Peril on Kappal

The following took place on just another ordinary day in St. Anton. The photos are real, and no actors were used during this.

Saturday - aprés

Honestly, you’ll have to take my word for it, but it was a great atmosphere at the Anton bar. A lot of people I haven’t seen for a good while, all in one place. It nearly brought a tear to my eye, I can tell you. Beers, glueweins, shots, etc. I don’t really have to paint a picture here, do I? Well, we stayed here for innumerable toasts, until we’d adequately rehydrated ourselves (very important when one is on the slopes all day), whereupon we headed back to HP, where I dumped my luggage next to my bed, and also exchanged a firm an hearty handshake with Bruce, who’d arrived a little earlier. After showers, etc. we rendez-vous’d at Platzl, the bar attached to Pizza Pomadoro.

Platzl Bar
A two-floor bar attached to Pizza Pomadoro. There’s a corridor between the two, and a cloakroom with (invariably) and aussie guy stationed to enforce mandatory coat-checks for those headed into Platzl. Both establishments share the same menu and kitchen, but while PP has a ‘no bookings’ policy, to eat in Platzl, you’re strongly advised to book ahead. The downstairs area is mainly open around the bar, with a few high tables scattered around. On a Tuesday night, we were the only people there (although we may, actually, have been the reason for this). Upstairs is a purely seated affair, with a small bar, designed only as a pick-up point for waitresses to distribute drinks to diners. This area is supposed to be for people who have booked to eat, although judging by some of the low coffee tables, one would have to either lean forward to eat, or else have one’s plate on one’s lap. Not exactly conducive to fine dining for those who had the foresight to book ahead. If you’re not eating, you’ll be swiftly ushered downstairs.

Here, upstairs, we found Helen (Mrs. I) avec Jen, Lou and Sara, together with Dunc and Ruari. More hugs and tears all around (as I described Chris’s new yellow ski pants). So, this is where things get a little confusing. The waitress comes over to us and asks us to come downstairs, as they have a table ready for us. So, everyone jumps up, stomachs a-rumblin’, and follows her downstairs, where we find ourselves crammed around a small bar table with a couple of stools to share. Odd. So, I head back upstairs with Ruari to remonstrate with the staff, and find out just why we’d been kicked out of our perfectly suitable table, and into the bar. I don’t know whether it was the alcohol, or being over-excited at seeing my friends, but I think at one point I actually said, ‘So, you’ve actually lied to us, haven’t you?’. Jesus, when did I become so confrontational. Anyway, after much debate, we worked out that, actually, they had bookings for us at 10pm. Another classic case of miscommunication – something that would become a theme, as the week progresses. At this point, I think I shook the waitress’s hand, and apologised, although I’m sure she thinks I’m another belligerent tosser. Nice pizza, in any case.

After leaving there, it was on to the Piccadilly – which wouldn’t let Pren in as she was still wearing ski boots. As I suggested earlier, it’s like an Essex nightclub – ‘Sorry, no jeans, no trainers, shirts with collars’. Yeah, like that’s going to eliminate troublemakers? I refer you to the FA Premiership... So, we tried Bar Cuba. At this point, it should be noted, in time-honoured fashion, Dunc and Helen executed a neat sidestep and disappeared, presumably to catch up, since it had been a while since they’d seen each other... (actually, to be fair, Dunc had had about almost no sleep for two days, so we’ll let him off this once.) Bar Cuba. Bed. That’s pretty much it.

Saturday - the snow

Waking early, I threw all my stuff into bags, took my leave of Heinrich and HK and moved down the hill to Peter, and Haus Pateriol (HP, from now on). This place is a real cut above. It’s fantastic. It’s more expensive, as you’d expect, being much nearer to town, and with a higher standard of décor and facility. So, having dumped my belongings in their ‘ping-pong’ room, I headed off down the hill. Earlier, I’d received a call from Ruari. Dunc missed his connection. Of course he did. Spent three hours on a train platform in the middle of the night, and eventually made it to St. A at 10am, fully refreshed and raring to go. Or almost. With just twenty metres to the main lift, all dressed and equipped for skiing…he stopped for a gluewein, naturally.

So, I Sherp’d (A verb of my own devising – from Sherpa – I sherp, he sherps, they are sherping, etc.) for Ruari and Dunc. There wasn’t a lot of visibility, but the snow was good, and it was lots of fun, providing one kept one’s knees bent to absorb the bumps. Handily enough, Dunc and Ruari both wore black and red. It seems to be an unwritten rule for gentlemen skiing in pairs in St. Anton to wear red and black, and more than once, I was distracted from watching the two of them make their way down the slopes, by a shout from Dunc, who was already twenty metres in front of me. We spent the rest of the morning playing around on the slopes down to the Zammermoosbahn quad, pausing every-so-often for me to answer phone calls from Chris. Is it me, or what?! I give people the name of the place they’re staying, and good directions (my journal, shut up), and they still can’t find the place.

Anyway, we paused for lunch at the top of Galzigbahn (spag bol number twenty-four of my stay, I believe), and waited for Chris (new ski pants. Canary Yellow. ‘Nuff said), Abs (does a lot of sit-ups, you see), Ben (six and a half feet of silly grin) and Reon (why do today what you can put off…indefinitely) to arrive. This, they duly did, amid much tears and laughter (mainly over the yellow pants).

The visibility worsened. We ploughed around for a while, with everybody enjoying their first time on snow for a while, while I looked on like the gnarled and weather-beaten local I am. With conditions worsening, we headed down to the Anton bar, at the bottom, where everyone else had begun partying.

Enter Pren

So Friday was Pren’s first day ont’ hill. We headed over to Stuben, which is a bit of a slog to get to, although we’re now all of a level where we’re more than capable of chewing up the miles at a pretty snappy rate. Stuben’s a small hamlet-ey thing towards the ‘end’ of the main St. Anton area. It has a massive North face, which is usually cold and in shadow, and has a lot of accessible off-piste. A couple of antiquated two-man chairs haul you up the mountain, and you’re welcome to grab a blanket to put over your knees for the trip, providing you return it when you get to the top. Stuben worked quite well, as it enabled Pren to play around on the piste, getting her legs back, while Tony, Sylv and I hit the powder. And the rocks. And then some more rocks. My board is now pretty battered. In trying to avoid some rocks on a traverse, I tried to Olly them, made a complete hash of it, and ended up cartwheeling over even more rocks. I also, while cruising down the field, thinking about something completely irrelevant, ran smack-dab into a rock, and went flying. Another win for the helmet.

We had a few beers in the sun outside the KK, while everyone played with their new cameras. Honestly, the advantage of digital cameras is that you can take loads of photos, before choosing to keep only the decent ones. Unfortunately – and I’m as guilty as anyone – we don’t, do we? We keep the whole bloody lot.

And so to dinner plans.

