Back from the deeeaaaad! Did you miss me? Sorry I haven't blogged in a while, but life has been busy. When I talked to you last, I was staying in Switzerland with Louise, Clemence, and Pascale. I had dinner with them, and they took me to les Bains de Gruyere (a cool swimming pool) and the European women's volleyball championship (Neuchatel, their team, won). After visiting them, I went to Chamonix and stayed with the Silitch's, some family friends. This was pretty mellow; I just babysat their kids, Birken and Anders, for a few days, and helped out with Birken's birthday party. After this, it was off to Val d'Isere! The three weeks there were really fun - my skiing improved a lot, and I got to meet my dad's old hockey pals (he was the hockey coach there in the late 70's/early 80's). I discovered that European ski areas are way better, or at least more diverse than North American ones. Val d'Isere has miles and miles of piste, even connecting to another resort, and exploring the mountains was half of the fun. I also got to watch snow polo, which is as entertaining as it sounds, and enjoyed lots of fine dinners (oxtail, anyone?) and French conversation. The only low point was having to briefly fly back to the states to see my grandma, who has a brain tumor; however, this ended up being a fun little trip, and a good chance to see the family. After Val d'Isere, on the 30th, I flew out to Lisbon, to wait for word from some Spanish organic farms I had applied to WWOOF (work in exchange for room and board) on. I still haven't heard from them, but going to Lisbon was a great decision; I landed at the Lisbon Chillout Hostel, which is the nicest place I've stayed so far. There was a really fun crowd there at the beginning of the week, including another guitarist, and we got to enjoy a fun mix of seeing the town during the day and partying at night. I got back in touch with some Portuguese friends I met in Thailand, and, after some footwork, managed to meet up with them for coffee. I also got invited on a surfing trip by two of the Austrian girls who work at the hostel, Mira and Sonja. We went to Peniche, an amazing surf place, with three other Austrians, and stayed a night. The waves were a bit big for me, but I managed to have a good time anyway, and gave the Austrians some basic surf lessons. Yesterday, I took the train to Sintra, an amazingly scenic little town a ways outside of Lisbon, and walked around, seeing a cool, overgrown old Moorish castle and a former Portuguese royal palace. This second one was notable for it's amazing opulence, and the sheer number of colors in the facade; if you want to see a truly gaudy place, google Pena Palace. These two ruins were situated close to one another, in a pleasant park that smelled like home. After seeing Pena Palace, I spent a very long time wandering through the park, and found myself walking the three kilometers into town in the dark, through a spooky woods. It was a bit creepy, but the ambience was actually kind of nice, and I had a great jog for the last two kilometres. It wasn't the last jog I had that day either; when I got back to Lisbon, the Austrians invited me out to Bairro Alto, the party district, and I ended up making a four a.m. jog back to the hostel. My legs felt surprisingly ok this morning. Today, I've been trying to figure out where to go next. I don't have anything figured out yet, but I've got plenty of time...LYA
