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.