White Powder

Being a Park Ranger in New Zealand has made it very difficult to live in the concrete jungle that is London. I am now homesick more than ever after getting a small taste of life back in nature.

Julie and I have spent the last week in a French alpine resort snowboarding. Being in the mountains again reminded me so much of home. The difference is however that it took us 20 hours to get there on a bus which was delayed for 7 hours at the Chunnel due to the driver being an idiot. You might not believe me but some services in England especially long distance travel is more difficult and uncomfortable than third world countries like Bolivia.

After a nightmare journey we arrived in Flaine in the Le Grande Massif (close to Chamonix). It was about 16 degrees, sunny and from first glance the snow did not look to good. The fresh air, clear skies (London skies are never clear due to the planes)and amazing mountain views filled us both up. All our hanging on sickness, sores, stresses, troubles disappeared instantly. To me it felt like the first glass of water after two days walking through the dessert.

Our holiday was all inclusive. That meant three buffet meals a day, accommodation, gear hire, lift pass and half day lessons every day. Did I mention that there were three buffet meals a day!!!! The first day we had a massive feed, a nightcap and then went to bed with the door open

slightly to let the fresh cold air in. Over night the resort was transformed. From a grey resort with dark green conifer stands dotted around the mountain to a fairytale white christmas postcard. It snowed all night and all the next day leaving about 1400mm of fresh clean powder snow.

The next few days were spent carrying out a routine which I could quite happily adopt for ever. We woke early to a buffet breakfast followed by a morning of snowboarding lessons with a group of equal level. Twelve o'clock back for buffet lunch then back out for more boarding this time with friends. Once you had fallen to many times and were aching with exhaustion it was back to the resort for another buffet meal. The evenings were spent at the bar sharing stories of bad falls and comparing injuries.

Being a natural at everything it didn't take Julie long to be the best in her group and look forward to the end of her beginner lesson when we would go on the harder slopes. By the end of our time Julie was the envy of her group able to board switch down red slopes with ease. I started off in the beginner group but changed as all the surfing I had done meant the basics were a bit to basic. By the end my group was riding of piste (trail) in the powder as much as possible. Riding through the trees and finding little jumps to hit. The powder was so light that I was able to accidently try back flips with no fear of hurting myself. I never landed anything more than a 180.

During the week it never really stopped snowing which meant that it was possible to get fresh powder tracks every day. The conditions were the best on the last day when the sun came out after a night of solid snow fall. There was so much powder that if you turned even slightly you slowed to a halt and were stuck deep. The only way to get out was to take your snow board off and walk/crawl to the nearest packed trail.

We are back in London now and have moved flats. Our new place is in Brixton. It is known as a rough area but our rent is cheaper and we have some nice parks close by for the little tiny summer to come. We also have a backyard with a BBQ and lots of couches in the lounge for any would be travellers who are thinking of making the mission over.

Another one? No I couldn’t possibly…oh go on then

In Belgium this comment can relate to MANY things, waffles, chocolate, beer, fries with mayo, tourist lace and diamond shops...but considering the weekend we went was leap year I didn’t want Chris to get the wrong idea that he would be getting bling so we tended to favour the food and drink options that Belgium has to offer on mass.

You cant live in Europe without going on the Eurostar at least once. To travel by a train that hits 300km and goes underneath the English Channel in the “chunnel” sounds all very exciting, but as we left in the dark and came home in the dark we didn’t get the full realisation of this and it seems like just another train ride.

We had heard reports that Brussels was a tad boring so we had pre-planned to visit some of Belgium’s other cities whilst there for the weekend. Sat morning up bright and early we took a slower train to Bruges for the day. It was a gorgeous city with canals running through it and cobbled streets to roll your ankle on. Not wanting to waste a moment it was straight into eating street vendor waffles and choosing a selection of chocolates from the vast selection on offer. You can get so carried away wanting them all but in the back of your spend thrift mind you realise you could have bought 5 peanut slabs for the same price as 3 of the gourmet treats. However we are not living half way around the world to crave things from home and not experience all we can so we made it our personal mission to try as many as we could (yes, I have just justified eating my own body weight in chocolate). In fact I could have purchased a 1ookg gorilla sculpted out of chocolate but that would have just been greedy.

After feeling guilty for just a moment about the calories consumed, and having got tired of all the sweetness of chocolate, we grabbed some fries and mayo and headed towards the tower in the centre of the square to climb 366 stairs to get a good panoramic view of Bruges. The wind up there nearly ripped my beanie off but it was great to get a look at the city. Phew, all that stair climbing was hard work so it was off to the Half Moon Brewery to sample their fare and do a tour of the only working brewery left in Bruges. Not being much of a beer drinker I could only marvel at the fact that in their collection of beer cans from around the world there was a DB Draft one standing proud – and a Steinlager of course but not nearly as impressive as someone thinking DB draft was a quality beer from NZ!

Back to Brussels for the evening and off we ventured into the night to find some Belgium food to sample and of course a place that offered some new beers to try. Now the food in Belgium probably represents the fact they drink a lot. It is all meaty and stodgy. Lucky for us we like meaty and stodgy! I managed to find a beer that didn’t make me gag in the form of a raspberry beer – delicious – and Chris doesn’t have a problem finding beers as he likes them all! We did HAVE to go (talk about arm twisting here – hee hee) to the bar that promotes the fact that they have 2000 varieties on offer and it was a very popular choice as it was heaving with like minded people.

So after our night of stodge and beer it was time to investigate what else Brussels had to offer so off on the tourist route we went. First stop was the Mannequin Pis, don’t ask me how this little freak got to be famous, but it is a tiny statue of a boy peeing – seriously, that’s it. Sometimes it is all dressed up in an outfit and this was the case when we visited. After taking the Pis and getting stupid photos we moved on.

It was recommended we go to the flea markets and see if we could pick up some random interesting crap, and crap there was but nothing too interesting. I did pause and think about buying the stuffed deer but realised I didn’t have the bag space for it. So after a waffle and meat feed we decided to check out the big diamond business so off to Antwerp we ventured.

Hmm, you couldn’t be blamed for thinking they ram it down your throat – BUY DIAMONDS or your partner will think you don’t love them basically. As soon as you step out of the train station there they are, all lined up creating a daunting passage to walk through if you are light in the pocket and you have a girlfriend that just wants a little pair of earrings, nothing much. Well that little pair of earrings will set you back €500 (we know cause we went in and asked…for curiosity, not because I was whinging and begging of course).

Resigned to the fact that we couldn’t have or try everything in Belgium we went back to the old favourites, grabbed a street waffle and wandered our way through the streets of Antwerp. Not as pretty as Bruges but nice all the same with its almost predictable squares with big buildings, a church and clusters of tourist shops selling, surprisingly, lace, beer memorabilia, chocolates, fries…

After a quick feed of fries and curry mayo sauce (just to keep things exciting) we caught the train back to Brussels to complete our whirlwind tour of Belgium. It was apparent that we had missed one vital food group – Mussels from Brussels, and we are not talking about wanting to meet Jean Claude Van Dam but to sit down to a bucket of mussels and make pigs of ourselves. Wasn’t hard to find as the restaurant touters are more than happy to sell you some! If you ever come, don’t expect big juicy mussels like you get in NZ, think of a 10c piece as a general gauge of size, hmmm would that pass the fisheries officers in NZ I wonder?

Back in London Sunday night, desperately wanting to start our detox from excess food, drink and grand squares with big buildings.