Missioning to the Snow

What a freakin’ ordeal!! I thought the French train system was  supposed to be one of the best in the world!

The plan was to take the train from Cannes to Grenoble, then get on a bus to Alpe d’Huez to visit Adam once more (he’s now cheffing up there). This is a three hour journey.

After a series of untranslated French messages and a whole lot of waiting I was in Grenoble, five hours later than I had expected. The bus station had closed. Grenoble doesn’t have a youth hostel. The cheap hotels are not exactly cheap but I stayed in one anyway (after walking around a lot trying to find a cheapest one).

The next morning the bus didn’t come, and I had to wait and wait for even longer. And finally I made it to Alpe d’Huez, twenty-four hours later than I had expected!

The view was looking great!

View from Alpe d'Huez

Adam was living in an apartment with eight other people, all from the land of Britannia. They were all on contract from a company called SkiWorld, and along with nine others, they managed and ran a small hotel and a number of chalets in the town which catered to British skiing tourists.

I was here to catch up with Adam and to hopefully snowboard! Little did I realise that 1) the weather wasn’t all it cracked up to be, and 2) everyone who works here is in a constant state of boozing. They get up to be at work at 7am, work ’till 10am, ski or snowboard ’till 4pm, work again until around 10pm, then  go out drinking to 3am almost every night! So the first night I was there I was whisked off to various bars around the village and everyone ended up frightfully drunking pretty fast – even though the beer was very expensive. That night ended with everyone eating these horrible takeaway dishes called the Americana which is basically a foot long b agette stuffed with meat patties and covered in fries, which in turn covered the floor of the apartment. Filth!

The following morning we awoke and after work, Adam and I set out to fix the bindings on his board so I could ride it. This turned out to be a right mission. We wandered up to, perhaps, the only place that does Burton gear to find just a single screw – they didn’t have it. We were able to, though, get a cool view of the ski field which is amazingly huge!

Ski Field

Soon it had become 2 o’clock and it seemed like no one had the screw and it wasn’t going to be economically viable to buy a daily ski-pass for just two hours. So we flagged it and headed back to the apartment to hang out. And that’s about how it was for the rest of the evening. I spent it watching Peep Show on DVD and the others went to work. One guy got 2nd degree burns from picking up a hot pan, another had ruined his ankle on the slopes! Horray! Hopefully the next day I would be getting out there!

The next day came, the weather was marginal to say the least. This was Adam’ss day off, too, but we just spend it hanging around again. I guess that it is nice to have a break every so often though. Later that afternoon I was getting restless, so I decided to make a break for it and walk down to Huez, the town lower down the mountain.

After walking down and around about 5 corners of the Tour de France hillclimb, I made it.

Tour de France!

Huez was a tiny little old fashioned town. Unlike Alpe d’Huez all the buildings were small, close together and old. The roads were snow covered and icicles hung everywhere. I was sliding all over the place, but was happy. It was an amazing place to explore around.

Huez Town

On my way back up (as it had taken about an hour to get down), I decided to take a shorter route. Jumping off the road I began to follow a path I found in the snow. Surely if someone else had walked up here then I could also. It started off okay but got increasingly deeper and less predictable so soon I had to get out of it and back onto the road.

Snow path!

That night it was back to drinking again. And there was hundred of people out. The craziest part was being in one bar and going to get a drink, being swallowed into the crowd of people on the dance floor and suddenly realising they were all mimes! There was about 100 mimes in full costume dancing away – so very strange!

The next day was beautiful. I was adament that I would get out on the slopes, so I flagged trying to get Adam’s gear to work and rented a board and boots, bought a ski pass and set off up the mountain with one of the girls from the hotel, Alice, who had her day off. And WOW what a mountain. New Zealand has nothing like this at all, it’s huge and the runs are perfect. We skied and boarded for a few hours then met up with Adam who was on his midday break and also his other friend.

