Saturday, December 31, 2005

La Plagne, France

Finally! A white Christmas! In the French Alps! Yayyyyy!



Arriving at our chalet in La Plagne on the Christmas eve, we began a week of snowboarding on Christmas day. How's that for a Christmas present? :D

The snow wasn't fantastic, but things were going fairly well at the beginning of the week. The mornings tended to be better than the afternoons. Somehow I think those hot lunches weren't doing us any favours, plus it got cold and icy in the afternoon which didn't help our confidence or (lack of) ability levels.

Our chalet was cosy and comfortable, and with cooked breakfasts, afternoon teas, and dinners, we were all very happy campers. We were also given unlimited(!) wine over dinner, but we were suprisingly well behaved. :)

By Wednesday, confidence levels were up, but unfortunately the slopes were getting icier and icier. Shane took particularly bad tumble into a patch of ice, and unfortunately his collarbone and a couple of ribs came out a little worse for wear. Ouch! He was stretchered down the mountain, into the medical centre, and then ambulanced down to a hospital in Albertville, some 60km away!

X-rays revealed a broken collarbone and one, maybe two, fractured ribs. :( Luckily for us, the health system in France treated him well and he was able to go back to the chalet the day after, with his upper body wrapped up in some kind of brace contraption. Better than a plaster body cast with one arm hanging out sideways!

Shane and I spent a couple of days bumming around the resort, but by all reports, the snow conditions were pretty bad anyway. But then, on the final night, it absolutely DUMPED down about a foot of snow. Typical hey? If only we had arrived a week later!!

Saturday, December 17, 2005

Prague - xmas party in a palace!

Ever walked into a room and felt like you've accidentally wandered into a grand party that you're not actually invited to? Well that's exactly how I felt when we stepped into Zofin Palace for the DHL IT christmas party!

I didn't really get a chance to check out the outside of the building before we entered, but the inside was absolutely amazing. The party spilled from room to room to room, all spread out over three levels, packed full with a few hundred, maybe a couple thousand people.

The evening's program was jam packed - with a live band, numerous smorgasbords of food and dessert, unlimited drinks, a crazy fashion parade, lucky door prizes, and finally a DJ to take us into the wee hours of the morning.

At about 2am we decided we'd had enough and headed home to change before heading out again.

After a short cab ride we found ourselves wandering the streets with some patchy directions from one of Shane's colleagues. We ended up at Solidni Nejistota, a cozy bar which strikes me as being a bit of an expat hangout. Playing some old 80's and 90's tunes, they kept us happy for the next couple of hours until our weary selves decided that we were getting too old for this sort of thing and headed home. Paul, however, had made some new friends and kicked on a few hours longer.

The next thing we knew, we were woken up by Paul coming home and asking us for phone numbers of banks back home. The poor guy had been pickpocketed outside a club somewhere! I won't go into details but if you ask him I'm sure he'll be more than happy to tell you the whole story :p

Saturday, December 10, 2005

Open air ice skating

... at the Natural History Museum.

Friday, December 09, 2005

Happy birthday to me!


The above photo is of Tai's handywork on the wall of the restaurant where we had my birhtday dinner. Cool hey?

The festivities began at the Porterhouse, where as usual, it was PACKED! Luckily a few of the early birds managed to snag a quiet(ish) corner downstairs.

A couple of hours and a short stroll later, we ended up at Zizzi's on The Strand for pizza and pasta. The original plan was to have Tapas but we couldn't get into any of the Tapas bars in the area this close to Christmas. Damn Xmas parties! Never mind, we'll just have to go for Tapas in the New Year. Any excuse to dine out will do :)