Blog note on official website

I can't resist to be a bit flattered when I saw that the official web site of St Anton am Arlberg wrote about my blog. They wrote that my blog is nice to read because it gives the reader a insight in a ski bummer's life in Stanton. They made a remark that I didn't learn German that well because I write in English. I think it would be a bit hard for me to write the blog in German. Not to mention how hard it would be for the readers to understand my blog in my crappy German. ;)

Andermatt next year?

Talked about next ski vacation this winter with an old friend of mine. I told her about my superior stays in Stanton the last two winters and I dropped the idea I have not to go to Stanton next year... I have a friend's cousin that asked me to follow him to Andermatt in Schweiz. He's a bit crazy and I don't know him that well but he is funny so it can be a pleasant trip. Well see...

Home Schweet Home

Home again from St.Stanton. Havn't been able to blog as much as I wanted. First that it was too much to do and second my phone USB charger didn't work as planned. Ah well home in one piece and no injuries this time. My knee hurts a bit though but that's after hard boarding and commotion at club Funkey Chicken. Price you have to pay for a great vacation!

...and more sun.....

It starts to be a bit annoying with all the sun and no snow. It's like 5-7 Celsius in the shade and the snow is shrinking a meter in a week. Everyone is lazy and just hangs around. The goggle tan has developed to perfection with "Laschen Klaschen" and hours in the slope over the park at "Rendl Beach". The only thing that intensifies during these conditions is the night life, when no one wants to ski anymore. The rumor tells that snow in on the way though. Saturday is the big day, the day before i go home.... I'll hope for the best that it will dump before that.

Snow and sun

Havent blogged for two days. Two days of different weather conditions. Day one, the 12th, yesterday, was snowy with 30cm of new light powder. Not so good sight but the new snow had mixed with the earlier older snow so it felt like more powder. We had pretty nice big drear for our selfs. Especially one steep ravine with feather light almost bottomless powder. I couldnt belive my senses. It was too good to be true for the first day!

There

Ah, its snowing beautifuly outside the futuristic train station in St Anton. Its always the same feeling to get to the destination in one piece. Looking forward to a shower and then get out in the village.

Delicious and Confusing

There was I. Hungry and tired. As I walked through the streets I found a delicious exitic place to eat in the dining district. The choice of tonight was döner with cous cous and a delicious soft drink of the brand of coca-cola. I finished the meal some block away with a extra fine card board cup of capochino at the exclusive caffe of Starbucks. My swiss made chronograph told of gently that the time was running out. I, as the time, run, to the main train station to catch my train. There, you see, the numbers was out of order. The train was of another constallation. Suddenly my ticket, my map of consensus, was no good for navigation. I was sacred, I now lacked control. I reached out and found a kind of souls. I found my home for the next two hours on the Kaiserin Elisabeth train to Innsbruck.

Not so bad

I have to say that I have to change my picture I had of Zurich. Its a pretty cosy town with nice old buildings and not to forget churches from the 12th century and erlier i think. Lots of exclusive stores, watches and delux cars everywhere. Time to eat. No time to listen to the concert in the church's crypt with a preppy guy in black turtleneck playing no metal plates hanging from the celing. Too much fine art and Chromata for me now. Feed me. I need something to eat.

Zurich city

My dear friend texted me and offered me a ride from the Stanton train station. So sweet of her! Honestly, I dont have big expectations of Zurich but Ill take a walk and have look what to find. Im not good at killing time I think...

Safe in Zurich

Just landed in a gray and riny Zurich. Let's see what to do for the next 4h till the train leavs the hauptbahnhof...

We have a lift off

So, after a forseen crash last night at 02:00 Im now on the way to the airport by bus.

T minus 0,5 day

Horrible day at work to get everything in order to run away for the two wonderful weeks in les Alps! I'm packing the last stuff right now, last minute of course... The plane takes off at 10:45 from Arlanda tomorrow morning. I always have a hard time to sleep the night before I go somewhere. I have learnt that it's no idea to go to bead early the night before. It always end up with that I just spin till very late before I turn in. Better to stay up and crash. I will be exhausted either way. The spinning part is no fun so I go for the crash strategy tonight...

Gugly layout

Gah! Added an image of my self. Ended up with an ugly layout. I think I have to live with that a day or two. It's really late and I have to get up early tomorrow. Ah well...