Skiing the Mount

We had a few marvelous runs, Adam pushing me way too far, and then headed for the top of the mountain. The view was absolutely amazing, although the wind was out of control. It was like being in the snow version of a desert sandstorm!

View from the top

This was the beginning of what I was told is the world’s longest pisted run. 16km of pure down hill (well, a little bit of annoying flat at the end). It just went on and on and on and it was oh so steep, but absolutely amazing! The weather was brilliant and once we got passed the windswept ice, the snow was lush!

Giving The Gogs a real sporting time

After this run we were all totally knackered and headed back to the apartment for another easy night of nothing. I sat around watching The Mighty Boosh, then the others came back and we watched No Country For Old Men. Then, amazingly, everyone went to bed.

The next morning I was up at 6:30am to catch the 7:30 bus back to Grenoble for I was off to Paris.

Goodbye Alpe d’Huez, I’ll miss you!

View of Alpe d'Huez

Berning Down the House!

From Zurich I made my way to Bern. I had intially planned to take the Luzern-Interluken route but since I had already done this the day before, it was just a one hour trip. I arrived in Bern at about midday to find my next host, Regula wandering around the station looking for me just as I was doing for her. Lucky for me that we found each other at that time, as my train was late and she was about to leave.

In an old house near the train staion which usually had a bar, cafe, womens area, theatre and holds frequent parties, a once a month flea market was being held. Here you could by almost everything you could think of from scooters and bikes to console games, candlesticks and tea. I had to hold myself back as I saw so much stuff that I would have liked to buy but unfortunately can’t carry around with me. We spent a few hours looking around the markets and then decided to head back to her place.

Crazy bicycle for sale

Regula lived in a very old house which was situated inside an industrial area in a town about half an hour out of Bern called Oberburg. This industrial area has a building right next to the house which begins some sort of extreme hammering each morning at seven o’clock which shakes the entire house, continuing until five in the evening. Asides from Regula living there, there was also Nicole and Dino, a suitably hippy couple, another girl whoes name I never found out, and one more guy and another couple who were away at the time. For me this was great as I was given my own room which included its own fireplace to keep me toasty warm in the freezing nights. That night Regula, Nicole, Dino and I just hung out, ate some amazing food cooked by Nicole (who should be a chef), and listened to music. I spent half the evening dashing up and down the stairs to keep my little fire going.

The old house

The next day I was to meet up with a girl called Flurina who has contacted me the previous night on CouchSurfing, asking if I’d like to be shown around Bern. So at around midday, I met her in the Bern station and we set out on our mission. The first place to visit was the house where I had been at the flea market the previous day. I had wanted to get a betting picture of  it.

Flea market location

Next we wandered down to one of Bern’s many bridges. Following this we made our way to the highest tower in Bern at the XXXXXXX church. It was many more stairs that I had predicted and after we fought our way up with a number of stops, we found the the view was totally worth it. Unfortunately over half of the tower was closed to it was next to impossible to get a decent view from the other side.

View from tower

After we headed back down, Flurina suggested that next on the agenda should be “bears and fountains”, so we went for a walk towards the Bern bears. For some reason or another, there is a pit in the middle of the city which for numerous years has held a number of bears. It’s a horrible concrete pit and many people oppose it. The bears look so sad in there, just sitting around waiting for food and most probably wishing that the winter would become cold enough to hibernate.

Bern's Bear

Next were the fountains. Not as amazing as many of the other fountains which I have seen on this trip, but pretty cool as a number of them (which run up the middle of the main pedestrian streets) are statues of folktales. The one which is the best and I think every one agrees with is this one of a man eating small (bad mannered) children – a tale parents would often tell to their kids to keep them in line!

Child eater!

A walk down the riverside followed lunch, and when we were about ten minutes down stream (which was 6.66 degrees by the way!) I spotted the zoo on the otherside of the river which Flurina seemed to think was free. So back we headed and over a bridge which we had passed. Then we just walked in! Past some ponies and mules, fluffy rabbits and then… RACOOONS! My god I just keep having child-like exciting moments! So mischevious looking and so cute at the same time.