Since Dunc and Ruari (pronounced ‘Roar-ey’, like a boisterous lion) were arriving that evening, at around midnight, I had half an eye on staying out to greet them with beers. With that in mind, we decided on Scotty’s. However, rather than have a pizza there, as I suggested, Pren – and here I quote – ‘really fancied an Austrian sausage’, so I booked the Hax’n Stub’n for five people, for eight o’clock. I then went home to pack, as I’d be moving to Haus Pateriol the next day. Reaching Scotty’s at ten to eight, I learned that Austrian sausage had very much fallen from grace as a potential meal, so I went back to cancel it, meeting Tony-no-phone at the same time, to redirect him to Scotty’s. It was at this point that I got a call from Dunc, informing me he’d missed his flight, and so would be catching some horrendously complicated set of connections overnight, to reach St. A at 8am. You know when you do a train timetable search between two destinations, it gives you five or six results at a time. They usually have one every hour, then, if it’s late at night, a stupid anomalous itinery thrown up by the system, which involves a twelve-hour journey with eight connections (and at least one river-raft leg) that no-one in their right mind would ever book. I’m pretty sure that’s the one Dunc chose.

We eventually retired reasonably early, with Pren and Sylv rather the worse for wear.

Now where was I?

It would appear I’ve become a little side-tracked over the last few days and even, shall we say, lost a little focus? I’m trying to bear in mind that this journal is to document this year’s trip to St. Anton. My stay in the Arlberg is not, then, merely to provide material for a rather dubious record of events. That said, now where was I? Ah yes…

[This might be just-a-little-bit boring, as it’s all retrospective. You’ve been warned.]

So it’s Thursday morning. I woke up and had a quick peek between the curtains. Blue sky. Within seconds I was hammering on Tony’s door. Half an hour, and some scrambled eggs later, and we were on the Gampen quad, bound for the top. Unfortunately, the greater tourist population of St. Anton had had the same idea, and the whole place was crowded. After arranging to meet Dex at the top of Gampen, we then accidentally decided to abandon him and tell him to meet us at the bottom. You might question how it could be ‘accidental’, but it was one of those issues that arises from a series of cascading bad decisions. Unfortunately, after each new decision was made – based on events unfolding before us – we then managed to forget just why the previous decision was made. It was just one of those things, really, but I served myself up a rather large slice of humble pie. The thing is, stuff like this has happened to me before, but I try and keep in mind that it’s rarely malicious, or even thoughtless; it’s just, well, shit happens. Karma got it’s own back, though: Not an hour later, I was speeding down Happy Valley when – and I have no idea what happened – I caught an edge and body-slammed into the piste. Rather glad I was wearing a helmet, as it goes.

Anyway, after that, we spent the day playing around in perfect visibility and perfect powder. It really doesn’t get much better. The only issue was the number of people out and about. Still, there’s always a trade off, isn’t there? We ended the day at the ‘Underground on the Piste’ – a cosy bar just below the Mooserwirt, on the far right of the final run into Galzigbahn. We’d been taken there last year, by Franzi – our aforementioned guide – as it seems to be the accepted gathering point for Piste to Powder guides and their clients. Sure enough, who should we run into?

Underground on the Piste

This is a fairly small and hard-to-find bar at the far right of the piste, as you come down towards the bottom of Galzigbahn. It's through a small gate and behind some trees and, while it's easy to ski to, you'd never find it unless you were looking for it. Presumably, it was affiliated to the now-defunct 'Underground' bar. The decor consists of untreated wooden walls, benches and chairs, with loose cushions and rugs across them. The building itself is reasonably spacious, but rendered cramped by the number of very large tables and benches scattered throughout. Make no mistake, one doesn't come here for a stand-up drink. Anyone who you find standing with a beer in their hand is either visiting friends on another table, or waiting for a seat to appear. This place is for a slightly older crowd, and you'll find no dancing - let alone dancing on the tables - here. Depressingly, I rather like it here. There's a small bar but - and this is another nod to the 'seated' atmosphere - you'll rarely find anyone to serve you, as the staff are all busy waiting on tables. This is the sort of place where a small dog feels happy curled up on one of the chairs. Nevertheless, it's a great place for gathering at the end of the day, when you just want to have a beer and a chat. Piste to Powder guides tend to bring their guests here at the end of the day for a beer (and to extract bookings and cash from them), so there's a lot of off-piste conversation.

Oh yes, they also serve a glass of shnapps with just about every beer - it's not very strong, and actually quite 'sip-able', if you like that sort of thing. From 4pm, generally, an English bloke with a guitar and a headset appears, and strums accoustic music for a few hours, making for a rather excellent atmostphere. In keeping with the more 'mature' environment, it's loud enough to sing along to, but not so loud as to drown out any conversation. Good for a few beers après, but you wouldn’t stay here all night. Indeed, when the guitarist is done, it empties out pretty quickly.

[In addition: a learned colleague points out that it gets busy with dinner bookings later, and the guitarist performs a second set. It's reachable along the road, as well as a short walk up the side of the piste, so I guess it's do-able. Never been there myself for that, though, so I can't comment. I assume the small dog doesn't move, though.]

Herr Kut

Ja, the haircut. I know, I know, it wasn’t exactly getting in my eyes, but being possess’ed of a physiologically massive head, I have to take steps to make it look as slim as possible. So, it was off down to the church in Nasserein, since I’d heard from ‘Roderick’ – a ski instructor, this year’s ‘saunameister’, and yet another of the folk Sylv's met in St. A – that there was one down there somewhere. Sure enough, I happened upon ‘Salon H. Team Anita’. Notwithstanding the fact that it sounded a bit like some sort of Touring Car racing team, it was the only one that seemed fairly easy to find.

Sure enough, as soon as I walked in, Team Anita swung into action. They didn’t actually hold up a 'Brake' sign, but a woman left her station and came to help me out, eventually telling me to take a seat and wait. I never actually saw Anita herself (I assume she was working in the back, chomping on a cigar while a stylist with a Mohican and a tonne of gold jewellery performed some spot welding.). It was bizarre, actually. Since there are only two or three salons in the centre of St. A, they had every manner of hair dressing facility under one roof. On one side, there were several elegantly-coiffured ladies styling ladies of much the same age and appearance. Slightly round to the left of them, a couple of younger girls in hipster jeans and two-tone hair were whirring away at girls, again, of much the same age. I was, naturally, directed to a balding bloke in his fifties tucked away on the right. Still, you can’t really get my hair ‘wrong’ (shut up, just shut up) so I’m feeling a lot better now, and can see where I’m going. First haircut in a foreign country, too, so quite a milestone, huh? Only €16, too. How do they do that and make a profit. Well, some of you will see on Saturday. I should add, the beard went a few days ago. Working, now, on building up enough stubble to be able to go back into the St. Anton café and see VCW.

Snow, snow and more snow...

Okay, finally got my 3G card working, so I have limited internet access. Not long until everyone arrives, so I reckon this is going to tail off rapidly.