T minus 3 days

Nice! I mailed with my friend J I met last year in St. Anton. He is comming over to Stanton this weekend. His working in Zürich so his over pretty often. Im comming down at Saturday afternoon. The plan is to just dump my stuf and get some Jäger in our kitchen and then strait to Funky!

White death took him

I got information from my source in St. Anton that the Swedish 24 year old did not make it. Utterly sad. It has snowed allmost every week this season, she says.

T minus 5 days

Ah! It’s just 5 days left to this year’s ski adventure! Nice indeed. One thing that put some shade on this nice insight is a note in the newspaper Svenska Dagbladet yesterday. A Swedish guy was trapped in an avalanche. According to my source at location the guy is 24 year old from Stockholm (as I). It happened at "Dörli", on the side of "Schöngraben" (beautiful grave in German). He was rescued by his friends but was without oxygen for 35 min. Sad and horrifying story. I hope he will get well and I think of his family and his friends. These kinds of things make me think of the dangers in the mountains. I bought this book to get the theoretical part of safety when you are free skiing. I know that you need more than that to be safe off-piste but it’s a start, to get the respect, if not more.

Jealousy and I'm not proud

I got a link to my friend's travel journal today. They have been in St. Anton for tree and a half week now. I can't believe the pictures they have taken! Real pro shoots. Sun, powder and everything! They've been waiting for that dump for two weeks. I feel a knot in my stomach to read and see the photos. Why can't I have such awesome pictures of me pumping gushing powder around my waist?! But, I try to tell my self that it's because I'm a good photographer and as you know those stand behind the camera... Ah well, I hear how silly that sounds. I know that it's jealousy and I'm not proud of it. But hey! I just can't feel pity of my self! I'm going down to the skier paradise in "just" 23 days!

 

Note to self...

Note to self: Add "-95 -96" in the tile image. I just have to figure out where the src image is situated. I think I used some app to upload the image to some account somewhere. I uninstalled that photo blogging tool because of the new photo blogging feature in blogger. I post this here as a reminder and I hope I get some time soon to fix it.

Countdown has began...

It's one month to the next trip to St. Anton yesterday. I can't wait any longer! I've been speaking to a local friend down there during the last year and I have always felt for going down again, no questions. Now, when I've been waiting for eleven month it seems to be the easy part to wait another month but it's not like that. It's getting harder and harder. It's not getting easier when I hear reports from her and getting pictures of loads of snow. It's meters of snow, in the village. (I remember a dump of 70cm in one evening last year. Sorry for loosing your Gore-Tex glove Jonte that night.) When I read about a friend from last year, in his traveling diary, that he's in St. Anton again, I was nearly crying. Especially when I saw photos from where they are skiing - I recognize the great hikes from last year! And I tell you: It's not that boring Star Wars hike that everyone knows about!

At last...

*Pjouh* at last! Last week i made the reservations for the train stage between Zürich and St. Anton. It was a bit tricky to get in contact with the big German train company with the cool name "Die Bahn". The Track, in English. It's not just any train company. It's THE Train Company. For those  of you don't live in Europe; I can tell you something. Europe has allot of train companies competing on the same market AND they offer their customers the same time tables. So, if you find a departure in Die Bahn's time table, there is not certain at all that you can buy the ticket from Die Bahn. For you see, the line between Zürich and St. Anton crosses the border between Schweiz and Austria (as you all know who didn't sleep at your geography classes. I slept during my English classes, but that's a different story). Further, where were we? Oh, yes. The time tables. When you find the departure you like you just don't call the train company, or as I would preferred, just buy the ticket over that jolly nice Internet, no, no. That would be a bit nifty wouldn't it? You see children, the big train company Die Bahn has all the departures in their time table, and all but don't you think that you can buy the tickets for the departures you like. No, you have to call a second train company with the silly "abbreviation" SBB CFF FFS. Through them I bought my dear ticket at last. I can almost feel the biting wind and hear my board in the powder snow already! Ah! Sweet Stanton at the 11th of March I come!

Booking horrors

Gah! I have to throw this somewhere so I throw it out here. I've bin sitting almost all morning trying to get my hands on the number to the train company booking service. Has Die Bahn, the gigantic German train company, ever heard of international numbers? Numbers you can call their booking service from abroad? Now, after some trix worthy Sherlock Holmes him self, I found a tourist service in Denmark [sic] through a Die Bahn cargo department here in Stockholm, that could help me. At last, I thought, now I can make the reservations needed for the Zürich - St. Anton train round trip. But noo. "Can you send us an e-mail with the info where you want to go?" I have a bad feeling about this. To be continued...