Racooooooon :)

Onward we walked up the hill to find a pond full of pink flamingos. I find these birds hilarious, especially the way the walk around in the water. They would move around to find the sun in flocks, flapping their wings to gain all the sun they could get.

Flamingos

Our trip to the zoo was our last activity for the day, and as the sun was setting we headed back to the train station where I thanked Flurina for showing me around and then set off back to Oberburg for another evening of music and hanging out.

The following day Nicole had no work and so decided to come with me on a trip to Gruyères to visit the H.R. Giger museum. This is the guy who invented the alien from the film Alien. It was lucky that she came along as it involved 3 trains and a bus, plus numerous amounts of German and French speaking. On arrival we had about an hour to spare so we decided to have a look around Gruyères, a very quaint little medival town set on the edge of the Swiss Alps.

Gruyères

At 1pm the museum opened. This place was crazy, the mind of this man insane. There were so many amazing pictures of creatures that I could never dream of. Very dark and for some reason, also very erotic. They had this little “adults only” section which seemed pretty pointless as almost all of his work had some weird alien sexuality to it. Unfortunately you were not alowed to take photos inside, but this was on the outside:

Babies in a gun

And there was even a bar which he designed, indeed also crazy:

Giger bar

And soon it was time to make the long trek back to Oberburg. We were not back for long when Regula came in from work, covered in snow! “It’s snowing!” she called, and looking out the window, it definitely was. So after another beautiful dinner made by Nicole, she, Dino and I headed outside into the already 4-5″ snow to play around. Snow fights were not an option of choice, and I was amazed to find that you actaully can roll snow into huge balls, resulting in by far the best snowman I have ever built.

Snowman!

This went on for a few hours and by then we were all tired and soaked and ready to sleep, but not after more music and hanging out, though!

I had initially planned to leave the following day, but it took me a while to find a place to stay so I spent one more day in Bern. This day I used for doing nothing. I headed into Bern to get a train ticket and then just spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing and watching the snow out the window. A quiet evening and my time in Bern was over, again going so fast!

The next morning I was off to Cannes!

Bring on the Cheese!

I hadn’t really planned what I was going to do after travelling through Italy, and at the last minute I decided to go to Switzerland in search of snow, and to begin my treck towards Paris, where I will be just before Christmas. So the morning after the Cinque Terre adventure, Carmen and I parted ways at the train station, her to Rome and I was heading to Zurich.

Eight train-filled hours later I was there. My first mission was to get to a town about twenty-five minutes out of Zurich called Winterthur where I would meet my host, Lia. Finding the train was the easy part, finding an ATM to withdraw Swiss franks was not so easy. Finally I figured this out and soon I was travelling north to Winterthur where I found Lia waiting for me.

That first night we did not do a lot, we were both tired and had decided to have an earlyish night so she could show me around Zurich thee following day. In the morning we ate and then headed into Zurich, there was much to do! Unfortunately it was raining, but this was not to stop us. First of all we headed out of the train station and down the main street, appropriately named Bahnofstrasse. This was a street filled with expensive clothing and watch stores, intermingled with douzens of different banks promoting private bank accounts. On the way down this street we stopped to check out various churches.

Church clock tower

We ate roasted chestnuts, talked and took numerous photos of Zurich dressed in it’s best Christmas attire.

Christmas pinecones

We then passed the Zurich lake and headed towards a secondhand bookshop which we both wanted to check out. The English section was not so large, but I managed to find Catcher In The Rye and Dracula for 3 franks which is a damned good deal. Lia bought a collection of 13 huge photography books that she would have to collect later as they were much too heavy to carry around.

But before we hit the bookstore, we stopped by:

Google office Zurich

This was pretty cool to see. Apparantly the inside of the building is amazingly well equipped with meditation rooms, aquariums, a gym, and much more. Outside the office was parked this Google bike! I hear that the staff are given them to use.