Anyhoo, yesterday morning…I set my alarm early, and the morning felt, if I’m honest, a bit like Christmas used to. Instead of hitting ‘snooze’ and rolling over, I rolled the other way. Eventually, I came to a stop by the window, whereupon a flailing hand eventually found the curtain and drew it back. Sure enough, snow on the bows of the tree, and more falling. So, a quick breakfast (another fix for my worsening Nuttela habit), and up Rendl, quick as you can say, ‘Tourists won’t think to come up here straight away’.

Tony’s prediction turned out to be correct. For the first few runs, we had the place pretty much to ourselves, with a good few inches of snow on the pistes, and more off it. It’s amazing what a few inches will do (ahem). Unfortunately, the hordes started arriving. From the top of Riffle 1, we could see them pouring out of the gondola station, like ants. If we could have poured hot water on them, we would have done. Of course, we didn’t, since that wouldn’t have done the snow much good. Oh, and the small matter of scale… I’ve only been here a couple of weeks and I already consider everyone else to be ‘tourists’. The great thing about being here for a while is that we don’t have to ‘make the most of’ all the time on the slopes, so we quit at 2pm, when the visibility began to fade…

So, the snow really came down last night. Put it this way: For those of you who stayed at HK last year…y’know the pavement on the walk down to the centre? Well, instead of a pavement, there was a two foot vertical rise of snow, which then went to the wall at forty-five degrees. Yeah, lots of snow. We eventually made it to the lifts at about 11am, then headed up the Gampen quad. It was snowing heavily enough to warrant having the cover down, and it was blowing a gale at the top. The snow was deep, but a little on the heavy side – we dropped off the side, and I immediately planted into the snow, where I remained for about ten minutes, trying to dig myself out. Anyway, once we reached the trees, the visibility was much better. Not a lot of surfing through clean fields of powder, but a lot of bouncing around. It was on this run that I finally decided to invest in a helmet. I don’t really like the idea of them. Hell, I wear one playing rugby, which I’m not particularly keen on, but it makes logical sense to. It’s the same with snow. If I’m ploughing through trees at speed, I have no real reason not to wear one, so there we go. Sylv got me a discount at sNo Control too (see what they did with the title, there?). So new helmet, new hat (I know!), and lunch. Well earned, I think, after one run. Dex even managed to talk me into getting a helmet with built-in headphones because, well, why not? Luckily, they had one XL helmet (naturally) left.

We managed to squeeze a few more runs in, anyway. I have to say, I’m impressed with the helmet. It’s actually pretty comfortable, and the strap means my goggles don’t fly off my head every time I face plant (which happens quite often). Sylv managed to bury herself for ten minutes, at one point yelling, ‘Help me!’. I took photos, which I think helped.

And another day passes.

Folk are arriving in three days, and I think the weather’s going to be perfect. This from Ben, last week…

Am predicting a metre dump on the Thurday and Friday before we arrived then Blue skies with dumps each night for the week we are there... optimism is everything

Well, he’s half way there…

Powder

Well, we now have more snow than we know what to do with...actually, that's not entirely true. Currently, I'm working 'falling over at speed, and getting buried up to my waist in it', which I'm getting quite good at.

We seem to have lost our internet connection, so I'm now in one of those cafés, being charged for this, which is outrageous, considering the job I'm doing for the Arlberg tourist board.

So, I shall keep it nice an short today.

I know I'm going to get pilloried for this in some quarters, but I got my hair cut yesterday. All a bit of an adventure, really, since this is the first time I've done this in a foreign country. A bit of an adventure, and I still look relatively normal, so that's a bit of a result....

...ach, there's the radio. Gotta go. I've been peer-pressured into buying a helmet. Since we're going down a lot of tree-lined stuff, it has been 'tactfully suggested' that I should avail myself of one. I think I'm going to invest, mainly to avoid hearing 'I told you so', when I plow into a tree.

Right, gotta go. So, lots and lots of snow. You skiers will now want some blue skies by the weekend, I'll warrant. I'll see what I can do.

KK or Moose?

It’s a dilemma that anyone visiting St. Anton will, eventually, face. Heading down towards the Galzigbahn base station at the end of the day (which, in practical terms, could be any time between 11am and 4:30pm), the snow sportsman is faced with a straight choice: The ‘Australian-themed’ Krazy Kangaruh’, or the more Tyrolean-Germanic Mooserwirt (or ‘Moose’). Actually, there’s not always a choice, since if you’re coming down from Valuga, down the ‘Happy Valley’ commuter trail, it’s very easy to miss the sign and indicated traverse to the left of the piste, at which point you’re either ‘doing the Moose’, or you’re hiking. They’re within fifty metres of each other, and they crank from 4:30pm until at 8pm (at least, that’s generally when we headed down. So, how do our contenders line up?

Krazy Kangaruh

I don’t know about you, but I’m immediately suspicious of any venue that includes adjectives in its title (there’s a ‘Splendid Bar’ in Zurich, donchaknow). I’m even more on my guard if they’ve switched a ‘C’ for a ‘K’. So, the KK sins on both counts. Outside of St. Anton, it’s the KK that has the lion’s share of fame and publicity. Anyone visiting St. A for the first time is encouraged to visit the KK, as ‘it’s wild, man’. And to a point, it is. My problem with the KK is that it is, perhaps, a victim of its own success. For starters, it has become not so much a bar as a marketing phenomenon. It has a shop, ferchrissake, selling branded t-shirts, fleeces, etc.. Waitresses are young and blond. Barmen aren’t. Two people dressed in kangaroo costumes regularly make laps of the resort on skis, gently encouraging tourists to drop in for a beer. Now, come 4:30pm, it’ll be rammed, noisy and sweaty. Tequila and Jaegermeister girls stalk the tables, pouring spirits down unwary patrons’ throats, then charging them for the privilege. Music is ‘chart and cheese’ – you’ll probably hear some Bon Jovi here. By 6pm, people will be dancing on the benches (but not the tables, because that’s dangerous, apparently). There’s even a ski/board check which, as I’ve mentioned before, is a rather grand title for what is, essentially, a shivering teenager with raffle tickets and a long piece of string. So yes, go to the KK, because it’s ‘wild man, it’s crazy; it goes off’. That’s why people go. The problem is that many of these people simply expect to have fun, if you see what I mean? You often see tables of people, or lines of blokes on stools, sipping their beers and surveying the room, waiting for the fun to happen to them, as if some half naked woman is going to drag them up and force them to dance. Speaking personally, I’ve occasionally felt an ‘edge’ in there – the sort of thing that manifests itself as someone’s refusal to, for instance, shuffle along a bench, or allow someone easy passage past them. It’s fun, it’s everything a ski bar should be, but be prepared to put in a little effort.