Some time some time takes time

After almost a month, or wait... two month, I now have some time to make the reservations for the trip back to sweet sweet Stanton! I can't wait to feel the wind in my face and the zwooshing sound of dry powder!

Going back this winter?

Since I loved my time in St. Anton last winter I’ve been thinking of going back. This time just for a week or two. Since I’m a grownup now and have a job, I just have a certain amount of vacation days to spend. *Sigh* if you have time you don’t have money and if you have money you don’t have time...

Package!

I've wrote before about my late Christmas presents. But today I got them! Just over two month late! The box from my family in Sweden contained a cinnamon hart (almost all the garnish had fallen off), a sweater from my brother hes own design, a cardigan from mum and dad and a booklet with Swedish Christmas recipes, a bit late for that but ok. Nice to see that all of this fine gifts made it from Sweden to Australia and all the way to Austria. Fabulous! Talk about real postal happy ending!

Still no package...

It's the 13th of january and my package containing my Christmas presents from my family, that I tould you about erlier, has still not showed up...

Back to St. Anton!

Guess whut?! Today I booked my tickets back to St. Anton! The Snowflake-plain leaves for Zürich at Tuesday. Then it's Österreichische Bundesbahn-train to St. Anton. € 200 return inclusive! You may think I’m crazy and I probably am… I mean hurting your foot and had to go home with “SOS International Travels” and then go back a month later!? What is that? Some kind of joke? No, I can assure you that it isn’t… but don’t tell my insurance company, they’ll probably sue me for this... ;) I have to remember to talk to them about my stolen board so I can buy another one down in Austria, where the prices are more appealing...

My favorite holiday picture

This is my favourite picture from my stay in Austria. It's a magnetic scan of my right foot right after my snowboard accident. The white stuff you see is blood leaking out from some veins causing an internal bleeding. It's not too serious though. I can walk on it and it doesn't hurt too much.

X-ray of my foot

Here's an x-ray picture of my injured foot right after the snowboard accident. You can't see anything wrong here, but the picture in the next post is a magnetic scan where soft stuff is showing much better.

Still no package...

My package containing my Christmas presents from my family that I tould you about erlier has still not showed up...

Two down, two to go!

I got a blue SMS from Jonte in St. Anton today. He's got a fractured collar bone while boarding so he's heading home with "SOS International Travels" and ambulance. Just as I did for roghly two weeks ago. Right after he's chafe on his heel has healed and all! Sad story. Two down, two to go! Hang in there guys!

*sob*

Well before Christmas my mum posted me a package with some presents in Sweden. The package didn’t show up in Austria for Christmas! I got suspicious and asked my mum to call the Swedish mail. A woman sighed and asked if she had write ‘Austria’ on the package. My mum said “Yes, of course.” “You should had write ‘Österrike’ (Austria in Swedish) instead.” The woman said. “The kids on the post terminal in Malmö can’t read. I can see that your package is on the way to Australia…” Whut? Australia? Just because one lazy high school kid can’t read?! Crazy, I tell you, crazy... When am I going to get my dear presents now? *sob* ;)

Whut?!

A strange thing happened to me today, good news though. After my snowboard accident the doctor down in Austria put my foot in a soft cast and said "Have this cast for ten days, then go to your Swedish doctor and close the cast with a real stiff cast. Keep that cast for another four weeks. And don't put any weight on it." Ok, I thought. Today I went to see my Swedish doctor. He said the direct opposite: "You don't need a cast at all. Try to stand on the foot as much as possible and go to a physiotherapist so you’ll get a training program and get the foot back to normal as fast as possible. It’ll take like tree weeks before you can run again. Swimming is good exercise.” Whut? I went to see the physiotherapist and she ordered me to walk as usual. The best thing is that it doesn’t really hurt when I walk! My cousin injured her foot the same way as I, in St Anton. Her doctor put her foot in a huge stiff cast for five weeks! She had a hard time to get the foot in shape again after that. Lucky for me that I went home to Sweden in time! What are they doing down in Austria? Drinking too much Jägermaister?

Maybe IS happening!

Now that I can't go out because of my foot (as if I'm using my computer more now ;)) I got time to add some diary notes from my trip to St Anton. Blogger is nice bacause I can pick any date on my posts so it looks like I've been blogging all the time down in Austria, tnx for that Google! Enjoy.

