Last weekend I moved house, the new place is a bit nicer, I am only sharing with one other person instead of 2 and it feels much more like somewhere I would be happy to invite people round for dinner or something.

Last night I finally bought my bed so Friday I will be sleeping well again…..hopefully.

Also this means I now have another route to work! Fun times cycling, getting lost, getting absolutely drenched when it rains and I get a bit lost…..

So I think I have now found the perfect route

New route to work

I will create a new album and upload some pictures once the place looks nice again.

Got a fairly busy weekends coming up, got Matt and Shell visiting this weekend, and hopefully the weather will be good so we can go to ‘the biggest annual European ultimate frisbee tournament on grass’ unfortunately not to take part  but just to watch Also planned is a steak night, spicey KFC night….. ummmm cycling….. I need a few more ideas as well obviously!

Then the following weekend I have another guest, Lucy is coming over from Thurs night till Sunday morning, not sure what I have planned for that… will check I Amsterdam site for what might be going on on the Sat. There are a couple of art exhibitions I would like to see, we will have to see if either of them go for them…..

The main issue’s have been:-

a.)trying to find other people to go with. I went last year on a mystery holiday with people I have never met before, and I did have a good time (till I broke my rib), but you can’t beet going away with actual friends, especially if you have moved to another country and you don’t get to see them any more!

b.)being in another country means you can’t do the same package holidays as people from the UK, you can normally book a person as self travel, then you need to book your own flights (not to difficult) then your own transfers (or try and sneak on the transfer bus). This got particularly difficult when my friends found a good deal but I couldn’t find a room at a good price, plus would have to had used public transport to do a 3-4hr journey!

c.)and of course the normal problems you get with booking ski holidays…. do you wait for a good deal, do you wait for snow reports, which bit do you book first when doing self travel… basically ski holidays are a nightmare to book, I think mostly due to them being more expensive than normal holidays generally and dependent on more factors than say a pool side holiday.

Luckily though with the help of the interweb, a friend at work explaining to me dutch people don’t fly to Toulouse to get to Andorra but Barcelona instead (the price difference was about €200  at least) and some VERY good friends who were willing (I think) to pay a bit extra so we could holiday together instead of them together and me somewhere different but perhaps in the same country; I think they calculated it as the cost of keeping me as a friend (I’m very cheap I think); we booked! Well sort of, we booked flights at the same time-ish on the wed night I think, but decided it was late and people wouldn’t book the triple hotel room we had seen between about 1 in the morning and 10 when I could once in the office and I could ask my Spanish friend to ring the hotel and try and work out some special deal (He speaks the local dialect, Catalan, I thought this might butter them up). I was wrong, when he tried to call and we couldn’t find a working number I went back online to find the room gone… fun. Luckily there was another place that had a triple room and was actually a little cheaper, with 1 less star, but more importantly a room! That done I booked the car, a little problem there, but mostly straight forward. I was pretty excited, a road trip, a new country, skiing and see friends… score!

I had wanted to visit a new ski area for a while so now I have skied in Canada, Italy, France, Austria and Andorra. Hopefully I can add to list again this year, maybe.

The holiday itself was really good, nice drive through northern Spain using a borrowed TomTom with all the newest features, in-fact just driving again was nice, albeit on the wrong side of the road and in a car that could have fit my old smartcar into it about 3 times.  Then actually finding the hotel (TomTom’s coverage of Andorra is not the best, I will have words with them) and then finding out that the hotel room was a 5 person room (don’t get me wrong that doesn’t mean it was massive) with bunk beds! WOOHOO! I got the bottom bunk and made a little base with covers from the top bunk. Reminded me allot of who I lived for about 4 months in France while sharing a room with 2 other guys and a girl friend.

The ski was good, when I was actually doing it, my shinny new super dooper ski boots nearly broke my feet! Both big toes got really sore (when not numb) and the top of my right foot was very painful. I have spoken to the boot fitter and he has said when we can meet he will fix the issues. Also there was some issue with my friends boot bindings being to small for their boots… if only there was a way they could have foreseen that issue…. I’m looking at you Shell! The region itself was really nice, very picturesque, even if Andorra as a whole did have a funny smell. I would definitely go back and this time maybe a day in Barcelona as well.

I took some pictures and routes with GPS while there, they should be bellow and in my picasa web album which is linked to on the right.

Ski day, Andorra

Perfect ride to work

I think I will end the gps tracking to and from work now, I might add some more for some other trips but for now I won’t be doing any more.

Also exciting today, I think I’m fairly close to booking a ski holiday for next week, hopefully in a country I’ve never skied in

Today I tried again, and only back tracked once! Take a look

Into work

Ok so I hadn’t looked at it before I posted, the start of the ride I didn’t do that stupid route, it was gprs signal only so it got a bit confused, I just went straight up that main road!

So here goes.

Route home 180110

I have settled into my new room and finally met my other house mate, he is Spanish and was home for 3 weeks over Christmas. He seems nice and his cooking also seems really good, so hopefully with india and spanish influences I will pick up a few cooking tips.

Work is starting to get a bit more involved and the guy who will be my boss in a month or so has started and we seem to get on well which is always nice! Although I will miss working for my current boss as he is pretty cool and been a really good boss. (I might send him a link for my blog;) )

Hopefully going skiing soon, I will be taking the train, which although expensive should be more relaxing and much more environmentally friendly…….. Although this might not happen if the stupid weather doesn’t stop snowing.. never thought I would say that!!

I have now moved into a new room, it’s a house share with 2 other guys, I have only met one of them so far but he seems nice and gave me a lift with my stuff in his car so I didn’t have to use trams to get it there. The only issue there so far has been how cold the house is. I think that might also be related to how cold it us generally at the moment!

I’m currently sat in the airport on my way back to the UK for xmasday and boxing day then flying back again Sunday. The airport is much quiter than I thought it was going to be and there has been very few flights cancelled today expect where the planes couldn’t leave the airport originally, so it all looking good!

So happy Xmas, or Qmas as they seem to call it here!

So what else has been happening? Well not allot really, I have had a few things to sort out, boring stuff (although actually quite exciting) like getting a sofi/BSN number, kind of like NI number, without it I couldn’t open a bank account or get paid. We had a guy meet us who sorted it all out, was very good, taken in a car to the tax office, in a different town as they had appointments, then to the bank and with the details they had I could open an account and apply for a credit card (no spending except in emergency’s I promise mum & dad!). So that’s all done in a morning and I emailed the HR girl, so I get paid this month! Woohoo!

Also in Holland we had ‘The Feast of Sinterklaas’ a festival that celebrates Sinterklaas coming to Holland and giving presents to good children and whips bad children with willow branches. Well I say he does it, its actually his helpers, Zwarte Piet. That’s black Peter…..

To give a little back round Sinterklaas lives in Spain (of course) and comes to Holland on a steam boat with his 2 helpers. Also all the children get a chocolate letter of their name and sweets and also presents, meant to be wrapped to camouflage what they are and with an individual poem.

Also this week I have lost both my hat and gloves, punctured a tire of a bike I borrowed and caught the wrong bus and ended up without public transport an hours walk from the next tram home

Here are a few other pics.

For the moment I am lucky enough to have some very nice Frieda letting me stay at their