Mooserwirt

Now, The Moose is, as I mentioned, decidedly more Tyrolean. It feels bigger than the KK, has a more massive outside deck, which is reached via an archway. The Austrians seem to prefer it here. My first encounter with The Moose was on my second day in St. Anton. My friend and I, having skied hard all day, stumbled upon the Moose at ten to four in the afternoon. All was quiet. We took delivery of our beers, and sat ourselves down to reflect on the day. At that moment, all the blinds on the windows rolled down on automatically, and the opening notes of ‘Europe’s’ ‘The Final Countdown’ boomed over the PA system. And with that, The Moose was a nightclub. It’s always rammed with people outside, and the inside, with its balconies and alcoves stuffed with people, feels like Dante’s vision of hell.(well, actually, a Broadway interpretation of Dante’s vision of hell). Burly waiters (not blonde, not female, and not lighter than sixteen stone) move between the crowds, holding impossibly large trays of beers and glueweins. It’s actually possibly to hail one of these travelling salesmen, select your required drinks from the tray, and pay for them, all without leaving the table you’re standing on. The music is ‘Euro-cheese’. Y’know the video with the fat kid with glasses miming that went round a while ago? The one with the uber-cheesy Euro-pop song? I heard that in The Moose five years ago. It’s a bit more crowded than the KK, and trust me, do not walk in here sober. It’s practically unbearable unless you’ve had a couple of drinks. As usual, not a place for meeting and greeting, really, but if there’s a group of you, and you can bag a table to stand on, a rather memorable (or not!) night can ensue. I should add, there's a shop here too, selling all the usual memorabilia, as well as CDs containing the sort of mixes you'll hear ('Country Roads' techno remix, anyone?). Still, it's a little less obtrusive and, for some reason, bothers me less. All in all, the Moose manages (or seems to) to take itself a little less seriously, and that's more than fine by me.

So, there you have it. You pays your money, you takes your choice. Personally, I have an affection for the Mooserwirte. Not only do I prefer the atmosphere, but I have something to thank The Moose for. Last season, we were out on a heavy powder day. We headed into some dense trees below Gampen. I knew roughly where I was going, but my two friends were new to the area. I found myself surrounded by trees, when the track I was following ran out. Now, I was safe, and I knew roughly where I was, but I wasn’t sure in which direction I should go. Just then, I heard something. As I listened, I could just make out the sounds of euro-pop drifting through the trees. Yes, you guessed it: We followed the music down to the Moose, and salvation.

Just be a little careful when you leave the Moose or the KK, at 8pm, drunk, and in the dark. Confidence is always high, and injuries are common. It can bring your evening to a rather abrupt end.

Another Dexter-ism

So Dex was coming up to HK the other morning, to collect some stuff he left here on Friday...

Dex: "I was going to get the bus up to your place, but it only went as far as Rendl, then went back to the centre. Don’t really know what happened."

Nick: "Er, this bus, it didn’t happen to have ‘Rendlbus’ written on the side and front, did it?"

Dex: “Er, yeah, it may have done."

Nick: “Uh-huh.”

Snow on the way...

Well, it’s a case of same old, same old for the past few days. We’ve been going up at lunchtime, and playing around on the slope off the top of Galzig. It’s pretty much a ‘beginner’ slope, but it has a number of hits, lips and rollers down it (sounds like Mick Jagger, come to think of it), allowing us a spot of practice at the aerial stuff. I’ve now learnt that it’s never a good idea for someone to take video, since it’s rather crushing, after sailing majestically through the crisp, winter air, rotating gracefully before touching down and gliding to a halt, to see yourself on a two inch screen, leaving the ground like spring-loaded slug, flying two feet through the air, one foot off the ground, then landing in a heap. Practice, however, makes perfect.

The weather’s been much the same since I arrived: Blue skies and bright sunshine giving a lie to the sub-zero temperatures. In fact, the mercury’s position around the -6˚C mark has been the reason the slopes have stayed in such good shape. In many places, the snow has melted down to the grass and rocks below, but the groomers are all still in excellent condition, so that should be perfect for those of you who prefer to carve from side to side across the piste getting in everybody’s way and pushing the snow into moguls skiers. It’s a bit lacking for the powder-hounds amongst us, though.

However.

I don’t know how you’ve done it, but you lucky people – the folk arriving on Saturday – have somehow sorted yourself some snow. Snow is on the way. According to the weather report, there’s roughly twenty centimetres of snow due in the next two days, so things should be nice and refreshed for the weekend. We need a powder dump, though, for any decent off-piste action. Keep doing the snow dances, and I’m sure we’ll be alright.

Gunar Live(s)

Yes, he’s still here! To me, Gunar is as much an institution in St. Anton as the KK and the Moose. Every other day, from 4pm, you’ll find him on stage in the Piccadilly, banging out his unique brand of U2 and Robbie Williams covers. God alone knows how long he’s been here. We’ve been coming here for the past four years, and the same faded poster – ‘Gunar Live’ – has been outside the Picadilly-Postkeller all that time. I’ve asked around, and no-one knows what he does in the summer. Hell, know one knows what he does when he’s not on stage, whether he heads back to his condo in Lech with a couple of busty groupies for a coke-fueled orgy, or maybe drives back to Innsbruck for another gig. Does he ski or snowboard? Maybe he can’t do either! He’s the working class hero of the Arlberg, and I’ve always thought there was something of the disaffected Northerner about him. This was confirmed for me when Dex said, apropos nothing, ‘I bet he’s an ex-coalminer’. I have no problem believing he was once on the pickets in the early eighties, after all, he looks somewhere between Robert Carlisle and Sean Bean.

Actually, I have a theory. I don’t think Gunar is human at all. In fact, I think he’s an ethereal manifestation, borne on the enthusiasm of cheesy Austrian skiers in day-glo all-in-one suits, and drunken snowboarders drinking black sambucca. Look at the evidence: He only appears when the Piccadilly begins to heave, at about four o’clock. He disappears at about seven, when it begins to empty. In four years, I’ve never seen him enter or leave the stage. It’s tiny, with no obvious back-stage area, or trapdoor. As the volume levels rise, I believe he simply comes into being - the smoke rising and coalescing on the stage, like a genie from a bottle.

Anyway, it may not have snowed since the 3rd January, but Gunar lives, and everything is right with the world.

Separated at birth?

Pub crawl - a retrospective

So where did we go last night. No shennanigans here...

Krazy Kangaruh
‘World Famous’, apparently. Not that I’d heard of it before I came to St. Anton, but there we go. Actually quieter than normal, but still rammed. They even have a couple of guys providing a ski/board ‘cloakroom’ service, which is a rather grand way of describing a piece of string across a fence with pegs nailed into it. There’s also a merchandise shop, which I found really depressing. Staff, generally are all attractive, and mainly blonde. At least one carries bottles of jaegermeister and schnaps, walking across the tables to pour it into people’s mouths (then charging them for the privilege. Surely, the saving on washing glasses would allow a small discount?). We left after four pints, I think. The KK and it’s more Tyrolean counterpart, the Mooserwirt, are responsible for more injuries than anything else in the Arlberg – spewing out drunkards straight onto the slopes to ski down in the dark. I smacked my shoulder trying to do something that seemed clever at the time. Actually, I was talking to a girl who told me that a friend of hers had been ‘rescued’ from the mountain by the Austrian ski team and taken to the Mooserwirt for a drink. Apparently, there’s a hatch up in the roof that leads into the VIP room. A VIP room, who’d a thought? Abs, Pren, this year your mission, should you choose to accept it...

