good at this resort, but they got some new snow this afternoon so it was alright.
I got my first clubbing experience here and it was definitely interesting...everyone was about 16, and most were smoking. Was a fun night though, went with the son of the owners of the bed and breakfast i'm staying in. Anyhow, gotta go pick up my board, it's being waxed :-)
Hi everyone! Sorry it's taken me so long to update this, it's actually quite hard to find internet cafes. So right now i'm in a place called Saalbach, in austria. I boarded the last 2 days in Kaprun, at the Kitzsteinhorn glacier which was absolutely amazing. It was like the glacier up at blackcomb, but a way nicer view from the top! I met some cool Aussies there and drank with them with was lots of fun. It's really weird here cuz i don't know german and not very many people speak english. I didn't realize how hard it would be to travel alone, but i'm getting used to it. Today i'm taking a day off because i'm soooo out of shape and boarding for 2 days took it out of me! Hahahaha. These little skiing villages are so tiny and dead compared to Whistler...practically no night life. Everyone seems to go home by 8 :-) And i can't even find a store that sells english books so i can't even read...yeah i get kinda bored! The train ride from Salzburg to zell am see was also amazing (on the way to Kaprun). I was in total awe, looking out the window, we were going through a valley in between mountains and it was soooooo pretty. If i could speak german i would so love to live here, except that a lot of Austrians are quite rude. This one waitress yesterday pretty much couldn't be bothered with us because she didn't want to even try and talk to us...hehehe she got a 0.10€ tip...i'm sure she hated us even more after that! I think that's all for now, on Tuesday i'm planning on going to St. Anton's, also in Austria, or i may go straight to switzerland...i haven't really decided yet.... :-)
Hi everyone! So i've gotten to explore Bratislava more. The downtown part of the city is really nice. It's all old buildings and stuff like that. I've been drinking lots of way too strong coffee though :-) I got lost trying to find the Canadian Embassy though. It's in this old part of town, and all the streets are windy up this hill. That would have been ok, except that half the streets weren't marked! So i never found it, i had a nice walk through the old part of the town though! I also had to go and apply for a czech visa to go visit there. The guy was really grumpy but at least he spoke english. He was very interested in how i had entered the country without getting any stamps in my passport! He kept saying "how strange, how very strange!"
Then yesterday my dad took me to Hungary to explore. I finally got stamps in my passport too. Hungary is nice, reminded me very much of Saskatchewan :-) Flat as far as the eye can see! The town we went to was called Gyor and was a nice little town. Picturesque for sure. However i'm pretty sure the lunch we had didn't start with lard and onions..... :-)
My little brothers are as cute as ever. Last night i had to put them to bed...took me an hour to convince my 3 year old brother to lie down...once i got him to do that, he was asleep in 2 minutes....grrrrr! hahahah and i couldn't tell him to lie down, i had to make his doggy stuffed animal tell him to lie down, then he would! ahhh the joys of little kids!
That's about it for now, am planning on going snowboarding in Austria, Switzerland, and France as soon as my rail pass gets here, so that should be fun. Also thinking about exploring a castle that is just a little outside of downtown, we'll see how the weather is!
So i made it to Slovakia. Jet lagged but ok. It's interesting to be in a different country. Bratislava is so different compared to Vancouver. The two aren't even comparable. I haven't had time to explore yet, but will post when i do. So far i've only seen the road from vienna to my dad's flat, and the road from my dad's flat to my little brothers school. It should be fun to look around, and especially to cross the boarder back into austria to go snowboarding! The language barrier is starting to worry me a little because not everyone speaks english here or even in austria. So that should be interesting...maybe i'll pick up a few more languages before i come home!
I can't believe it though...i wanted the customs guys to stamp my passport and i've been into 3 countries so far and noone has...how disappointing! So much for collecting stamps!
Hi from Amsterdam! I have a 6 hour stopover here before heading to vienna so thought i'd update my page! It costs 3 euros which is around $5 for 15 minutes! wow i got spoilt with free internet! It's so weird being in a different country...i can hear people talking but not understand what they're saying! But it's pretty cool, the amsterdam airport is big, and everything is after you go through customs so i don't have to leave the security area. Anyhow, i only have 3 minutes left so i better tie this up! Bye :-)
20 hours till my plane leaves Vancouver. I'm starting to get excited, but am still quite nervous about the whole trip. I have no idea how i'm gonna stand 11 hours on a plane...hoping that there isn't some smelly fat guy beside me. But even then it'll all be worth it. Can't wait to be snowboarding in the alps *sigh*
Although i was pleased about the snow in Vancouver over the last few days. Made me very happy :-) Wold have been even happier if i could've gone boarding one last time though...ah well whistler on wednesday was good enough :-)
Hope you all have a good few months while i'm gone. oh and Ed, i do expect email rants from you :-)
Only a week until i get on a plane and travel half way around the world for a little adventure. I'll try and keep this as up to date as possible, time and money for internet access provided! I've never done a webpage like this before so we'll see how it turns out.
For those of you who i haven't talked to lately, i'm flying to vienna, austria on March 10th and then staying with my dad in Bratislava, Slovakia for a while before i venture out across Europe. Since Austria is only about a half hour bus ride away(i've been told it only costs about $5 too!), i'll be boarding there for the first month or so, then maybe i'll go to France, Italy, or Switzerland to try the snow there! I'm starting to get excited about my trip, haven't done much planning but that's what the 11 hour plane ride is for isn't it? I can't wait to be boarding in Austria...laughing at all you who are left in Vancouver with it's measly amount of snow!
Since i've already had to vacate my apartment, i'm staying at my mom's house which is an adventure in itself! Needless to say i'm escaping to whistler for one last day of boarding before i leave and hoping that i don't fall on my ass and bruise my tailbone for the 4th time this season!