Home at last

This blog sucks because I had like time to add two post before I got home to Sweden again. Sorry folks nothing more to see here. Meybe I'll take some energy and post some diary notes I made but that's just a maybe...

Swedish christmas in the Alps

Me and my flat mates had a great Christmas eave last night. In Sweden you calibrate Christmas at Christmas eave, not on the Christmas day. Don't know why. We actually went to church at 10 pm while we were waiting for Teddan, who works at a hotel. He was working late, to 11 pm. At 01:30 we were finished with the Christmas dinner and Santa dropped by and handed over the presents. I got two Austrian chocolate bars and a nice Christmas poem from Teddan. Very nice. Chrillan got a magic pen with a naked man that got undressed when you turned the fella up side down. Tobbe got a new pair of goggles from his boss! Nice boss. I gave Jonte a box that sounded like a cow then you turned it upside down. After that we just sat down and drank Jägermeister till 4. I think it was one of the best Christmas I've had in years.

Christmas lunch

Our Christmas lunch - Swedish sweet rice porridge by our recently stolen Christmans tree.

How to create the right Christmas feeling

Wait until it gets dark. Get an axe from your neighbour who's sitting in a wheelchair. Get into Berit. Step on it to the resplendent woods of Petneu. Get out in the snow just wearing slippers. Cover up so the polizei wount show up. Forget that it's supposed to be dark. Step on it home. Put the tree in big beer boot and decorate with home made decorations made of Jägermeister packings etc. Sing "tomtegubbar slår i glasen", drink the snaps and be happy.

Polizei questioning

In the afternoon I went to the Gendarmerei – the police to report my stolen snowboard. The policeman seemed convinced that I was trying to make an insurance fraud to get money for my trip home. "Do you know what I think?" the policeman said. "I think you're trying to trick me." I got a bit chocked and gave him all the details he wanted to know about the "crime" he thought I've done. "Is it illigal to have as much unluck that I've got." I asked him. I sat in questioning for half a hour! At last he trusted me and signed the police report. I was all shaky when I got out. It felt like I was a suspect in a murder case or something! Pjuh!

Five weeks!

Today I got the bad news that I have to keep the plaster for five, yes FIVE weeks! Doh! I'm going home.

Early present for Chrismas

Hey kids! - this is what happens when you board in the pistes. Go off piste! But get your selves a transceiver!

The day of bad luck!

Doh! Would Homer Simpson say several times today if the was in my shoes. It all started at 07:15 when my mobile woke me up and I felt more dead than alive. I knew that the big dump of snow last nights could give us superb skiing conditions, so I said to may self that it will be worth it to get up the first lift to the top of the Galzig and enjoy the unlatched pistes.

At the ski bus in to town I realised that I had forgot my goggles (doh!) but I thought that’s not a problem. I had been boarding without them the day before because they were totally filled with mist and snow. The first run went pretty good for the first 1000 height meters. Then I came down to an easier part of the piste where you just can relax and play around. This morning this last part was perfectly prepared and I and another guy was the first to go down there. We totally maxed our boards. Suddenly in a left turn, my toe side, the side I had all my weight on (I’m goofy), just lost the grip in a zone with ice blocks. I bounced down in 50 km/h or so on my right foot backwards down the piste. The steel edge cut for like 15 – 20 times and my right foot was badly loaded. At last I stopped and I couldn’t feel my right foot because of the pain. Doh! After a while a ski instructor came up to me and asked how I was doing. I said that I was ok, because I thought it just was a sprain. My second thought was that it could be really expensive to let the ski patrol take me down to the village. I decided to go down my self. It worked pretty well because of all the adrenaline. But when I got down to the village I couldn’t stand on the foot so I sat down on my board and headed for the pharmacy to get a bandage. A woman at the pharmacy told me that I should go to the doctor so I got a cab 200m for €7 to the doctor. The doctor examined and x-rayed my foot but he recommended me to get to another doctor so they could make a magnetic radio x-ray to see the soft stuff in the foot. So I went up the hill for another €7. There they put me on a hard table and I had to lie completely still for 30 min. It wasn’t too cosy with all the pain. After that I took a cab back to the first doctor for another €7. He put my foot in plaster and said that I could come back tomorrow morning to see what the expert in Innsbruck said about the x-rays. When I got out from the doctor I realised that someone stole my snowboard. Doh! The sum of expenses for today is €11.021 and a stolen snowboard worth another €450. Doh! This must be the most unlucky day in my life!

