Sunday, January 21, 2007

A quick post with some pics I meant to upload in the last post, but never did.

Skiing in Belalp
View from BelalpWent skiing between Christmas and New Year's day with Emil and Claudia. It was the first decent stretch of time off I'd had, so I was pretty keen to go and get my first taste of the Swiss slopes. However, I had a few problems. First, there was bugger all snow. Emil & Claudia40cm, which was enough to keep the main runs open, but the quality was crap, there were stones everywhere, you couldn't deviate from the main runs, and the entire upper ski area was closed. Secondly, I went and bought boots that were too small for me. Is that the cutest villa you've ever seen?I know - it takes a special kind of idiot to do something like that and I don't expect any sympathy, but I swear to you they were fine in the shop. I brought them home and wore them for an hour, and I think they must have shrunk in the car. I don't know. Luckily it was no problem to bring them back afterwards, and I ended up hiring. Finally, and worst of all, I came down with the flu. It wasn't one of those nandy pandy flus either - this one really kicked the crap out of me. Press Pause...The first day I managed three runs before I returned to the hotel and remained bedridden until evening. I forced myself to eat a fantastic four-course meal that I couldn't taste, and went back to bed. However the next day, after 24hours sleep I was feeling better. All told however it was a pretty good holiday.


Sonja's Hippy-theme Birthday Party
The InvitationSonja is Emil's partner, and unofficially my step auntie. Her 50th birthday was right on December 31st, so we talked her into throwing a hippy theme party. We had plenty of time to prepare, and prepare we did. There was a hall, catering, decorations, a live musician, fireworks, crazy outfits, and a general abundance of flower power. I acquired a prefab hippy costume, added rose tinted glasses, a wig, sandals and a guitar, and perfected the über-hippy. The glasses started pinching on my nose, and Luca (Roger & Sandra's 3-year-old, bless him) insisted on strumming my guitar, so the only photo with me in it is sans accessories.


Servin' it up

Who ya gonna listen to?

Jannick does an Old Classmate routine



Lets Have a Beer
These are some cellphone-photos from a night out with the lads from work. We're at O'Malleys Irish Pub (I believe) in Zurich (could be wrong though), and Woidl found this skeletal zombie sitting downstairs by the payphone in the pub. He took the zombie's head without much of a fight (zombies have low HD) and brought it upstairs, and thus began the routine. The full picture series can be found at http://picasaweb.google.de/bela.grossmann/LetSHaveABeer but I've imported the best pics for your convenience.







Can you guess who's the guy in the mask?

Monday, January 01, 2007

Today's New Year's Day, and I haven't posted since November, so I've got some catching up to do. The answer to what I've been doing for the last three months isn't that exciting - Work. On Monday morning I wake up at 6am, bus to Olten, and take the train to my place of work in Zürich. I bring clothes with me, and sleep for one or two nights in the company flat which usually has a free bed, go to Kung-Fu after work, and return home once or twice a week for fresh clothes. I don't think it would have exactly made an enthralling blog, hence I haven't posted for a while.

Work itself is going okay, though I've really got a lot to learn still, and in a few weeks the project leader Maik will be away for three weeks in the military, and I get to do support all on my lonesome. Should be interesting I think.

Speaking of military, I did attend a military information day, and I won't be doing military service in Switzerland. I don't speak enough Swiss-German, and I'm getting too old (the cut-off age being 25, and kids usually do it at 20), so I have been certified 'Untauglich'. It means I'll have to pay an extra 3% tax, but so be it.

But surely something has happened in the last three months that is worthy of writing home about. Well, in actual fact, several events have transpired which I will report in the next several thousand words (or the equivalent word count value in pictures).

13/12/2006: i-logs Christmas Event, AustriaWorms 3D: Fun for the Whole Firm.
Once a year my firm hosts a Christmas event in Klagenfurt, Austria. It's thinly veiled as a 'business activity', and there is a meeting on the Friday, but it spans across the weekend, which leaves plenty of opportunity for festivities. Airfare and accommodation is taken care of by the company, so how could I refuse?
We (Maik, Oli and I) flew in on Thursday night, dropped our bags off at the hotel, and Oli led the way directly to an empty bar where over the next half hour we pretty much just got hammered. I thought it was stupid, and said so, but hey - when you've got four empty glasses and four full ones, what else is there to do but drink?
So the meeting on Friday morning was a bit of a challenge, and I almost dozed off a couple of times, but nobody really minds dis attentiveness if you've got a good reason (such as being hungover). Towards evening we migrated from the office to the pub across the road, then out to the Klagenfurt nightlife. 'Twas a pretty crazy night, with the expected drunken antics, but little else to report.



Bowling: Spot the beefRoland's hand wasn't on
my shoulder a moment ago...


Saturday afternoon we went bowling. If I should ever have to bowl to save my life, it'd be a sad funeral. That evening there was a function hosted in a local castle, which was really cool. I hadn't eaten anything all day, and to my delight it was buffet, and I chowed down until I could chow no more. With the exception of Rib Night™, I don't think I have ever enjoyed a meal as much. A few of us were keen and headed back into town, but didn't amount to much.

Sunday was crap. We got back to the hotel around 4am, and had to check out by 11am, so we weren't exactly well rested. Klagenfurt on Sunday morning was cold, and closed. There was a wee market in the town centre that we had a look at, but eventually just ended up shooting some pool until our taxi took us to the Ljubljana airport in Slovenia, where we flew home.

17/12/2006: 70's Theme Party Who's your Daddy?
Sonja's son Rene, who I suppose is technically my step-cousin, was I think turning 30 along with some friends of his, and had a joint birthday party. The theme was 70's dress. The picture (above right) is of Jannick (left), Claudia (right), and myself (center). Jannick did a frighteningly good job of drag, and I dubbed her 'Lola' for the evening.

The party itself was held in a nearby castle, and was a well organised affair with food, drink and entertainment provided. Costumes were many and varied, with most people putting on a decent show. Some of the guests got keen and did stand-up comedy routines, such as this one (right) which started as a two-girl retinue and ended in full-blown line dancing. These crazy Swiss.

The following events including the ski trip and the New Year's eve hippy party will have to be concluded in the next post so stay, er... posted.