Howdy there. I don't know what's gotten into me lately. Maybe I'm a touch more inspired to write these blogs than I was before, or maybe I've really been abducted by the Crab People as a part of their unending quest for domination over the world of man.(South Park reference, http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/154111/crab-people) Whatever the case may be here's another quick turn around and update of the past two weeks for me here in Euroland.
The first trip was more of a local adventure. On Monday (April 4th) afternoon I took the train and then the bus up to Camp Des Cimes where Caleb works and lives. The camp is somewhere on the outskirts of the city Grenoble, which is an hour away from Chambery. The whole purpose of the trip was to just bro out with Caleb and to go skiing. If you remember I alluded to my skiing adventure in my last blog post. Oh yes, I went skiing for the first time but that's later on in the trip. For pics and vids check out my tumblr at mmalachi.tumblr.com. On Monday after the long and arduous journey on the train and bus, 95% of which I slept through, I finally met up with Caleb and his roommate Sam in the nearby town of Bourg D'Oisans. Monday was pretty chill we back to Camp Des Cimes and chef Caleb whipped up dinner. Pretty good too, I had to tell Catherine when I got back that her and Caleb are competing for my distinguished honor of Top Chef. Of course, dinner wasn't the end of the night we had to drink beer and play video games. No bro out would be complete without those two critical aspects.
On Tuesday after Caleb and Sam finished their work around the camp we sat down for lunch. More beer was drunk and more video games were played until it was time for Caleb and Sam to head back off to work. Caleb told me they would work for a couple of more hours and then we'd go out and jump in a nearby glacier pool and check out some of the scenery. While Caleb and Sam went off to finish their work I did my usual and hopped onto my computer until it was time to go. Caleb and Sam came back a couple of hours later and we headed off to the glacier pool. Caleb drove and when we reached our destination we had to hike over a couple of nerve-wracking footbridges to reach the glacier pool. Then it was show-time. The only way I can describe jumping in that water is it reminded me of the cold tub at NU but worse because the water was flowing and splashing everywhere from the water fall. It was a fun experience to say the least but I couldn't stand staying in the water for more than 5 minutes. After our lil Polar Bear dip Caleb drove around a nearby mountain pointing out ski lifts, hiking trails, and gave us quick tours of the little villages we drove through. We headed back after the impromptu tour and stopped at the grocery store to pick up food for dinner and of course more beer. For Dinner Caleb made three different pizza's with home made crust and all. The first was a ground beef and vegetable medley with tomato sauce. The other 2 instead of using tomato sauce he used Creme Fraiche, which I can't say without cracking up because of a South Park episode, (http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/360883/cafeteria-fraiche) as the sauce. The first of the Creme fraiche pizzas was a carbonara, which is sauteed onions and bacon, while the second was a tuna and corn mixture Caleb made earlier. For the Cheese it was a mix of goat and parmesan to finally complete these bad boys. Sam said his favorite was the ground beef and veggie medley was his favorite while mine was the carbonara, but all three were excellent. I bet you can't guess what we did after dinner. That's right, we shockingly played more video games and drank more beer.
Wednesday was pretty slow during the day. Just more of me hanging out on my computer until Sam and Caleb finished their work. It was all for good reason because we were having a BBQ later on for dinner, our homegirl Flo, sister of our teammate Xavier, was coming by to kick it, and the British pub up in town was having an event at night. Flo got to camp around 5 or 6 and soon after she arrived we headed up to the mountain to our BBQ site. We had to improvise when we reached the spot because a group of Brits already occupied the prime real estate. We just had to scoot over to the side so everyone could have their space. It was quite an amazing sight we had a perfect view of the mountain range in the distance and we were on the edge of the mountain away from the ski resorts. Our little BBQ was filled with beer, sausage, and acoustic guitar. I learned that Flo could play the guitar and sing. We sat out under the stars for quite a while just enjoying everything until it was time to go to the British pub. The event at the British pub was for groups of friends to make a music video of them skiing/ snowboarding and anything else they wanted to include. They were all pretty good except for the last video which the people who made the video inexplicably decided to rap themselves to the music instead of putting the real track. Hearing a terrible British accent filled (no prejudice from me, it just didn't help their case any because they the sound was awful and they sucked at rapping) remix of the Wu Tang Clan song "gravel pit" is not my idea of a good video. Other than the videos, the bar was pretty fun a lot of Guinness, Drum n bass along with dubstep music filled the bar for most of the night, (not the usual house music which is clearly king here in France) and the British inhabitants made the pub a good time overall.
