That Time I Went to St. Anton Alone...

Back from the beautiful St. Anton! Truly a huge and amazing ski area, that REALLY loves its apres ski scene  (experienced this first hand).

My trip, although done solo, was an awesome experience and I enjoyed every moment of it, lonely or not.  First off, I was/am very impressed with myself for actually getting to the small ski town, via train, plane, bus, train, plane etc. I'm getting good at this! So no problems there and made it to my beautiful hotel room right on the side of the hill with zero glitches. 

Sketchy! But overwhelmingly beautiful when this little guy flew through the alps. 

Room for two for one please!

The first ski day I was up early, and after eating one of those awesome euro breakfasts at my hotel (meat cheese nutella muesli YAY!) riding the most massive gondola I've ever been on realized this was the most expansive ski resort I had ever set foot on... o yeah and there was no snow.   But the sun was shining and so I enjoyed the day exploring the area and soaking up some much needed vitamin D.  Legs DEAD by 2:30, so I met up with some of Cato's austrian ski instructor friends for food and beers... which progressed into austrian drinking games and the legendary experience that is St. Anton Apres at the Krazy Kangaroo.  In bed, watching jurassic park in German by 8 30. Perfect!

Ski Day Two: up early again with the sun beating down already! On day two, because the snow was still lacking (..note foreshadowing for day 3!!) I decided to take the ski bus to Lech and Zurs, two of the areas that are under Ski Arlberg and work with the pass you get for the area.  Getting on the bus was an experience in itself, people do not do line ups here, they push, they shove, they are ruthless!!! But I got on the first bus, squished up against the door but I made it! Lech was very cute, not that exciting of a hill as most of the fun looking stuff seemed to be closed for avis/lack of snow, but it was cool to see and I got some good runs in.

Bus Stop in Lech. 

Zurs was pretty sweet! I played on one chairlift for a while that had a sweet run down the side of the mountain, finally something close to powdah!  Legs=DEAD. Decided to start making my way back to St. Anton and then ski out to the hotel for a hot relaxing bath, and then BOOM, it starts snowing. 

This is what happens in europe when it starts dumping and gets windy, EVERYONE beelines to the bar...

MAYHEM!

I explored the town of St. Anton that afternoon and experienced one of the lonelier moments of my life, involving me eating dinner alone in a pub thing close to my hotel.. with a book.  Just picture it, wallowing in self pity! The night also included me watching BBC news and learning alot! (only to find out the next day that Disney channel was also in English!!) Moving on..

hey powdaah!

Woke up to a bluebird ski and a beautiful fresh layer of snow covering the ground! I booked it straight away to the top of the mountain to get my first powder turns of 2010 in!! Felt so good.  Minus the really sketchy ice patches underneath the pow, 2 more feet of snow would have been nice.  I did some laps at the top of St. Anton and got bored of the sketchy crowds, so I went over across the Valley to Stuben (correct me if that's not the name).  UNREAL! This place was what I came for, absolutley no one on the hill, so I did laps and laps of fresh track runs until I could feel the goggle burn developing on my face about to explode. SO FUN,  I am the only friend I need on days like these!

Fine Dining on the Chairlift

my playground

So the ski legs were in shock after this day (which ended with an EPIC run on the other side heading back to st. anton), and I possibly had some sun stroke, so at 3 I said goodbye to the beauty of the alps and went back to the hotel.  This night went something like the last one.. but this time I had Hannah Montana on the disney channel to keep me company, and yet another sophie kinsella book that the cute little bookstore in town had. 

One last story for the road: I was pretty convinced that I had everything planned for departure day to a tee, I thought "o yeah, I'll get up early, have a nice breakfast, go to the train and catch the 9:43 to get to the airport about 90 min early for my flight out of Innsbruck"  NOT. Hey all you europeans out there, thank you so much for kindly informing me that daylight savings occured on Saturday night, and if i wanted to make it to my flight with more then 10 minutes to spare, i should probably change my clocks!

