Ice, Nails and Projectile Vomiting..

What every holiday should include!!..

On thursday, a posse of intrepid skiiers and snowboarders (there were 11 of us) headed off to Turin to get in a quicky ski/snowboarding holiday in the resort of Sauze d'Oulx in the Italian Alps.. what an epic adventure!..

The first day and a half we got our gear and headed up the mountain to find not much snow, but enough to have a good time and remember how fun it is to hurtle down a mountain on a piece of laminate!..

Friday night we were all keen for an outing, and on the recommendation of Sam, we headed to a bar which had a novel way to make people keep buying drinks...
a) place a sawn off tree branch on it's end,
b) give the group of not-quite-sober players a hammer and a nail,
c) watch and laugh as the players take it in turn to try to hit the nail into the wood using the narrow end of the hammer,
d) get a free drink when the last person to hit their nail all the way in has to buy a round!...
Good fun game (especially if you're not losing) except when someone gets a little over excited and swings the hammer around wildly when taking their shot.. (not naming names)

Saturday was when the real fun began!.. all of us woke up with sore heads for some reason (maybe we'd been hit on the head with the hammer the previous night?).. but we stuck to what we'd planned and took a taxi into the nearby French resort of Montgenevre.. (you can usually ski all the way there - but because of the lack of snow the connecting lifts weren't open)..

We did a few runs, but conditions weren't as good as back in italy, and Blake had a bit of a stack (nothing broken - just some bruises).. so we stopped for lunch, then headed back to Italy to watch the rugby..

Well, the others did.. I was feeling a little ill, so went for a nap.. which turned into sitting on and crouching in front of the toilet for a few hours.. at first i though it was the almost raw steak i ate in france.. but then Nick got sick, then Sam, then Tony, then Blake, then Lisa, then Damien, and then Linda.. the tranquil sounds of vomiting and flushing toilets echoed down the halls of our small hotel!!..

Needless to say, none of us did anything on the Sunday...

Monday came and just as we were feeling better, Dave and Sarah got sick.. just in time for us to have to pack our stuff and head to Turin for our flight...

So the holiday wasn't exactly the best.. but it was definately memorable!!..

Word has it that the last healthy person from the trip is sitting at her desk is feeling nauseus.... ha ha ha..

Sweden and Denmark makes 18..

I have now visited 17 of the 45 European countries!!

Last weekend we headed off for a cheapy flight to Malmo in Sweden, where we took a short bus ride accross the channel to Copenhagen in Denmark.. We spent most of our time in Copenhagen, only entering Malmo for a meal before we flew back to London..




The Copenhagen highlights were:

- Going to the Carlsberg brewery only to find all the attractions closed for renovation - though the bar was still open where they compensated by giving us lots of free beer!.. including the special christmas beer where they release a different bottle for each advent day!..





- The pretty portside restaurants and bars (where vikings used to hang out) and standing outside warming our hands by the buckets of hot coals on the footpath..



- The brand new Opera House - pretty swanky!

- Christiania - the hippie commune which has become independent of Copenhagen and their laws..

- Being late for the city tour and instead making our own tour with the help of the lonely planet book (and me as "Tour info woman", Megs as "Group & Safety woman", Sam as "Text man" and Blake as "Direction & Extreme Man") through the city to see the major sites - the longest pedestrian shopping street in Europe, some old churches, the palace, the museums, the little mermaid and climbing a round tower to look over the rest of the city..

- Seeing seagulls stand in the middle of a frozen over stream.. for some reason it just looked weird - i mean, why wouldn't they stand on land where it was warmer?



- Seeing Blake's eyes widen when he heard a cracking noise when he was testing the ice to see if it would hold his weight..