Google bike

After we left the bookshop, we headed back towards the centre of town, where we crossed the river and checked out another church.

Zurich's riverside

Twin church towers

And now was the exciting part! We decided to head up the local tall mountain of which I forget the name and climb the view tower. We took the train and when we arrived I was thouroughly excited to see a snowy path leading to the top. I could barely contain myself and was running around like an over excited child.

Snowy path

When we got to the top we headed up the tower and found the view of the alps in all directions. It was amazing!

View over Zurich

The sun started to set so we headed back down the the tower and began to construct a small snowman on a park bench which I was actaully able to pick up and carry around with me until I picked him up off of a chair and he lost his balance, his head falling off.

Snowman!

By this time it was getting pretty late and we had a dinner date with 100 other CouchSurfers out in the countryside. This event was run by the Zurich CouchSurfing group and was basically 100+ people in a big cottage in the countryside eating over 20kgs of cheese fondue and drinking too much wine. It was a whole heap of fun! There were heaps of Swiss people and many others from all over the world there too. One guy I talked to had even cycled from Belgium to Serbia in 4 months, crazy!

the CHEESE

This went on ’till the early hours of the morning and when Lia decided that she has drunk far too much, we headed home.

The next day the weather was terrible, it was raining something atrocious, so instead of checking out any more outdoor sights we planned a scenic train trip. This would be from Luzern to Interluken. So we got on the train and headed for Luzern. When we got there we had some time to kill, so went for a short walk in the city, over the famous bridge:

Some old bridge

and past some very cool decorated buildings:

Decorated house

Soon it was time to get on the train, so we headed back to the station, boarded the train and we were off. In no time you could feel the pull of the train heading upwards and soon enough we were engulfed in snowy forest and paddocks. It was like nothing I’ve ever seen before! We opened the window of the train at one point when it stopped to get some photos and the woman sitting infront of us ended up covered in snow! It was snowing like I’ve never experienced.

Lotsa snow!

In what seemed like no time at all, the night fell and we were headed back to Zurich to meet the CouchSurfers again for their monthly meeting which just ended up being a number of people drinking in a bar. It was good to see some of the people again from last night and meet more new people. I can’t keep track of all the people I’m meeting everywhere, there are too many!

That was my final night in Zurich, it really felt like it had gone much too fast but it was definitely a great time. In the morning I was off to Bern.

A Citidel and a Dead Guy: Moscow

I arrived in Moscow at Leningradskiy Station at around 10am. Once there I was supposed to amuse myself for the day, then find my host, Krishna’s, place. I had pretty good directions: get on the Metro, take the circle line until the correct station, turn right and walk till I hit an Italian restaurant.

I found the metro, but for some reason I could not for the life of me figure out how to get inside it. I walked around the building numerous times but all I encountered was markets, beggars, and about 300 dubious looking people hanging around the station, smoking, the ground a sea of their spit. Soon I found a map and decided that I would take the red line to where I needed to go and walked to the next metro station. I had decided that to fill in my time I would go and check out the Kremlin as I had a few hours to spare.

After finally getting a metro ticket (I walked away from the counter, forgetting it at first), I jumped on the train, decyphered the Cyrillic name for the closest station on the line to the Kremlin, counted the number of stops and headed on into the central city.

The Kremlin is closed on Thursdays.

I had no idea what to do. I had not seen one tourist office and my Lonely Planet map was pretty bad, but it did have the NZ embassy, so I thought I’d drop in there to see if they could give me some information. After a fourty minute walk (I’m carrying my pack here too) down the wrong street, I didn’t find the embassy, so I walked back. Right, it was only a few hours ’till Krishna said he was going to be home, so I decided to find his place and hang out and read a book.

