Snow and Seasons in Storrington

Cheeky fox at the train station

After 54 days of ‘being on holiday’ it was finally time to go back to work, on Monday 30th January. I returned to a pervious client, M, who I had started working with pretty much exactly a year ago. Things in Storrington looked pretty much the same as they did a year ago, except this time I got to see at least the backyard with a covering of snow and, as I have stayed a month and a half longer then I did last time, the place is certainly more green and leafy then I have ever seen it. On the 5th and 10th of February there was finally some snow for winter – Although it was only a light covering, which pretty much melted by the time we left the house at 9am..

Compare to the 'summer' pic at the end :)

After the snow in February, March turned out to be one of the warmest on record! In fact, even the last week of Feb was warm – at 18C. Then it was back to cold for April – complete with snow in some parts of the UK. I have definitely aclimatised to the cooler weather. In Australia, as soon as the temperature got below 20C I would put on a jumper and be freezing. Here, the temp reaches 13C, and I start taking layers off. 18C is shorts and singlet weather now! How on earth am I going to survive summer when I get back home?!

Although, still fairly cool at Brighton

As much as I am looking forward to coming home (lets face it Aus is awesome :p), one thing I appreciate a lot more over here is the seasons. They are so destinctive – something I think I will miss. Winter is cold, mainly wet (but sometime snowy!), and dark. Then comes spring. This is when colour comes back to the UK. The first flowers to pop up are the bluebells, followed by daffodils, and then tulips (and lots more of course!) Towards the end of spring is when the trees/bushes finally start shooting new growth, and it really gets green, within a few weeks. And the cutest part of spring? All the baby animals :) I have also seen hedgehogs come out for the first time… although it’s a bit sad that they have all been roadkill hedgehogs :(

Taken just the other day: Summer is on it way :D

Summer can be warm (it can also be cold!), and the UK often has ‘mini heat waves’ with temperatures up to 30C, if only for a few days… In summer the crops start to ripen, and the fields start to take on a golden hue, like they where when I first arrived here). The evenings are also really long – with it not getting completely dark until around 10.30/11pm. I will definitely miss the long evenings of summer, but not the short hours of daylight of winter!

And that brings us to autumn, when days start to get shorter again (sob), and the trees start to lose their leaves, but not before displaying wonderful colours of reds, oranges, and yellows :)

Now to leave you with some cute stuff:

See the dark patches in the middle? That's a group of 6 ducklings
sitting in a row :)

Skiing in Austria

First things first, there are definitely no kangaroos in Australia :P

The church at Hopfgarten

Adam left England on Tuesday, 17th January. That day I went to the Victoria and Albert museum, which I was quite impressed with. I then had lunch with Claire, who I had met in a hostel while I was doing my photography course. On the 18th I visited my previous client, J, and picked up some of my stuff that I had left there. On the 19th I had lunch with Vicki, who I went to Egypt with. As I still had time before work started again and some left over money, I decided to spend it all (literally, I left £30 in my bank account after buying the train ticket back to work...). Like I said before I <3 skiing, and I really wanted to do more then the 2 slopes I did in Slovakia, so I went on another ski trip. This time I went with Contiki. It was my first Contiki experience, and I was a bit worried, as they have a bit of a reputation for doing more drinking then anything else, but I enjoyed every minute of it :) (Even if there was quite a bit of drinking, mainly by my room mates though...).

Snow!!

Well, I enjoyed almost every minute of the trip. The 22 hour bus drive there was so great :/ We left London at about 7pm on Friday 20th January, arriving in Hopfgarten, Austria the next evening. Due to bad traffic we ended up being on the road too long, so we had to wait for another driver to come from Hopfgarten (only about 30 minutes away) as the current one had ran out of driving hours. As soon as we arrived we collected out ski gear and then it was time for the welcome meeting and dinner. Contiki have their own hostel, called Haus Schoeneck, which is really nice, and ran mostly by Aussies and Kiwis. No surprises there really :P

The next morning we had breakfast and I found someone to go skiing with. We went up the ski lifts and it was time to go skiing again!! Remember that I felt confident in Slovakia... Well when I go to the top of the slope in Austria, I'm sure it was pretty much vertically straight down :S. You know in cartoons when they look down a cliff to the bottom, and it suddenly gets visibly further away? That's what it felt like on the Austrian slopes. They are long, steep and bumpy... turns out I'm not such a confident skier after all. I had the 'brakes' on the whole time I was going down those slopes. In hindsight I could really have done with ski lessons in Austria and not Slovakia, as I barely used the instructor I paid for there. Lessons in Austria would have helped with my inability to stop without falling over... In fact I fell over more times in the 1st hour of Austrian skiing then I did the whole time I was in Slovakia :S At one stage I managed to spread my skis, poles and self equally over a distance of about 10m in this pattern: ski, pole, ski, pole, me -it was actually quite funny!

That slope just keeps goingggg...

