June 23rd, 2009
The more observant of you may have noticed the “theme” of this blog has gone back to the default. It does that when you move it around.. But this time I am not pasting back in the previous look. I’m going to try making my own 
Being somewhat of a computer person I should be able to do this. So I have installed Wordpress locally on my Mac and and looked into how Wordpress customisations are done, hopefully soon I can have a new look I have made all by myself. And hopefully it won’t look like complete shit.
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June 22nd, 2009
Hello,
Well I’m back in London now after a fun trip across Europe. For a good story on how some of that went take a short trip to Kita’s blog and read about the bus that we took from Prague to Luxembourg. That way I don’t have to bore anyone with the same story. I was great fun and I really enjoyed it whilst it lasted. I have well over 2000 new photos to sort through now as a result and I will try to get them online somewhere soon so you can all share in my adventure.. soon, really.
Being back in London now though means I have had to get myself all organised and even begin looking for a job. Compared to the few months I can’t even begin to tell you how exciting it all is. Really, I can’t begin at all, the excitement is so non-existent. At least we managed to find a place to live.
The London news reports that unemployment here is at a 12-year high. If you believe the paper, McDonalds takes in 2200 job applications a day. So my chances are not too favourable. Luckily I am not applying for a job under the golden arches.. A job, with some relation to my degree, would be nice and one that pays well would be great!.. I’m still looking.
So I am mostly settled, without a job, trying to organise myself out..
Looking forward to more travel!! Greece in September!!
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May 29th, 2009
Phew!
It’s been a while since I had the time to be doing a decent post here. Sorry about that 
Since leaving Meribel a non-stop journey of adventure began starting in Paris and including Disneyland and Parc Asterix. Then moving to Seattle (via Vancouver) and then San Francisco, Prague, Munich, Amsterdam and finally Luxemberg. A trip that would take 42 days in total. Currently I am in my hostel room in Munich having arrived here from Prague at 4am this morning. It’s been fantastic so far and there is still more to go!!
I should really get some pictures up and I can assure you they will eventually get up, just not now. I have a huge number of photos to sift through thats approaching 2,000. I should have kept on top of it but time restrains me from spending any real amount of time flicking through pictures myself.
For now you can all know that I am in the middle of some serious backpacker action and am having a great time!!
Peace!
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April 19th, 2009
This is a story that I feel needs to be said. It happened whilst I was looking after some guests in the snow..
The Cheese Souffle that I was heavily pressured into making against my will was a hopeless disaster.
The Cheese Souffle begins by making the white sauce into which you blend the cheese, the signature part of the dish. This went fine. Then I had to add the cheese. The cheese is like rock and was hell to grate. So by the time it was done the white sauce had become a gluggy mess. I tried my best to blend the cheese in but because of the glugginess the cheese more swilled around than blended and as such it melted into a cheesy lump and a pool of oil. A decent pool of greasy cheese oil too, like a cups worth that splashed everywhere whilst I tried to blend. It stank too! It splashed onto the burners and stank, it splashed on me and stank. It was feral!
I gave up on that and began trying the egg whites. There are 18 egg whites in the dish and I had only a hand beater to use… After 15 solid minutes of beating my hand went into a hopeless cramp that I couldn’t shake off. Another 5 min of beating and one of the guests came in to check how things were, most likely because I was making serious beating noise and there was 5 min to go till I was meant to be serving. Seeing the way things were going I roped them in. So now there was myself and two other guests taking shifts trying to get these egg whites to the right consistency. A total of 35 min beating. With that now sorted attention turns back to the sauce.
The sauce was now nearly a solid lump sitting in a saucepan of oil. How that is meant to be folded through anything I have no idea, but I had to try regardless. With three of the female guests now supervising the kitchen, they were drawn to the distress like cougars to a drunk teenager, I was told that it was still salvageable (?!). I drained all the oil out and added flour and milk to make it smoother, a smoother solid lump of stinking crap. The egg yolks were then added and it was taken from me to be folded in. The idea was that it shouldn’t be folded in too much but the end result was egg whites with a marble of cheesy yellow goop running through it. Not the usual smooth blend I am certain. In having it taken out of my hands the mustard was left out and the parmesan cheese not added either. Shouldn’t have affect the flavour though I figured as it was already shit and as the saying goes “you can’t polish a turd”. The mix was then ladled into the awaiting dishes. Not all of the mix made it in though as it was very, very quickly turning back into lumps, oil and egg white. It came out of the oven and although the guests all said it was good I think it had the exact same flavour as a plain omelette with cheese sprinkled on top. So the effort was really worth it…
A pathetic dish in the end with a superbly ordinary flavour that made my evening hell.
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March 16th, 2009
Misleading title, I know..
Its not really getting hot in Meribel, there’s still too much snow about for that. But it is getting warmer as spring comes on.
Today its 11°C outside and the boarders are starting to head out in t-shirts. Personally at 11° I still like to wear a jumper. Also as the risk of falling and rolling about in ice still exists you could safely bet your left nut a simple t-shirt wouldn’t be a serious consideration for me..
I bet I’m going to love Summer here..
Posted in Meribel, Travelling, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
March 2nd, 2009
Hey everyone,
well it’s another block of guests done with here in our chalet. (I’m calling it my chalet now in the hopes that the French squatting laws make it mine after the 3 months here).
The last group of guests were pretty good. The first week back to work was dealing with the owners which were a handful but better than others to deal with. For them I had to make each day a breakfast, lunch and a 3-course meal for adults plus a 2-course meal for the kids. The biggest I had to cook for was one of the lunches where there were 17 people to try seat and cater.