Apré Ski

Apré ski at Mooserwirt last night. Big opening night with Austrian national TV and lotts of German famous artists that we never heard of. Great party with good Glüwein and gemüse. What that is...?

Snow!

It's snowing! It's not just some snow flakes dancing down from the sky - it's a real snowfall! Last night we got about 1 meter and still snowing! Today Teddan and I went up real early and had the most awesome boarding experience I’ve ever had! It was like having… sex! Adrenalin pouring out of your ears! We went down the mountain with feather light powder up to our waists! We nearly drowned in the beginning finding the rout. We found our selves boarding on top of small trees with nothing keeping us up. We fell right through a couple of times.

Berit - the nice blue lady

Berit - the car in which we went down to Austria...

Takin' it easy

Today I've bin taking it easy all day. Got up at 12 and watching TV for two hours. Then I remember that it's 3rd advent in Sweden and that I promised my flat mates to make "Lussekatter". Sweat bread with saffron and raisins. So, now I'm down town uploading my photos to my friend's ftp server. Then I have to hurry to Spar, the supermarket here, and buy the stuff for the lussekatterna.

Pre-mustach at Funcy Chicken

Great pre mustach party at Funcy - chears for the season!

Working all day

Me and my flat mates have been working all day building the stage fore the season opening party in the tennis hall. Heavy work, but really fun people to work with. Negumbo, a guy from the island of Gotland in Sweden, Tack from New Zeeland, I think, and Ken – an Australian guy who lives here in St Anton, nice guys all of them. Tack has got a really expensive rent for his apartment here. He has to walk a dog ounce a day – that’s it! I asked if I can get his ‘contract’ for the next season. ‘Sure’ he said. Bad for me that I probably will be stuck in an office in Sweden next year…

Talk'n bull and got a job

Today we ran into a woman who we tried to convince that we where German speaking, good looking guys from Sweden so we could work in her sport shop. She made a quick test to look if we where just talking bull. She said something really fast in German and asked us to translate it. We looked like birds nest or something, just staring in front of us and didn’t come up with a word. Obviously we where talking bull to get the job. We prepared our selves on a sudden retreat when she asked us if we wanted to help some guys to build a stage for €10 in hour! We didn’t hesitate and of we went to the tennis hall to speak with the manager. She said it was ok and that we could come back tomorrow to start working. Great!

Here - at last

At last I'm here in St. Anton. The Tourist office closed at 18:00 and we got there at 17:30. Lucky me because now I found a place to stay for the night. Otherwise I would have to sleep somewere else.

Word of advice - Vetlanda train station

I had to wait for the guys for a while in Vetlanda. Right after I took this picture a man stepped out from his "bedroom", the left door in the cold waiting hall. We chitchatted for a while and when I was about to leave he wanted to give me a good advise for my journey: "Whatever you do, don’t get sober!" He said. I took the advice with me and thought about the words he said for a while. What could the man mean with that? Could his life be so miserable that he really meant what he said? It’s sad...

Packed to go for Austria

Like every journey mine started with one step... Here in my living room in Stockholm. No snowboard or boots to carry, just some clothes and books neatly packet for the time in Austria. I’m not sure how long I will stay down there, for the whole season or until I get a job at home. I don’t know.

The decision to go

I quit my job as a project manager at an IT-firm in September this year. During the time I looked for a new job I was thinking about what to do with my life. Is this the right profession form me? Should I look for another profession? Etc... What is it that I really want to do? One day, when I was depressed and bored to death and felt like “it doesn’t matter what I’m doing, I can’t get a job anyway” I came up with what I really wanted to do since I was a little kid – got ski in the alps! It may be sounds strange to you but It was really a sensational feeling for me to finally come up with one thing that I really really wanted to do. After that everything was easy. I surfed on the internet and found the Scandinavian site freeride.nu. First I found a guy who’s heading for Chamonix, but I don’t know any French and I wanted to have the chance to work down there if I stayed for the whole season. I decided to go to Austria instead because I know a bit of German. I chatted with Tobbe at freeride and he told me that he and his friend was looking for someone to split the costs for getting down to Austria in his car (called Berit btw). I said yes and he said that we could meet in Vetlanda, a town 250 km from where I live. I didn’t fix somewhere to stay. I was hoping we would get down to the tourist information before they close on Friday afternoon.