Anton bar/café/hotel
This is right at the bottom, opposite the Galzigbahn cable car. The bar itself is pretty modern, with a massive screen showing snow videos. They like their brushed metal and wood in here. It’s a decent place for an après beer, but it clears out later, and never really reaches the party levels of some of the bars in the town. This may be because the tables are too small and too high to even attempt to dance on. We had a couple of beers in here to ‘warm up’, whilst thinking about where to go next.

Pizza Pomadoro
It’s a restaurant. A couple of the waitresses are rather nice (yes, their personalities, absolutely), and you can’t book, more to the point. In hindsight, the jaegermeister and black zambuccas may have been a mistake at this point.

Nick’s room
Yes, at 7:30pm, and nicely the worse for wear, we made the call. At some point, it’s worth bailing and going home to get changed. You can push on through until closing in ski wear but, let’s face it, it’s just much more comfortable to be in a club in jeans and a t-shirt, rather than goggles. So, back to HK for a quick shower and change. Great music here, but the intelligent lighting relies a little too much on manual intervention and, apart from a bed, seating is minimal. The bar’s poorly stocked, too.

Bar Cuba
This only really gets going after nine, and was pumping when we left. A good atmosphere and (but?) predominantly English. Owned by the Mark Warner chain, apparently, and seemed nicely ‘mix-ey’

Kandahar
At eleven pm, it’s dead. Nice club, but it only really gets going later. A tad ‘R’n’B’ for my liking, too. Wasted three Euros checking my stuff in when we only stayed five minutes.

Piccadilly-PostKeller
If all else fails. Always rammed, and generally a good atmosphere (and hey! Like a good Essex nightclub, ‘ladies get in free’). In here, the ratios of men to women became starkly apparent. Letting in women free last night would probably have cost the owners, oooh, twenty Euros? Yep, fairly man-heavy, and there’s something very amusing about watching young Germans in baseball caps pretending to be black.

Gods, I took a (planned) day off today, and not a moment too soon. Head still hurts a tad, but the legs are recovering. Right. Rambled a bit today. Macks, hope that lot gives you and Ben something to chat about.

Delays

"Arlberg Transport regret to inform you that, due to a signal failure, the Galzihgbahn cablecar is suspended in both directions. Travellers are strongly advised to seek alternative means of transport. Lift passes will be valid on all local snowmobiles and hikers. Arlberg Transport would like to apologise for any delays to your journey."

No, not really. Somehow, they manage to keep the lifts going here. As I’ve mentioned before, the amount of grooming that goes on at night reassures me that my lift pass money is going in the right direction. Over the summer, the Arlberg lift company invested over €13 million in improving the lift system. I’m not sure where this has gone, but the longest lift queue has been roughly two minutes this week. Having said that, it’s also been a very quiet week, with relatively few people about, so we shall see. They’ve installed a new six-person chair up from St. Christophe (on the way back from Stuben), which even has heated seats! Apparently, it’ll move 2,600 skiers an hour, although I’m not sure if this based on the ‘land-rush’ approach of European skiers to queuing. The trails cover 169 miles of slopes, of which about twenty-five percent is ‘beginner’ level. So, plenty for everyone. Apparently, they’ve also added thirty or so new snow canons this season. I have to say, while there’s a bit of a thaw on, and off-piste is suffering badly, the pistes have been in fairly immaculate condition every day.

Right, Mackin, that’s your paragraph of informative chit-chat. Meanwhile, we went on the lash last night. After all, there’s nothing better after a tough week than a Friday evening pint. In fact, I’m still hurting, badly. Ouch. After an afternoon blast down to Stuben (where I think there was probably a total of twenty people on the slopes), we hacked it back to St. Anton for a few sharpeners in the Krazy Kangaruh, pausing briefly for Dex to take out a skier (chalk up another one for the cause). Here follows a chronological bar review…

A good warm up...

You know, you can do aerobics at the top of the Osthang lift. They have a set of speakers with a recording which cycles every twenty minute throughout the morning. As you come off the lift, all you can hear, in a rather aggressive German voice is…

‘Und Lich, Lich, Lich, Und Lich,
Und shmurgen, shmurgen,
Das ist gut,
Shmurgen to ze left, unt doppel’

Or something like that. In four years of coming to St. Anton, I’ve only once seen any skiers actually performing the warm-up exercises to these instructions, and I’m pretty sure they were a bunch of pissed-up Brits. Oddly enough, they have another speaker half way down the Osthang piste. If you’re very, very lucky, you may just catch a bit of Shania Twain on your way down.

Tony and I eventually went up the mountain just after twelve. At this rate, we’re going to be catching the last lift of the day for one run down to the Krazy Kangarugh. Dex, having done one day on the mountain, elected to take the day off for a well-earned rest. So, the two of us ‘pratted around’ on Osthang for a few hours, trying various jumps while avoiding the other incompetents on the slopes. It’s a bit like driving really, in that everyone else on the piste other than yourself is useless. I clipped a skier at one point, and it was clearly his fault. I accept that I’d landed a one-eighty and so, technically, I’d jumped onto the piste and was riding across it backwards, but I’d checked up the slope before I went and he clearly had no idea about anything. God damn it.

We stopped for a mid-afternoon bite to eat, and listened to an American ski instructor chatting up a British woman who’d obviously booked him for a private lesson (ahem). He was, frankly, talking bollocks, but being a ski instructor gives you a massive ‘chat’ bonus, and she sounded like she was eating it up. Oh well, he’s stuck wearing bright blue and yellow jacket and snow-pants on the piste, whereas I get to wear a…rather rubbish hat and a jacket with a day-glo orange stripe across it. Bugger.

We actually managed to eat in tonight, collecting enough food and utensils for Tony to whip up a chilli. I did have to bother the live-in maid for a tin opener, but got round the language barrier by taking a tin with me. I still have no idea where she’s from, as she doesn’t appear to speak any language known to man at all. I’ve tried a smattering of everything I know ('Sprechen sie Latin?'), but there’s never any recognition.

Another day managing to avoid getting smashed, then. I feel tomorrow could be a big one, though. It’s the last night for a lot of people in for the week, so the KK and the Moose should be hoppin’. It'd be rude not to, wouldn't it?

To beard, or not to beard...

...that is the question.

I’m sporting a rather fetching set of facial hair at the moment, since noticing Tarvs’ unshaven look on New Year’s Eve and being quite taken with it (sans sausage, of course). The thing is, I’m really, really not sure about it. It’s just about past the ‘stubble’ stage now, and is becoming, dare I say it, luxurious. I’ve become known locally as ‘Trapper Jake – that crazy Englishman’, and tourists keep coming up to me and asking about the Lost Treasure of St. Jakob. So, me being me, I just had to ask everyone’s opinion...