This was the most stressful, white knuckled train ride of my life.  But I made it!

O yeah, then I finally got to stockholm at 10 pm and they lost my skis.  (don't worry they got to me today  - next day)

All in all, this trip was what we like to call "Executive Skiing" at it's finest.  I would love to go back to St. Anton any day with some of my favorite ski buddies to share the fabulousness of it all. (Dad?!) 

Back in Stockholm (snow-free stockholm  yess!), and planning for my Russia trip which starts Wednesday!  I know what you're all thinking... "don't you go to school!?"  Well the answer is.. no not really. Ha!  Kidding I have a class tomorrow, Spring term is starting. 

That's it thats all. 

Much Love, J

Sleep tight don't let the bed bugs bite..

seriously, these things suck

Antsy Pants

I cause problems because I like to deal with things right away,
isn't that backwards? Problems are supposed to come to people who are too lazy to deal with things. Apparently not.
 I am going to learn to be one of those people who can sit, and let something work itself out, because I think usually letting something work itself out works better then letting my antsy self try to be a problem solver.  When my antsy self takes over, it seems to result in 300 Euro hotel cancelation fees.  Now that my antsy self has gotten me into this situation, it better get me out of it, time to not sit back because I know this won't sort itself out.  Lets go antsy self, start making phone calls...

There is no conclusion to this psycho-babble.

fingers crossed

Mid-march resolution: chill

sjfhasdFSFKLAHSLF!#!(P#%@#KLSDG

I have never known anyone to skype as much, and as loud as my roommate.....

that is all

this deserved it's own space..

PHO GOOD!

Danke Monsieur Vuong!

Ich Liebe Berlin!

Hej hej!

I just got back from Berlin and am happy to say that the city can be added to the list of 'coolest places to visit',  wherever that list may be.

I was traveling with Taylor Woolsey, who although showed up a day late due to food poisoning a la London, proved to be one of the coolest travel buddies a girl could ask for and totally made up for the food poisoning delay by just being her rad self!!

Before tay got there I killed some time with the all you can eat breakfast buffet at the hostel and then went to the Hamburg Bahnhoff Modern Art gallery which was awesome and a great way to kill some alone time.  The place is HUGE! The exhibition that was up was by an American artist named Walton Ford, called Bestarium. It was huge animal paintings that all had a story along with them, very cool, hard to describe.  The rest of the gallery was awesome to, great collection and really cool building.

Walton Ford - Eothen

Tay and I had a pretty chill night the first night, involving some beers, german food, haribo gummies and good conversation.  All to gear up for the walking tour that we planned to take part in the next day to cover pretty much every tourist site you would want to see in berlin in 3 and a half hours.... it went something like this:

tay- brandenborg gate

smiling in the holocaust memorial?

berlin graffiti is AWESOME!

Humboldt Uni and Book Burning Site

pretty cathedral.. surrounded by trickster gypsies

The only way to warm up...

Good tour! Cold tour! 

Tay's friend and supercool roommate and fellow chief hector attendee Kate showed up that night to come play in berlin with us!!

Taylor, Kate, and the East Side Gallery of the Berlin Wall

i loved the wall!

Two of Taylor's friends met up with us in Berlin that day who she met working on the golf course in Canmore last summer, Thomas and Fabzi.  two coool german dudes!  They drove us around, took us to good restaurants, and showed us some very cool parts of town.  There is so much to see in Berlin it is unbelievable!

After a night on the town, the boys took us to Potsdam, a cute old town, and one epic site to see for international relations students...

                                              

site of the Potsdam conference..

Sanssouci castle..

After the we parted from the boys, we decided to continue the food tour of berlin for our last night.  (one of) the restaurants we went to I could rave about for DAYS.  Monseiur Vuong - best vietnamese food EVER. EVER.  Capped the night off with a Milka bar and hit the hay early to prepare for a long and early travel monday. 

