Skiing Round 2

Prof. Magdolen offered to take us with him skiing again. Which meant another ski trip but on the cheap as I only had to pay for my equipment and lift ticket. So Steve and I rented skis and got up at 8 this morning for our ride to Austria. It was a beautiful day the sun was out and it was clear skies and not even that windy. My only complaint is it was -15C out or about 5F which is cold!

Anyway here are some of the pictures from our trip.

Skoda gets us there again!

The map of the mountain. Look there is more than 2 runs open YAY!

I love the trees!

Nothing quite like a beer to warm you up mid day! Also Rattlers are great.

Trying real hard to not show that we're freezing

Again I just love these trees. It was like this as far as you could see up at the top.

Me carving up the snow! And I'm glad this pictures was taken when it was because 10 seconds later I ate snow big time!

Serious Skiers.

Yeah not really.

WOW!

I was freezing at this moment because if you don't want to have to walk up this hill you have to take the run before the hill at speed. It was fun but I couldn't feel my face for a few minutes.

It was really hard to have to leave this at the end of the day. Especially I hit like a perfect rhythm on the last run. I don't remember the last time I skied that well. It was a great run to end on!

One last view from the top.

Like I said at the end I don't think I've skied that well in a very long time. And it was a great way to end the day. We were all exhausted by the time we got back to the car I was so glad not to be driving. I think I passed out only a few minutes after we left. It was a wonderful day of skiing and what we could see was Amazing. I'm so glad i went again.

Sport Shooting Club

Near the beginning of the semester one of our Slovak Friends from class asked if we'd be interested in joining the shooting club at the school And it turns out there is a shooting range (for compressed air pistols) at the top of our faculty building. We were interested and the professor was willing and he let us join. Anyway. It's a different style of shooing than I'm used to it is competition sport shooting and due to our traveling I managed to miss all but the first competition. However it was a lot of fun and I think I learned a number of tips and tricks to improve my shooting ability. Today was supposed to be our last day however I guess we can go next week as well. However today I wasn't shooting paricularly well as my shots were not nice and clustered but I did get one of my rifle targets put up on the wall of fame board and I shot two dead on bullseyes today.

Anyway here are some pictures of the set up and my two pistol targets today. Those two shots made up for (me) all of my terrible shooting today.

The 5th floor range.

The pistol!

The correct form for holding and firing the gun. A lot different and more difficult than two handed shooting.

Check it out right through the center of the center of the bullseye.

The second target that I might be unnecessarily and overly proud of!

The lead pellet is just big enough to fit through the center inner of of the bullseye . The 10point has two circles the inner most is used at high level competition because at that level every one is always hitting tens and there needs to be a way to determine who hit the "higher" ten. Anyway I realize I'm overly proud of this and if you look at the rest of my target it's um a bit.... yeah. It's still really cool!

Stuhleck Ski Trip

On a whim last weekend Kevin and I rented a car and went skiing in Austria. A couple days before Stuhleck (www.stuhlech.at) opened our Professor told us that it was opening and that it was really close and not that expensive. So we found a place that rented us equipment for 7euro per person per day and we went. We actually got started to late on Saturday so we went on Sunday and Monday instead. It was actually cheaper to drive back to Bratislava Sunday night by at least 20 Euro so we did and got up early again to go on Monday. It was a blast even though only two runs were open.

It was Kevin's First time skiing and I ended up being his teacher. I think I did an alright job and he picked up on it pretty quickly especially since he was kind of forced down a blue square with really no previous skiing knowledge.

After going down a few runs we grabbed lunch and a beer and met up with Professor Magdolen and his son. And Prof. Magdolen also gave Kevin some pointers. We skied until the mountain closed and had a great time.

Kevin after he gained a bit more confidence on the skis.

Just testing the snow! There as dip that I didn't see and then all hell broke loose and my skis came off and I toppled over (right at the base of the lift).

See I'm not half bad.

A beer for warmth. MMM Rattlers are tasty!

Okay so this is Kevin and Prof Magdolen's son on one of the coolest lifts I have ever seen. It is a six seater with a wind cover that you can pull over. It's a normal chair lift but you can shelter your self while riding up with the awesome cover!

Prof. Magdolen and I on the same lift. Do I get an A for Skiing?

This picture is just awesome because it just looks so off.

So I wore 3 extra layers on bottom, thermal long jons, jeans and then outer pants. And I was relatively comfortable despite it being -15C (5F). But I thought it was great when I took my outer layer off the cuffs of my pants were frozen. I was also wearing 5 upper layers Thermal shirt, t shirt, sweater, shamie shirt and my big leather jacket. Now if they just insulated the ski boots....

I miss Tucson, but you really don't get this there!

The end of day 2 of great skiing!