Sylv thinks I should keep it, that a bit of facial hair is ‘sexy, in a masculine way’ (as opposed to ‘sexy, in a “chewing on a ferret” way’ presumably), and even VCW (Very Cute Waitress) agreed that a few days’ worth of growth could be ‘very sexy’. I should add that she said this while staring at me, pointedly. Eventually, I realised she was waiting for me to order. Dex, for his part, whilst not actually commenting on the sexiness, per-se, did seem to approve, although this was based on comfort, rather than aesthetics (ie if it bothers you, lose it, otherwise keep it.). So, it’s all looking positive. Contrast this with what Misa said when she kissed me goodbye on the cheek…

(Try and imagine this in a Japanese accent, if you can. It’s funnier.)

‘Argh, it hurting!’

So, the jury’s still out. I think it’s going to go, though. I keep catching sight of myself in the mirror and getting scared. I’m also worried it’s going to collect food in it. I have images of Mr. Twit, from the Roald Dahl book, ‘The Twits’, who used to run his tongue around his beard for a mid-afternoon snack. Unfortunately, this doesn’t work with wiping off snow, as I discovered yesterday when I mis-timed a jump and ended up sliding down the piste on my belly.

Geographically challenged

Another day, another lie-in. This time, woken up by Tony knocking on my door, clearly after my cheese... One of the features of Haus Kohlerech (look, ‘HK’ from now on, as I keep forgetting how to spell ‘Kohlerech’) is the daily delivery of fresh bread rolls, which are to be found hanging in a cloth bag on the door handle every morning. Of course, bread on it’s own isn’t so interesting, but luckily I have (well, had) a fridge crammed full of cheese, ham, nuttela and all sorts of other uncommonly good things. So, we meet Dex at the Galzigbahn (the main cable car), after first having retrieved my newly-patched board from Snow Control. No Sylv today, as she’s off in Zurich, armed with the keys to my apartment (Oh shit! And office!) and a list of decent restaurants and bars. Who knows, frankly.

This week, for some reason, seems to be relatively quiet in St. Anton, and I think it’s worth earmarking the second week in January as a good bet for next year. The cable car rides to the top of Valluga were spacious by comparison with previous years. We headed off, with me in the lead (y’know, being ‘the local boy’). I kid you not when I say we’d lost each other within the space of thirty minutes. Somehow, I went one way, Tony went the other, and Dex, caught between a rock and a hard place, followed Tony. After much sitting around and waiting, I figured I was just as likely to find them on the move as sitting in one place (plus it's warmer). I found myself passing Dex on the way down Happy Valley (a long, wide valley trail that most people on the mountain join on the way home.). It turned out that he’d just managed to lose Tony too. I’m just glad we didn’t have our probes and shovels with us, as we’d be truly worthy of the label ‘All the gear, no idea.’

After more fooling around on the slopes (I managed some rather rudimentary front-side one-eighties, and a couple of highly technical ‘landing-on-my-arse’-es), we stopped in at the place-with-the-cute-waitress-who-likes-facial-hair-but-not-too-much (Sylv will make conversation on any subject) for food and a cheeky beer. One of the things I’m finding tough about living here is the urge to get leathered from 4pm every day. It’s very doable (and, actually, pretty much compulsory) when you’re here for six days, but when it’s over three weeks, well, it’s not going to happen. So it was with some reluctance we headed to the supermarket for provisions so we could cook at home…

…which, since we forgot any sort of sauce for the spag-bol, completely failed to happen. We ended up walking down and eating in town anyway, surrounded by the sort of drunken idiots that we’ve epitomised in previous years. Oh well, I reckon two or three nights ‘on it’ a week should suffice…

Weather, incidentally is, well, identical. Same forecast for the next few days, which is fine for piste-bashing and riding switch, but some more powder would be most welcome. Sun tan or snow? Hmm…

Contact!

We have internet! After much faffing around with my laptop (which involved, basically, turning off some of its advanced features, dressing it in furs, giving it a spear and, generally, making it look more prehistoric), I’ve managed to hook into a nearby router. So, I have internet and email access from my room, and I can post these a lot more often.

Yes, I know; calm down.

Tony and Dex arrive...

So, I took the nachtbus home from Sylv’s last night. St. Anton being St. Anton, the ‘nightbus’ is actually more like a luxury minibus, rather than a decrepit double-decker with vomit running down the aisle and a Czech au pair sitting, huddled in the corner. This drives through all the outlying villages before depositing you back at the main lift all for the princely sum of three francs, fifty. Apparently, the buses between 1am and 3am are full of drunkards, but I missed all this, being a lightweight and heading home at midnight. The bus drops off in the centre, so I then had a ten minute hike up the hill to home. Y’know, the lift passes here are pretty expensive, but the sight of five or six piste-bashers working high up the mountain at midnight suggests my money is certainly going in the right direction.

It would appear my lie-ins are getting longer. Since we’re here for a while, there’s no point in dashing up the mountain at the crack of dawn. Since there’s no fresh snow, the stuff that’s there benefits from a spot of sunshine on it. My legs are really beginning to suffer, but I’m too stupid to take a day off, so we shall see how long this lasts. Today’s session was mainly about finding as many rocks as possible and hammering my board into them. It turns out I have a bit of a talent for this, and found a number of boulders in record time. My board is currently in for an overnight service. Actually, we sneaked it into the service centre where Sylv works. I leant it against the wall while Tony negotiated on getting his ‘irreparable’ board repaired (whereupon, no doubt, he’ll sell it on eBay for a huge profit). Magically, when I went back the next day, it had been repaired (thanks, Sylv; beers on the way for the boys).

Ah yes, Tony and Dex have arrived. The welcome street parade we'd planned was a bit of a damp squib, to be honest, and in retrospect, it was silly of us to organise it on the same day as the start of the European Powder 8 Championships. Anyway, after hugs and kisses at the station –

Dex: 'Have you been ‘boarding today, then?'

Me: (Glancing down at my snowboard boots, jacket, gloves, rucksack and goggles.) 'No, but the walk from the apartment is pretty rugged.'

– we split to get them settled in to their various accommodations (Dex is living with Sylv in St. Jakob, Tony’s along the corridor from me.). Dex and Slyv grabbed a taxi, while I headed to the bus-stop – which proved to be very much the wrong option. Thirty minutes later (you can walk it in ten), we reached Haus Kohlerech, whereupon we roused Heinrich from his snooze (he denied this, although when he appeared, he was rubbing his eyes, and wearing a very fetching green and white tracksuit/pyjamas and slippers).

We all met up in the ‘Anton’ café later (which will, henceforth, be known as ‘the place with the cute waitress’), and spent some time discussing my facial hair, before heading to Scotty’s for more beer, pizza, then home. It was actually so cold that I nearly died. It was just incredible. Clear sky and, for the first time since Banff, my head was cold even with a hat. Made it home somehow, though.