This was a long post. so in summary: Berlin is an awesome place, it is young and seems to be trying to put its dark history far far behind it.  There is so much to do and see and I couldn't have asked for better company to experience such a cool city with!!

okay, nap time before class, 

xox J

young+woolsey=trouble?

finance presentation... check!
packing as lightly as possible... working on!
flight to berlin... late tonight!

off to get into trouble with taylor woolsey.. ciao until monday

xo

sushi dreams..

I just can't seem to get Yuji off my mind, I think this means its love..?

why hello...

                                        

Table for 1, July 20, 8 pm please.  Arigato

RO MA RO MA MA, GA GA O LA LA

(insert tune to lady gaga song into title... props to teacha sunny kerr for that one)

its official!! I am connected to the world wide web again (via old school wire into wall.. better then nothing), and not being hunted down by the swedish police any longer, so i can finally tell you all about the amazing city that is ROME!

FRIENDS!

i will start by saying, Rome is great! The weather: Perfetto!
                                                          The food: Delissio!
                                                          The buildings: Bella!
                                                          The wine: Cheapo!
                                                          The friend: Awesoma!
You catch the drift...
I really could talk about the weekend forever.. so I'm going to do my best at a mini version of the trip as I do have a lot of reading to get done.  (but the internet is so fun that probably won't get done..)

WEDNESDAY: early early flight, arrive in roma! see emily! eat pizza! drink cappucino! .. went for a long beautiful walk that ended in some unhappy feet, and met emily's exchange friends and saw her castle of a school, I go to the gossip girl of sweden, emily goes to the gossip girl of rome. Went to the pantheon during the walk which was overwhelmingly huge and beautiful.. very nice! We went out for an amazing pizza dinner that night which started my 4 day weight gain plan, these people know what they're doing with food and i had to try it all!  Early (ish) night that night to prepare for the next couple days...

discovery thanks to emily: Suppli = fried rice balls YUM

Colluseum!

The next day involved tourist sites.. colluseum.. roman forum.. shopping... spanish steps..trevi fountain.. and getting ripped off on gelato.  Emily taught me the ways of telling the tourist trap tour giver guys and anyone else that hollers at the "blondies" to beat it! What a crazy place!

I decided to wait until I go back to rome with Angela to actually go buy tickets for all the tourist stuff (including the Vatican) to avoid going in alone/ making emily pay plenty of euros for things she's already seen.  Just walking by all this stuff was just as amazing though. 

Now that I really think about it, I did and saw sooo much over that few days.  Life is good!

Quick update on Friday (I'm getting tired! hehe)  Went for a nice lunch and walked around Camp Di Fiori and through all the cool narrow streets with awesome vintage shops. Took it easy that day as we had emily's friends over for dinner and went for a big night out on the town!! BIG NIGHT!

                                            

                                      

we could go ahead and call saturday a write off... don't worry though i DID continue my pizza eating plan. 

All in all, this trip was amazing! Emily lives in such a cool city (that has sun!) and it was awesome to see what she's been up to over the past year.  I ate a ton, didn't sleep much, and partied pretty hard... but..... when in rome right!?  ( note shameless use of cliche phrase...) The phrase is popular for a reason... because it's TRUE!

I was so excited coming back into Stockholm because the snow was melting, but fear not! I woke up this morning and it was dumping again as usual. 

I'm so stoked on the hockey game last night, I went with my fellow Canadians (and Americans..) for some beers and to watch the game, INTENSE. Vancouver looks beautiful, and i probably missed the biggest party that city will ever witness. owell.  GO CANADA!! 

I have so much to tell but it would take days to type, so I'm going to stop here.  

I also wanted to say thanks to everyone who tried to track me down when I was on interpol's most wanted list, good to know that people love me!! That was up there on the wierdest things that's ever happened, but maybe it's a good wake up call to remember to be extra careful while travelling, and not to name your child Lotus, and to buy this girl a blackberry!

XOXO  ciao!

J