It didn't help that I was skiing with someone who's skill level was much higher then mind. We were going on blue and red (medium) runs, although to be honest I couldn't tell the difference between the too. As far as I was concerned they were all too steep and bumpy! But I didn't give up until the very end of the day. After a FULL day of skiing with the brakes on my legs were soooo sore, and I was so exhausted I just couldn't ski anymore. I had to ditch the skis (my highly skilled ski-mate carried them for  me, while skiing down on hers) and walk/slide on my bum to the bottom of the slope.

The disc

The next day I went out again, but not for nearly as long - only half the day, and I went skiing with some a snowboarder, who was still faster then me!). In fact I didn't actually do much more skiing at all... I only did half days from then on, if any at all, mainly because I was still sooo sore from the first day. I tell you what though, it did good things to my biceps (who knew you used them so much skiing?!). They are still bigger and more defined then they ever have been! On the second last day I was sick, so didn't go skiing at all. I stayed in bed until the afternoon, but did manage to find the energy to participate in 'snow games'. They were so much fun, especially sliding down the snow on my stomach on a plastic disc - although the bruise I got from whacking into a pole was not so much fun!

So fun!

On the Tuesday (I think) night we had the opportunity to go tobogganing. It was a load of fun, but would have been even more fun if there were less people and we didn't keep stopping all the time! The slope was only gentle, but you did manage to build up a little bit of speed, only to have to stop (or crash into the person in front you you) because someone ahead had hit the sides of the slope or run into someone else... The final day I still wasn't felling 100%, so gave up on skiing and went on a day trip to Salzburg. Even thought I had already been to Salzburg, it is a nice city, and it was over EIGHT years since the last time I went. We had lunch in a nice little restaurant where we had Gulash Soup (yum) and we shared a Salzburger Nockerl, which is a dessert I had remembere over all those years. The rest of the group I was with agreed it was yum!

Salzburger Nockerl :)

 

Other food I had on the Austrian food tour was spaetzel ( a type of small egg noodle with cheese sauce), and PORK KNUCKLE. O.M.G. That right there is the reason I could never be vegetarian... It was divine. The pork was so tender, the crackling crispy, and the gravy thick and flavourful. YUM YUM YUM!! We had that on the last night before we were due to go back to London. You had to order it 24 hrs in advance, and I am soo glad we did :)

Anyway, so that was my time in Austria. I met some great people and had a great time - even if I didn't do that much skiing. And the fact that Austria provides 'scary skiing' hasn't put me off. I would love to do some more skiing, back in Australia, which is where I learnt all the way back in grade 12! Some good news is that the bus ride back to London didn't take nearly as long as getting there. We left early (4am-ish) in the morning, and arrived back about 7pm that evening. Thank goodness. And some more good news? I have FINALLY finished writing up my Christmas/New years holiday blogs!! YAY. Now onto what's happened between the end of January and now...

At the top of a slope

Snowman! Complete with mullet

At the 'Silver Bullet' celebrating Aus Day

Guess Who’s Back – Back again?

Yes, back in London. Every time I have time off and I’m not somewhere exotic, I try to explore a bit more of London. We arrive back from Krakow mid afternoon, so I told Adam it’s probably best to just get a ‘light’ lunch, as it was late, and we were going to G&A’s for dinner (and to use their washing machine!), so we would be getting a large dinner. I ordered the club sandwich, and well, I’ll let the pictures do the talking :P

The next day (Mon 16/1)we left G&A’s early to get the most into Adam’s last day overseas – he had an early flight out the next morning. First we went Ice-skating. there was a rink at the bottom of the beginner slope in Slovakia, but we never got the chance to go, and Adam wanted to give ice-skating a go as it was another thing he’d never done before. After ice-skating we spoilt ourselves for lunch, spending way too much at a reasonably flashy restaurant called the Mermaid’s Tail. MMM, the food was sooo good though – I had a HUGE rack of ribs, and I think Adam had lamb shank.

bahaha h.p is short :P

The next touristy place we visited was Madame Tussaud’s, the wax museum. There were lots of famous figures, and it’s amazing how lifelike they look. I was a bit surprised by how short a lot of them are though! As you go through the building there are different themes – such as ‘A-List Party’, ‘A Royal Appointment’, and ‘Marvel Superheroes’ the superheroes exhibit also included a 4D experience which was fun.

That night Adam and I went to see the musical version of Billy Elliott. If you’ve been reading along, you will have realised that I have seen quite a few musicals this holiday. I actually saw a three musicals within about 2 months of each other. The good thing about London is you can get pretty cheap tickets, and they are amazing to see… So I figure while I am here, I should try and see as many as possible! I quite enjoyed Billy Elliot, the song about seeing Margaret Thatcher dead was pretty funny! I would like to see the movie (I’ve only really seen little bits and pieces) to see how well they adapted it to the stage. It was then time to go back to the hostel, so Adam could get a good night’s sleep, ready for his journey back home in the morning.