Day 3 (I think)

Monday. Blue skies again. This is tough. Met Sylv at Rendl, just after ten. Rendl’s on the other side of the valley to St. Anton proper, and this is the first time I’ve actually seen it properly – all the other times have been in ‘Use the force, Nick. Let go…’ zero visibility conditions. Since all the stuff off the side of the pistes was tracked out and churned, we decided on a ‘switch’ day, so spent most of the morning practicing riding backwards. This was a bit of a… well, I had to get my head around it, since to the inexpert observer, when you’re riding backwards, it looks for all the world like you’re riding forwards, only very badly. Resisting the urge to shout at everyone I passed, ‘Look, I’m practicing riding backwards; I’m NOT a beginner!’, I actually made a lot of progress, and I’m fairly comfortable now. At one point, I stacked it, and as I spun round on my back, I was just in time to see Sylv stacking it at exactly the same time. Sylv took a couple of nasty tumbles over the course of the day, including one whilst getting off a chairlift. She thinks her board’s the problem. Having said that, she hadn’t really stacked it until I arrived, whereupon she’s been doing it regularly. I have a theory that it’s to do with my hat: that wearing it means that Sylv takes all the crashes that are intended for me. Anyway, she quit after lunch to head off to work. She’s been working at ‘Snow Control’, learning to service boards, since she walked in there and offered her services free of charge. Apparently, all the staff are young and ‘super hot’…

Sylv: ‘Yeah, they have that line down to the side, between the abs and groin…’
Me: ‘Oh, um, a love-handle?’
Sylv: ‘Noooo.’
Me: (sheepishly pulling my t-shirt down) ‘Oh, right.’

We’re just working out the legal ramifications before she gets busy (apparently, the term for an older woman who preys on younger boys in a ski resort is a ‘Snow Cougar’). Poor kids…

So, I’m now sat at Sylv’s, typing away, while she cooks some chicken-‘egg-plant’-chilli thing. She has wireless broadband here, too (or somebody in the building does), which is why I’m shoving these up where folk can see ‘em. We’re also discussing doing some snow-shoeing and boarding between huts at some point.

Sunday (wrote Mr. Kipling)

Blue skies again. Having had a chat with Heinrich, he managed to squeeze James, Isa, Misa and Elisa (I kid you not) into an apartment for the night. It turned out to be the same apartment Sylv, Pren, Sarah and Tony were billeted in last year, so that was all rather nostalgic. I shared the last of my meagre rations (cheese, butter, nutella) with the others, then hit the slopes again. Another day without a cloud in the sky, and a tad warmer. We headed up to Valluga, at the very top of the resort and spent several days trying to get Isa to keep her eyes open for a photo of her and James. More playing around in the snow and trying to avoid each other…

…Actually, y’know when you’re a kid, and you put cushions at the bottom of the stairs before sliding down them in sleeping bags? (No? Just me, then.). Well, I’ve discovered I am Elisa’s cushion. Somehow, whenever I’m sat, waiting for the others at the side of the piste, she’ll slide in towards me and, essentially, use me as a crash barrier. Ten metres away, I’m saying, ‘Okay stop now. Now. No, really now. STOP!’ – crunch. It’s not actually intentional, and it’s still making me laugh, even as I extract her board from my mouth…

So, down to St. Cristophe to the Alms Hospice (the restaurant with the slide!). for lunch, where James had an half hour debate with a waiter wearing a painted wooden bowtie about just how big the soup was. They got their revenge, though: his food didn’t turn up until we’d all finished ours.

So, more of the same. Sylv came out and met us for dinner at Pizza Pomadoro, then the Zurich contingent headed home (leaving me to wait for Sylv, who was being chatted up by two plastered Danes). Sylv and I, having handed her number over to the more dashing of the two Danes, ended up in Scotty’s for a couple of beverages.

And so to bed.

Mine, obviously.

Day 1

No network, then. Bugger. So I’m in my room in Haus Kohlerech, in St. Anton. I’m fully tech’d up, with JBL onTour Speakers pumping out iTunes from on top of what looks like a black and white Philips portable TV. The room’s bigger than I expected, and I’ll be vacating it for the twin room next door when Tony arrives. I arrived on time last night, but had to spend ten minutes walking ‘round the hotel, like Jack Nicholson in The Shining (the stubble and manic staring eyes were completely coincidental), trying to find another human being. Eventually, a combination of pressing the ‘family’ apartment buzzer, ringing the phone number and saying ‘Halloo’ very loudly brought Heinrich out of his room (and, presumably, slumber). So, all installed, and the provisions I brought down from Zurich are occupying the fridge nicely. Unfortunately, the fridge tends to turn itself on every ten minutes to maintain the temperature. Not that this, in itself, is unfortunate, but when it’s at the end of your bed and it’s 3am, well, it’s not perfect. Still, I’ll get used to it.

So, I was supposed to meet Sylv at 8:45 at the main lift, but at 7:30 I got a text from her saying she had work. Big thumbs up to that one, and I set my alarm forward an hour before slumping back to sleep. I don’t know if it’s the antibiotics, but I feel quite tired at the moment (although that does tend to be my ‘at rest’ state, as many people know). We eventually met up at quarter to ten, which was fine by me. I’m now fully ‘bearded up’, and I’m not entirely happy with it. It’s the most irritating thing in the world, and I keep catching sight of myself in the mirror and wondering, ‘who’s the vagrant with the massive head?’. My face also feels pretty sore, although I’m told this is a side-effect of the antibiotics. Looking on the bright side, I suppose this may mean I can do away with the epithet ‘hypochondriac’, since I actually do have ailments.

What’s that? The snow? Ah yes. Well, ‘twas a ‘blue-bird’ day today. Hardly a cloud in the sky, and pretty cold. Off-piste was lumpy, rather than crusty, and we found a few patches of powder, but today was mainly about cruising and getting the legs back. I met Sylv okay, then proceeded to spend most of the morning avoiding the weekend skiers, drunkards, children and other assorted maniacs on the main pistes. It was pretty dangerous in places. I was trying to spend most of the day riding switch (backwards), but didn’t really commit to it. It’s early days, though. Sylv managed to take out an eight-year-old girl, much to the chagrin of the child’s father, who ranted and raved at her for a while, totally ignoring the fact that the girl was saying ‘I’m okay daddy. I’m not hurt.’ Parents, eh? During the morning, I was fielding various phone calls from James and Elisa, who’ failed to follow my very clear and concise directions to the apartments (the exact clarity of these instructions was the subject of much discussion over lunch, dinner, driving home…). Anyway, we headed down to join them for lunch, then we all headed back up to Kapall for more messing around in the snow…

…We popped into the Mooservirte for a couple of sherberts, naturally. There were about twenty assorted men and women dressed head to toe in quilted gold lame, looking like extras from Flash Gordon (the one with the Queen soundtrack). Since I’ve been in Zurich for a while now, I pegged them immediately as a ‘Guggaband’. From what I can see, once a year, these guys get costumed up in a ‘Ming the Merciless’ style-ee, and tramp around the streets playing instruments. Sure enough, several hours later, on our way to dinner at ‘Bobos’, we came across them in the middle of the main street, totally shitfaced, and playing The Muppets theme tune (reminds me of the youth concert band I used to play in as a teenager. Only without the alcohol. Generally.) They were great value, anyway.