Finally Thursday came and the day was finally here. We were going skiing. Caleb lent me all the clothes and gear I would need and thank God it all fit me. We headed out around noontime to Les Deux Alpes ski station after bidding Flo goodbye and watching her drive away slowly as tears streamed down all of our eyes. We went to the ski station after loading up on some water and other supplies at a store where Caleb knew the owner. (Caleb knows a lot of people everywhere we go) We bought our lift tickets and started the journey up. We took two different lifts and a train to the top of the glacier. It took about 30 - 40 minutes for us to reach that point and about two hours for us to ski down to the train while Caleb and Sam instructed me on what to do. I'm not gonna lie I was scared speeding down a snow covered peak with two toothpicks under my feet that I don't know how to control. I also fell a million times but eventually the fear subsided and I began to understand the proper weight shifts needed to turn on skis. I was really motivated to learn because I was getting tired of all the little kids just speeding right on by me while i kept falling every 20 feet. (Which, luckily for everyone I gave my camera to Caleb so I have videos and pictures of me falling that I'll post to my tumblr.) We took the train back up to the top again and sat down to eat lunch. After lunch is when I really started to get the hang of skiing. (Which unluckily for me Caleb stopped taking videos before I started actually doing good lol) To compare though it took us to two hours to reach the train, which was the final lift we took up the mountain, on the first time down. The second time down we reached the first lift we took in about an hour and a half. When we reached that point we were all thoroughly exhausted and just went back to ground level. Skiing is a really hard leg workout, I used to just think it was a leisure activity but no it is definitely a workout. Thursday night was pretty much the same except we all went to sleep a little earlier from skiing taking the rest of the energy we had left after staying out the night before. Midday Friday Caleb and I headed back up to Aix Les Bains but of course before we got on the road we had to stop and get a kebab.
The next week on Monday I had a little mini adventure by myself. (April 11th to that Weds the 13th) Well not that mini I went to Amsterdam to see Nas & Damian Marley in concert. I had a pretty nice time enjoyed the concert (despite the fact Nas whispered the final bars on the last verse of one mic) and my stay overall in Amsterdam. Except for the fact that I dropped and lost my digital camera somewhere. I think it happened to me on the way to the concert because I kept pulling my map out of my pocket every five seconds to make sure I was going the right way because Dutch is a very complicated language, especially when you're reading street signs and the sign is supposed to be the same thing but the word looks different every time. Luckily I uploaded my ski adventure on to my computer before I lost it so everyone will get to enjoy that but my tumblr may die after that. I'm looking for a replacement out here though so it may be resurrected one day. Besides dropping my camera I did enjoy my quick trip to Amsterdam. Despite a certain person they didn't like Amsterdam because it was dirty I found it quite nice. The canals, except for those in the red light district, are very nice, the women are tall and beautiful, and the beer (along with all the other vice you may have) is plentiful. I went on the Heineken brewery tour and checked out the red light district during the day. The latter activity I do not suggest unless you are a fan of, how can I put this........ a more mature woman (lol). Even though my time was short I'm heading back to Amsterdam on Tuesday to meet up with my American friends I met in Venezia and then it's off to London on Thursday through Sunday. On Sunday I'll be flying and taking the train to Montpellier to play in our next game and then spending the first half of the week in Marseille, so unfortunately I'll have no pictures to share of that but I'll try and find a way. Until the next time..
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