EDIT:

Funniest photo ever?!

So I just found these pictures from when we went to the London Dungeon... I can't for the life of me remember what day we went there - Adam?! They are actually photos of photos, thus the flash reflection. The picture from the freefall ride was just too hilarious NOT to buy!

Skiing in Slovakia

8-15 January

Look at all that space I get TO MYSELF!

First off: I <3 skiing. It was one of only a few things on my ‘have to do/see’ list when I left. The other two being Egypt (tick) and Turkey for ANZAC Day (tick). Later on I added Iceland and sailing in Croatia (Let’s see how they pan out later…) So I was very happy to be finally setting of a ski holiday :) I went through a company called Mountain Paradise, which offered flights, transfers, half-board hotel accommodation, ski gear rental and ski lift passes for a good price. We had a good flight to Krakow, Poland, and got through passport control/customs easily. That’s one of the good things about Europe – it’s sooo much easier to get through country borders then it is getting into Aus.

Once arriving in Krakow we were getting a transfer to Jasna ski resort in the Low Tatras. I must admit I was a bit worried when our driver was a bit late! I hoped he hadn’t forgotten us… Turns out we had arrived early, and they had hit bad traffic on the way to the airport, so no, we weren’t forgotten! As we drove further up the mountains it began snowing. Before we left I had been looking at the weather/snow forecast, and it didn’t look overly good. As it was I had nothing to worry about – at the end of our time in Slovakia, our driver said that the last week had been the best bit of snowfall the Tatras had seen in a while :) I was so happy to get good snowfall, particularly after the UK had failed to deliver this year. Mum missed out – she should have come skiing with us!!

A BATH!!

Anywho, we arrived at our accommodation for the next seven nights, and found out we had been upgraded for the first two nights. Instead of a standard twin room, we were in the two bedroom suite! After over a month in hostels, a room to myself was absolute bliss. AND it had a bath :D. We dropped of our bags and headed back down to get our ski gear and lift pass.

Why couldn't we keep the suite?!

The next morning we met up with our ski instructor, and it was time to hit the slopes! After seven years since the last time I had skied, I thought I picked it back up rather quickly. I was soon racing down the beginner slope very confidently. I love the rush of going fast! Adam, on the other hand was a complete beginner, and quite nervous (which is understandable – those slopes are slippery!). So I went off on my own a bit, while he got one-to-one tuition. See the video for Adam's first day of skiing!

The beginner slope at night

After our first lesson we went searching for some food. We went to of the restaurants on the mountain, where we had a bit of a culture shock. Slovakia probably isn’t one of the 1st places you think of to go skiing in Europe. This shows in that there are very few tourists, and most of the skiers are local families (I swear some of the kids who were skiing couldn’t even walk yet!). As such, English isn’t spoken as much or as well, so trying to figure out what was actually on the menu was a bit tough. And the pictures really didn’t help. So, after 1 failed attempt at eating some more traditional Slovakian food, we stuck to eat at the place that had an English menu, and we knew what we were eating. So, we mainly had pizzas for lunch – but they were really yummy pizzas! Dinner was included, and we had a choice between a pasta or meat based dish. An adventage to being in Slovakia is that food and drinks were CHEAP :)

On either the first or second day, after our lesson we went for a walk down one of the ski slopes. Well, mostly walked – there was one steeper bit, where we slid down mostly on our bums. That was fun! Turns out that bit was a red/medium part of the run, whereas if we had turned left we would have continued on the blue run. I managed to convince Adam to ski down this longer steeper run – and we both made it down in one piece :). The 1st day we did it, it was quite icy, and as it turned out, part of the bit we slid down on our bums was also part of the blue run. So I went down that VERY slowly, making big zigzags. As the week went on however, we got more lots of snow fall, and the powder makes you go slower, so it was much easier to go down. The downside to that is that on the flat bits you need to work a lot harder! By the end of the week, I was pretty confident at going faster, and I could ski down the run, faster than taking the gondola up :P

You can see quite a few indiviual snow flakes here

Close up 

Snow Angels

In the middle of the week we had a ski lesson free day, so decided to make it a totally ski free day. We walked another run – well, some of the time I slid down on a plastic bag. That was fun, but could have the potential to be dangerous – it’s hard to steer plastic bags! I would have loved to have skied that run, but wasn’t keen on doing it by myself, and Adam definitely wasn’t keen to do it, so I had to stick to the beginner slope and that one other one I was talking about.

Check out the view from the top of the mountain - Please ignore my voice... it sounds weird :S

Just lying in the snow, looking up

Beautiful day :)

Eventually it was time to hand back our ski gear and head back to Krakow to catch our flight back to London. I left Slovakia thinking I was a pretty good skier – I mean I only fell over a maximum of five times in the five days of skiing we did. But I was keen for some more skiing…