Departure

This is amazing. I’m sitting on the train to St. Anton. I have a six-person compartment almost to myself, a rather nice tray to pop the laptop on…and bugger me, a bloody electrical socket! This is amazing. The carriage is clean, and I’m sharing it with an Austrian woman, which is a bit of a pity, as it means I can’t throw my possessions around, and generally ‘make myself at home’ (not that she’s actually stopping me laying back on the seat in my boxer shorts holding a TV remote and a chicken sandwich.) Having spent the last twenty minutes chatting with her, we’ve just done the ‘I’m going to read a magazine’, ‘well I’m going to use my laptop’ thing. So, where are we at?

Well, it’s been a while since I’ve been able to catch up on this, but the first thing I should point out is that the title of this journal has become, if you’ll pardon the enormous pun, hopelessly redundant. You see, at the eleventh hour, they’ve gone and extended my contract. I think it’s all to do with headcount, rather than a powerful and irrational belief in my professional abilities, but I’m not complaining. In fact, shortly after this, it became clear that while the Company wanted me to extend, it would help the consultancy I work for a lot of I took some time off. Hence, I’m still taking the three weeks in St. Anton, then a week for Dunc’s stag week, in March. I’m darned lucky, it has to be said, and anyone and everyone has the right to tell me to shut the f**k up if they ever hear me complain (and I can always find something to complain about. For instance, I’m annoyed I’m not going to go to a gym for a month, or play any rugby. Hello?)

Actually, while we’re on the subject of complaints, I should mention this week’s ‘why me?’ issue, which I’m sure you knew was coming. At some point over the last couple of weeks, having just about shaken off the cold I’ve had (Note to self: Taking a Lemsip Max-Strength™ before playing rugby in sub-zero temperatures is not an effective cure for a cold.), I’ve picked up a bit of an infection. Funnily enough, while the cold made me feel rough as hell, I never looked as bad as I do right now (and you have to wonder about a girl who goes on a date with you when you have a fever and still calls you afterwards). The problem is that this infection’s on my neck – a shaving rash, if you will. Unfortunately, because of my ‘hack ‘n’ slash’ approach to shaving, I didn’t really realise my neck was infected until it had taken hold, so I now have a rather fetching rash across my neck, and my glands are up. Of course, you can’t see this, as I haven’t shaved for a week, and am sporting a bit of extended stubble. In fact, while I look like a mongrel dog that’s just lost its job, wife and house and that’s been sleeping in a puddle for three days, my near-beard actually feels very stroke-able. Let’s hope the ninth of the population of St. Anton that’s female (and why do we keep going there?) agrees. So, I went to the chemist today, and got her to prescribe me some oral antibiotics. Handily enough, over in Switz, they’re qualified to prescribe, although she did tell me that normally I should see a doctor. She even gave me a glass of water to take the first one in the shop! It’s little touches like that that really up the quality of life in Zurich. So yeah, why me? The drugs are spacing me out a little, but I’m ignoring the colours and voices for now, and gamely typing on (‘ticket? Ticket? What ticket, voices?…oh, right. Sorry, Herr Konductor’).

So, it’s been dumping in the Arlberg, apparently. Sylv – ‘Our Man in St. Anton’ – has been winging regular reports our way. In fact, the frequency of her mails is a good indication of the conditions as, obviously, the less often she’s mailing, the more time she’s spending up the mountain. And I’ve received fewer mails, of late. I have some ideas about how highly constructive and productive I’m going to be with this laptop when I’m not up the mountain, but we shall see…

Interlude: I’ve just spent ten minutes wrestling with my bag. The reason for this was the two Swiss GI Joes that just sat down in our compartment. One of the more amusing aspects of life in Switzerland is the way in which the-most-neutral-country-in-Europe has such an active and visible National Service. Yes, several times a year, every man under the age of thirty troops off to the station, dressed from head to toe in camouflage fatigues and carrying a carbine under their arm. The problem is, of course, that because every man has to do it, and because they only do it a couple of times a year, you tend to see lots of bespectacled insurance clerks who wouldn’t go near the armed forces, or indeed any sort of physical training if it wasn’t The Law wandering around dressed like extras from Platoon. (and they do love their rules here. Just try getting them to cross when there’s not a green man showing). They are – with the exception of my grandmother – the least threatening people I’ve ever seen. It’s so tempting to knock their forage caps off their heads as they walk by, and WHAT, FOR CHRIST’S SAKE are the earrings all about? Apparently, in the UK sometime during the eighties a single stud earring was quite popular amongst the tattooed fraternity (and I’m talking more ‘Bros’ than ‘Goths’ here). Well, they’re all the rage here… anyway, rant over, these guys sat in our (our!) compartment and started a conversation at volume. Now, it’s one thing to talk at volume, but it’s completely another it in a foreign language (not that they would consider it foreign, since they’re actually…oh shut up). So, since I couldn’t eavesdrop, I tried to dig my headphones out and pointedly place them in my ears. Of course, one of the ear lugs fell off, which meant I was rooting around in my bag for rather longer than I wanted to. Of course, as soon as replaced the lug, untangled them and, with a flourish, plugged them into my laptop, the train stopped and they got off. Bugger. I’d like to think it wasn’t actually their stop, and that they were getting off as an act of contrition, but somehow I doubt it.

Back to it, then. What are my plans for the next few weeks. Well, I’m meeting Slyv at 8:45am at the Galzigbahn tomorrow morning, so I suspect we’ll be doing a spot of snowboarding. I also have to have a chat with Heinrich, mein host, when I arrive as James, Isa, Elisa and ‘Elisa’s Japanese friend’ are coming down tomorrow morning, and I have to try and secure accommodation for them for Saturday night. I’m hoping Heinrich can find something, as he sounded quite confident on email. Perhaps they tend to hold rooms back in case people want them for the whole weekend, or a week, in which case I guess he’ll know by tonight whether he has anything available. In fact, maybe they have some sort of local hotel network. I’m reasonably confident I’ll be able to find something for them.

Bugger, why on earth is Switzerland littered with unsecured wireless networks, apart from in or near stations? I’ve spent then minutes here and there locating and networks, then passing out of range before I have a chance to connect and grab my email. Funny how the world’s changed, and I’m getting irked that I can’t check my mail for free in moving public transport. Never satisfied.

I think my train’s arriving in about twenty minutes, so I’m going to draw this one to a close, with my dreams of posting from a moving train in tatters. Oh well. I just have to hope there’s some sort of network in my apartment, otherwise nobody will be reading this for a few weeks (if at all).