I had a blast it's been a little while since I've been able to go Skiing and it was so nice to go again. In fact I might be going again on Friday and even better Prof Magdolen is going for sure and willing to drive us so I only have to worry about equipment rental and lift ticket WOO!

Poland and Krakow

A couple of weekends ago a friend of ours, Joanna, offered to show us around Krakow with her boyfriend, and we took her up on the offer. We rented a car from our favorite car rental guy again and got on the road. We wanted to set out early however there was a little miscommunication between us and him and we got on the road much later than intended. It kind of sucked because I could have gotten another good 1.5 hours of sleep, but we were all in that situation so I guess oh well.

One we actually go on the road we stopped in a little Slovakian town for some breakfast and got a parking ticket from two female officers who were anything but nice. Thankfully it was only 30 euro but still sucked big time.

There was a nice castle that our friend Andrea tried to show us when we went to her cabin however it was to late that day. We tried to go see the castle again however it is closed for the winter. We were a bit frustrated and thus laid seige with our little Skoda Fabia.

Actually we really just didn't know you weren't allowed to drive you car up. Thankfully the guy who came out was a good sport about it. He just politely informed us we're not allowed to have our car here. But let us take a few pictures and be on our way with out throwing a fit. Could you imagine trying something like that in the States?

A little later in the day we came up to another town with a really awesome castle. The tour was only in Slovak but the guy spoke a little polish so Joanna was kind enough to translate for us but the Castle needed little verbal explanation to increase the shear impressiveness of the castle. Also every little town with a hill has some sort of castle here in the eastern bloc but some are way more worth visiting than others and this one is one of those. It is a very vertical castle and parts of it just seem to grow up and out of the rock that it sits on.

after the castle we didn't stop for much else on the way to Poland. Shortly after we crossed the border Steve just barely got out of getting a speeding ticket and I took over driving to Krakow. The only reason the officer let him off too is because we didn't have enough money to pay in the Polish currency and because we're not Polish the fine had to be paid there on the spot. This said there were no speed markers and we were moving with traffic, but apparently you're just supposed to know the speed limit magically from these little town signs. So I basically drove at the pace slower than sea urchin for a good portion of the rest of the way due to shear fear of getting a ticket.

Once we got there we checked into the hostel (The Good By Lenin Hostel) and Steve and I found a place to park the car and walked back. We met up with Joanna's boyfriend Adam and went out for Pirogies.

Afterwards we had a couple of drinks and went to bed.

Steve woke up pretty early the next day and Kevin and I got ready shortly there after and we all went to the Christmas Markets with the intention of meeting up with Joanna and Adam but apparently we just barely missed each other and none of our phones were working. Kevin, Steve and I spent the better part of the day at the market getting gifts for people. They had a lot of really amazing wood work things. And just some really interesting stuff in general.

One of the market stalls where I bought a beautiful chess set

One of the many big churches in the Krakow near the market

Pigeons and man they were fearless. If the girls tried to get rid of some more would fly in to take the old ones place.

After spending almost until dark at the market we went back to the Hostel to drop off our loot. We met up with Joanna and Adam there and we agreed to meet for dinner after we went and saw the Castle. Unfortunately the Castle buildings were closed (apparently since 14:00). So we couldn't go in and see anything.

But we walked around the complex and then met up with Joanna and Adam for dinner. It was a nice dinner. After the dinner every one else went for a Polish pickle and vodka party. I don't much care for Vodka and I wanted to get up early the next day to go see the Jewish district and the market there. So I stayed at the hostel and went to bed.

It was only a 10 minute walk to get down to the Jewish district of Krakow. I looked for latkas at the suggestion of Laura but was unsuccessful. There were a number of Synagogue in a very small area which were interesting. I wandered around the area and took a number of pictures on Steve's camera. We found a couple of geo caches in the area and also saw the market.

The high Synagogue

At the end of the Street is the Old Synagogue

Fence around the Old Synagogue

Fence close up

Part of the Old Synagogue.

After while Steve and I wandered into the market. It was pretty big and had all sorts of goods.

Mostly clothing. We had a good time but it was short as we had to leave by a certain time.

That afternoon we did a tour of Auschwitz. It was a deeply personal experience and I do now wish to write about it here more than I was there.

Later that night we went out for a beer and retired pretty early as we had to leave the next day for Bratislava. We did get a few more pictures of the central square.

I really like how this one turned out.