This was the easiest thing so far, although the guy I asked for help at first tried to tell me that I needed to be back at the original station I had started at! I found Krishna’s apartment, rang the door bell, no one was home. So I sat down to wait. Pretty soon it started to get cold, and by cold I mean it was probably below 0 degrees. People kept coming and going but no sign of Krishna. I kept ringing the door bell just in case there was another entrance to the building. When he was 20 minutes late, I rang again and was answered by his flatmate, Katija. Finally! She let me in, it was an amazing feeling to be out of the cold. We sat down, had some tea and talked. Krishna didn’t make it home ’till 11pm! I’m very glad that Katija was there! That night Ben, the Australian guy I met in Estonia, came around for a chat. It was good to see him again and we made plans to meet up the following day.

Katija also had a very cute kitten!

Katijas Cat

In the morning Ben called to say that he wasn’t feeling so good; an allergic reaction to the chili in the meal which Krishna had cooked. He needed the day to rest but I decided to visit the Kremlin anyway and would meet him later on. I began to walk from Krishna’s into town, it’s about a 40 minute walk to the Kremlin, and passes by the majestic Cathedral of Our Saviour.

Cathedral of Christ the Saviour

Soon enough I made it to the walls of the Kremlin which borders Alexander Gardens and the entrance inside the citidel.

The Kremlin's Wall

After waiting in what Russians appear to call a queue, which is basically a mass of people pushing to be the first to the counter, I managed to get a studen ticket to get inside. Students pay one sixth the price of regular people. So in I went.

Entrance to the Kremlin

Cathedral Square

My ticket enabled me to wander around the grounds and check out the Cathedral Square in which four white and gold cathedrals stood proudly in the winter sun.

Inside, though, was where the amazement began to set in. Every cathedral was adorned from floor to ceiling with icons painted both directly on the plaster, and on wood facades. Colourful faces and gold halos were beaming from every direction. Lining the bottom of the walls were tombs of important Russian figures throughout history. Unfortunately you were not alowed to take pictures inside any of these places, otherwise I would have taken hundreds, it was astonishing.

The rest of the buildings inside the Kremlin were very St. Petersburgian. They were really the only buildings which I saw in Moscow that seemed to have been built in the same style as the Hermitage or Catherine the Great’s palace.

I still had a bit of time left before I had to meet Ben, so I went for a wander around, over the bridge which crosses the Moscow River to get a better look at the Kremlin.

The Kremlin

The above was the view from to the north. To the south was the sunsetting on the clearest night behind the Cathedral of Our Saviour.

Sunset behind cathderal

Soon it was time to meet Ben. We got some food then headed out to an “expat friendly bar” that I “had to see.” It was true it was crazy inside this place, it was like every kind of bar you can think of in one; club, sports bar, live music venue, cafe, sisha bar, and then later in the night was what Ben had wanted me to see. At aproximately 11pm, about 25 prostitutes just strolled on in. Apparantly they pay and exuberant entrance fee to get in and just act like regular patrons. They dance with you and then pop the question about having fun for payment. Crazy.

We visited a few more clubs and soon the night came to an end. When I got back to Krishna’s I was expecting to meet his other CouchSurfer who was supposed to be turning up that night. He wasn’t there. Ah well, bed time!

In the morning I got up bright and early as I really wanted to see this dead guy. You know, my father, your father, the father of communism: Mr. Lenin. I also realised that I hadn’t visited Red Square which would have been ridiculous. So in to the Kremlin I walked again and got in line for Lenin’s Mausoleum. I passed through the airport-like security checks, and started the slow walk to the building, pased the graves of many important Russian political figures. Soon I was at the mausoleum. This place is surrounded by numerous guards which ridiculous weapons, who loudly pronounce “sssssssh!!” every 3-4 seconds. In I walked, down into the tomb site, a temperature controlled pit of black marble. Next thing I knew I was staring at a very dead man, so dead in fact that he looked like he was never alive, but only a wax figurine. I began to speculate that maybe he still is alive and that this body is indeed wax. I hear they are thinking of closing the venue to the public, though, so maybe no matter the temperature control, he’s beginning to suffer the fate of human breath.