The friends they had brought along were an odd bunch. The largest guy one day was getting upset over the lack of bread at the lunch as he believed the bread was the cornerstone of the meal. I had to bite my tongue on that comment as I had hoped that the large soup I had made would be a bit more cornerstone than the baguettes left over from breakfast… Despite them though I thought they were pretty good, very busy but good.
The next group that came out, the group from last week, were two french families which made up 4 adults and 4 children and 2 dogs. Unlike the last french family these people were fantastic. One the first night they wanted a 3-course meal, something I wanted to put a quick stop on, so I made a full on meal of pumpkin soup, honey chilli chicken and warm brownies with hot fudge sauce. This successfully overloaded them and they decided that after my massive chocolate overload dessert that only starters and mains would be needed for the rest of the week. (Ha, I out-desserted them!)
They loved all the food I cooked that week and at the end, after a very generous tip, they gave us their phone and email as well. They said that we really should come to Paris sometime and we would be welcome to stay in their guest room. In all a great let that wasn’t very difficult and for so few people we had heaps of time to get in some good ski time we had missed in the previous week.
Now we are on a break again. No more guests for three whole weeks. Of course there is still the chance that the owners will call and drop sudden guests with us… but hopefully not. It’s snowing again so we have some fresh powder to play in and lots of free time to do it.
Only three more sets of guests after the break and it’s all over for my little snow adventure…
More news as it comes
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January 27th, 2009
Hey All!
Today was a simple day that involved the simple task of shopping. Simple and very fun.
Travelling always opens you up to new and exciting adventures, some of which can be had in the most common of places. Like a french supermarket. Things there are just so radically different to the norm that they often become inappropriately funny.
For example…
The infusion of Marmots
Tea made with the indescribable natural taste of the Marmot… The large ground squirrel being of a most delightful flavour to the french that this tea is sold in all the supermarkets.
Check out my Flicker for the rest of the pictures!! http://bit.ly/ya66
Tags: France, funny, Meribel, odd, Shopping
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January 18th, 2009
It’s finally snowing again here. It had been a while but the fluffy stuff is back. And wow is it back! The forecast is that it will be snowing for the next 6 days which should leave us with a very nice layer of powder in which for me to snowboard in.
Yay!!
Tags: Meribel, snow, snowboarding
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January 16th, 2009
Hello again!
Well it has been a while since I last posted. There are a few reasons for that though. Moving to France being the biggest reason and the rest are all sub-reasons from that.
So Kita and I are in France now living in a nice little place called Meribel. That’s Meribel of the 3 Valleys, 1992 Winter Olympics and snow and ski playground of the rich Meribel. I would love to say that we moved here to live or even to holiday but in truth the only way we could afford to live here is if someone else paid. Someone else is of course paying and we are here as employees looking after guests who come to the Chalet.
So we are working and when we are actually doing that then we work pretty hard. But we aren’t working right now and Meribel is a whole heap of fun! Being a Perth boy I’ve never really had the opportunity to roll around in the snow before so this is a great new experience for me here.
Although I still don’t have the inclination to roll around in frozen flakes of water until I get hypothermia the skiing is good. Kita and I both got good enough at skiing that we managed to get down a blue run without causing irreparable damage to ourselves so we have now traded for snow boards. I still haven’t managed the irreparable damage yet but Kita, who always manages to pick up everything faster than me, has reached that goal and on her first day too!
I’m now a reasonable snowboarder. Not great but I can get down the green run without falling over the whole way. I can do the cool turning thing and “carve” and tomorrow I will probably try a blue run. Geoff “Comma” has been helping me learn which has been great but he has had his lift pass taken from him and Kita is still nursing her broken wrist so I’m out on my own for now. As long as nothing happens, which I don’t plan to have happen, it’ll be ok.
So France is a lot of fun. The french stereotype of rudeness is possible understated but we are having fun in spite of the locals efforts.
More later! Cya!!
Tags: blog, France, Travelling
Posted in Meribel, Travelling | 1 Comment »
November 30th, 2008
Hey,
As I have mentioned in my mass email I sent only a short while ago I mentioned that I am living with a handful of Columbians. Well I have some news on just how dirty and filthy they really are. There has been used plates and cookie trays on the bench for the last two days, just following a big lecture I received on how they don’t need to clean because there are mice in the house. So I guess in Columbia when you have mice around it is normal to leave food out for them on the bench…?
They are starting to get really aggressive in everything they do as well. We’ve just come out of the tail end of Marianne throwing a huge fit because I just played a small clip on my laptop in the lounge room whilst they were watching tv. “Desperate Housewives” was interrupted.. Oh No! Other people doing things in a communal area!! This is clearly something that is very new to the people of Columbia. We did try to point out that when we are watching tv all four of them will jam into the kitchen and sing but they said there is no point talking to us if we just keep on bringing up points that contradict them. Debating clearly being something else that is entirely new to the Columbian people.
But the really special thing was earlier today when we had to use the bathroom. I may have mentioned that basic sanitation is beyond the realms of what these girls are capable of but we would never have suspected this. Today when we went into the bathroom, in the bath, there was blood. Left lying in the bottom of the bath. Blood! that is disgusting!! Only made worse when it was pointed out who had been in the shower previously and what the most likely source was…. ! now that behavior, to leave chunks of “that” in the bath is just the dirtiest thing I has ever come across.
The bath saw a whole lot of bleach…
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