The next day we got up relatively early to go back to Bratislava. I slept or watched movies for the better part of the car trip, while being in and out of sleep. I was really exhausted. I know the guys did a fair bit of geo caching on the way back. All in all it was a wonderful trip, Krakow is really a beautiful city and possibly one of my favorite places we've been

Hungary - Budapest

A week or two after Zurich we had an itch to travel again so Steve, Kevin and I rented another car from our favorite rental place and took the first road we could find to Hungary. We stopped right on the border the first night and actually stayed in guest zimmer in Slovakia but spent the evening walking around Hungary, trying to find our way in to the Natural Spa there. Unfortunately it was closed so we grabbed dinner and went back to our zimmer. Our dinner was great I had Hungarian Goulash and this giant bowl of Garlic Soup, both were delicious but unfortunately I wasn't feeling well that evening and was not really able to enjoy them.

The next day we hopped the Danube and stated off in Hungary in the town of Esztergom. The first thing you notice while driving into the town is A giant basilica.

Steve has a picture which gives a good size comparison where he is standing between two of the pillars and the incredible size of this because apparent. The inside was beautifully decorated as well.

This place was amazingly acoustic as well. I think it would have been awesome to hear the organ play.

Later that day we found a couple of geo caches and this tobaggon ride. It was kind of cool you could ride a toboggan down a railed track. Steve has some good pictures of this and I will add them when I get his pictures. After freezing from going down as fast as we could we got back into the car and continued on to the next town. This one had these really cool castle ruins. What was left was built into and on the top of the hill /mountain and just had this very imposing look about it.

That night we got into Budapest, we didn't have any hostel reservations but we tried the first one in the Lonely Planet guide and it turned out to be awesome. I haven't stayed in too many hostels but this one was definitely one of the neatest I've stayed at. We got in kind of late due to traffic but the had plenty of room available and we probably spent an hour and a half talking to the girl at the front desk getting suggestions for places to go for a nice drink that night. We ended up going out to one of the places she mentioned and met this Hungarian guy who had just gotten off from school and was celebrating his English proficiency exam with a beer. After we talked with him for a little bit he took us out to all of his favorite places. We had quite a bit to drink that night and I feel bad because we definitely out drank the Hungarian and he was a little sick in the last place we were at. At the close of the night he showed us where to get some good late night gyro style food and then he walked us to where we could catch the bus back.

The next day we got some suggestions for where to go and what to do in the city, but got a late start due to talking to J who had some interesting stories to tell. He had some really good advice for the things to see and do.

The first thing we did was head down to Hero's Square. Which is just this huge open square with large monument of various important rulers of Hungary in and on the gates and the founding chiefs of Hungary in the center topped by and angle. This place was also apparently very well known for trading spies as it is so open that neither side could try and tricks with out the other side being well aware. In honor of this we had some water bottle exchanges / trades.

The Hero's Square Monument

One of the founding cheifs of Hungary.

After spending much longer than any of us thought taking in Hero's Square we went to the House of Terror, which had been converted into a museum about how the Nazis and Soviets desecrated Hungary and particularly Budapest.

The House of terror was a death camp set up for political opposition or any one in general resisting Nazi and Communist oppression set up in a large house on one of the main streets in Budapest. It was very long museum and unfortunately not particularly well set up. There were a number of rooms that had a little bin with a paper to read but frequently it didn't explain the significance of things in the room. The message of the oppression that was imposed upon the people was clearly conveyed which is the most important thing however a little more explanation of certain rooms could have made it more meaningful.

After the museum we went back to the hostel to have our internet meeting and grab our stuff for the thermal spa. It was nice and relaxing the best part was there was one pool that had a set of jets in an inner area of the pool that sent you around in a little vortex. It was a lot of fun. There were also a number of different acidity and temperature pools. The best ones were in the 28C + range. There were a few that were 18C and really cold. Coming back from the pools that evening we passed through Hero's Square again and it was pretty eerie.

Hero's Square at night.

Once we got back I wasn't planning on being up very late but we started talking to a couple of Aussies who were also staying at the hostel and ended up playing this epically long card game. It was fun but I didn't get to bed until around 5am and man was I tired.

The next morning I dragged my sorry rear out of bed and we got going at a half reasonable hour. We stopped for some goodies from the bakery and got on our way. We did stop and get a few pictures of the Parliament building which is just awesome from across the river.

On our way back to Bratislava we drove by a nuclear power plant, and another large church and castles. I unfortunately do not remember exactly where there were just that it is somewhere between Budapest and Bratislava. I was mostly dead after saying up so late from the previous night that every time we got in the car I'd pass out and only wake up if we were actually stopping to see things.

Nuclear Power Plant in Slovakia of unknown location to me.

Church in Slovakia also of unknown location to me. We did find a geo cache near here though.

This is possibly one of the coolest castles I have seen while being here or ever for that matter. Again I'm not sure where it is other than in Slovakia. It was HUGE and becuase we got there so late in the day (16:00 or so) it was getting dark and we don't really have any photos that do it justice :'(. But still when I figure out where it is I'll try and find some professional pictures or something to link to because it is just an awesome huge castle.