Lenins Mausoleum

Back into the sunlight I emerged and at the other end of red square, facing back towards the State History Museum. No tanks parading through today.

Red Square

My next stop was St. Basil’s Cathedral which is located on the west end of Red square, opposite the State History Museum.

St. Basils Cathderal

This cathedral was like a candy house. If Hansel and Grettle’s witch had been more wealthy, this is what she would have had. I ventured inside. You were also not alowed to take photos in here either, but it didn’t seem to bother anyone, and everyone was doing it, so I followed the crowd. Here you can also get an idea as to what it looked like inside the Kremlin cathedrals.

Inside St. Basils Cathedral

After St. Basil’s I had one last stop in Red Square and that was GUM, the high profile shopping mall with high profile prices, situated in a high profile building. Beautiful architecture, and full of crap that stupid people buy.

I headed back to Krishna’s once more and not long after I returned, the CouchSurfer who was supposed to come last night showed up. It turned out that the previous night he had gotten lost, had no phone number to call and ended up sleeping on the steets of Moscow! Now that is crazy! Apart from the fact that it was below 0 degrees at night, who knows what might have happened. But with a name like Phoenix Mourning-Star, I guess nothing is crazy for you. He was from Colorado and told me that he did his entire college life of five years living out of a car.

Anyway, shortly I was supposed to meet Ben again to go and check out what he had called an “airplane graveyard”, so I asked Phoenix if he wanted to come along too. And also another dude called Ben who had helped Phoenix find Krishna’s apartment. We met Ben (the Australian) and a whole bunch of Moscow based CouchSurfers and headed off on the Metro to an disused aerodrome from the Cold War turned insustrial area. The planes and helicopters were in sight but were surrounded by a large fence. Not to worry, at the price of 50 rubles each, we paid off the guard and he let us in to pretty much do anything we wanted.

There were huge helicopters, missiles, jet planes with afterburners, everything adorned with the sicle and hammer and beautiful handpainted red stars. If the cockpits were smashed, you could even get inside.

But my favourite part was the fact that they planes were parked wing to wing. So at one stage near the end (and I have a video of this), I started from one end, and began to run. Along the left wing (becareful of the flaps!!), over the fuselage, along the right wing, then jump! Onto the next plane’s left wing and so on over the top of around 15 planes in a row. I can only say it was a very interesting experience, running around on the top of warplanes.

Warplane Graveyard

That evening Ben, Phoenix and I met up with some of Ben’s friends including a Cuban guy from Miami who looked like Zorro except with an uneven moustache. This guy had one of the biggest egos I’ve ever met, but he also knew where to go out, so out we went. We only actaully managed to make three stops, the first being a pie shop. There I met Eric, a Nigerian guy who ran a promotion company in Moscow and brought in hiphop acts like Chingy and Jaz-Z and Timberland, he was currently bringing over Chingy at the time. These people didn’t understand how hilarious Chingy is, but anyway.

Our next stop was a student party, held in a student club where we all pretended to be students. The music was terrible, and they kept playing this annoying “king of my castle” song over and over again, which was only topped by a remix of the Pirates of the Carribean theme music which no one else seemed to find absolutely ridiculous. I was told that to get a beer you pay 15 rubles, to get a girl you speak English.

Our next stop was, according to Zorro, the best club in Moscow and a “real club”. It was called London, and had this weird theme of umbrellas and Ducati motorcycles going on. The drinks were horrendously expensive and they were playing the same terrible music as the student party. I think Russia has it’s own dance music where they basically remix anything that they can get their hands on. We stayed there until about 4:30am, and then Ben and I decided it was about time to leave, I was staying at his place and had to get up at 8am to leave for the airport, which I managed to do okay! At 10am when I left Ben’s apartment, it was -2 degrees, when I landed in Athens at 5:30, it was 18 degrees. Aaaaaaahhhh.