Sorry everyone, things have been a touch nuts here, so if you've sent me an email and I haven't got back to you: SORRY! I'm getting to it!
So what have I been up to? In another attempt to keep these updates shorter than a novel, here's an updated on my recent offences:
The Irish and Maltese madness
Two weeks ago we had two groups arrive: one from Malta, one from Ireland. Both absolutely mad. Naturally we got on like a house on fire.
The Irish managed to crash a house party we had on by listening at every door up the street until they found us. Several bottles of spirits, odd dancing games and one highly drunken Australian later (not me) we all had massive hangovers and had to ski the next day.
The Maltese, after adopting me as 'Saliba' when they found out my Pop hails from Gozo, finished the ski week and went absolutely insane at the the pub. Remember the Boot I got severely wasted on? These guys drank 7 between them, chanted, effectively took over the entire pub, then abandoned it to make a semi-naked human pyramid in the snow outside.
Naturally I plan to stay with both these groups during my travels. Stay tuned...
Also on this ski week the Monday was cancelled because the winds at the ski resort were so strong someone was hit in the head by a flying table, and the rescue snow mobile was blown over on the way to the top...
Next the ski lifts broke down for several hours on Tuesday and Wednesday, meaning a fair bit of walking back up the slopes. Then they started working again, just long enough for us to ski down, at which point they broke again and we all had to walk back up. Fun times! So much for the luck of the Irish...
The Adelboden madness
So the Girl Guides own thier own ski chalet in the next valley over. We visited for some skiing and had dinner with them and who do I run into? An Australian I already knew - another one! Since then I've been back three time:
Once to visit Veronica, a fellow Australian I'd already met once before for a delightful tour of Bern, then a night out with the girls. Leading to...
The Valentines day ball - guys, imagine walking into a room containing 35 dressed up girls and 2 guys and having every single woman in the room turn and stare at your poor arse. It's official: there's such a thing as too many girls! Leading to...
The Marathon. Up there with shirt-fronting a future Ralph model and climbing on the pub roof as one of the stupider things I've done. Two of the guys here were out for the night with the girls at Adelboden, about an hour away. They had the next day off. I didn't. I went along anyway. I got 2 hours sleep, caught the 5.54am bus, arrived back at work at 7am, having waded through a half metre of fresh snow from the station, collapsed in bed for 30 min and then got up and guided a ski group for the rest of the day.
The resulting exhausting is hard to explain. But it was worth it for THE TOWER. This contraption is a 1.5m long tube, with a tap at the bottom. FULL OF BEER. And I though the Boot was ridiculous.
Australian everywhere
I have now run into 6 Australians I already knew from home by absolute accident since getting here. Is actually becoming quite freaky.
Avalanches and helicoper evacuations
Ever been caught in an avalanche before? I have.
Here we are coming off the end off the ski lift. I'm helping a kid off who's never done it before, and then there's an odd boom noise and a big old cloud comes flying down the hill. Dunno how I knew what it was, but I did. Threw the kid on the ground, jumped on him and essentially prepared to get the shit kicked out of me.
Happily it was just a cloud of snow rather than solid avalanche, so no harm done apart from a dozen screaming kids and a fair bit of snow up the jumper. All around, pretty exciting.
Ever encouraged a guest to do one more ski run and then had to have them evacuated by helicopter? I have.
Look, to my favour, she's been down that hill a half dozen times already ok. I turn around to check on another girl coming down, turn back and she's in a crumpled heap at the bottom of the slope. Much crying, joint manipulation, snow mobiles and language-barrier-induced miscommunication later, a helicopter's on the way, I'm covering said girls head from the down blast from the rotors and still hearing myself insisting 'Are you sure you can't just walk it off?'.
Doc on the chopper suspected a broken hip, so she's flown off to hospital and I'm left with the paperwork. Then we get a call from the hospital. No break. Not even a sodding sprained hip. She walked back into the centre without crutches 4 hours later. All credit to the Scout Centre, they handled it extremely well. Personally I wanted to break her hip on sheer principal.
Hair
So I made this challenge with a certain South Australian. If she did dreadlocks, I wouldn't cut my hair for as long as they lasted. It wasn't until she actually did this that I realised I may have screwed myself rather badly. That was June 08. So my hair is rather long. What to do with long hair?
DREADLOCKS! Why the hell not! So now I've got some nice dreads and looking to buy some proper wax (incidentally, candle wax; not a good decision).
Travelling
So on March 14 my stay at Kandersteg finishes and I'm off on my own across Europe. Currently the plans are to head up to Denmark, across to Sweden, back to Germany, France, Spain, Malta, Italy, then the UK and Ireland. Plenty to keep me busy.
Photos!
Plenty more up on Facebook now, as well as a few more videos up on YouTube. Check them out:
http://www.facebook.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/
Hope you're all going well and keep up the emails!
What Cheer!
Gordon
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