So that was Christmas then...
They really know how to do Christmas over here. In Antibes the city council set up a full-on Santa's wonderland in one of the town squares complete with manufactured snow and market stalls, in the other square there was a luge slide and ice rink for the kiddies, more snow and more market stalls. And then there were the lights. Not just draped over the buildings but all throughout the streets and really quite tasteful. Cathy reports that they had spent weeks setting them up; she gets to see all the "out of hours" work when she runs at some ungodly hour each morning.
Christmas eve was spent doing last minute shopping, preparing food, eating food and popping across the street for "a pint" (which actually means the consumption of about 10 gallons of beer). Christmas eve evening we all piled into a couple of vehicles and braved conditions yet again to head over to Cathy's cousin's house for some more pre-christmas cheer. I was personally still processing the remaining 6 gallons of beer so just wobbled about the kitchen for a bit. Thanks to Therese & Pat for their hospitality - you have a wonderful house...good luck filling it up!
Christmas morning was briefly interrupted with an ill baby but after some more dare-devil driving by Laura and the right medication, the world was back in order and we had a smiling happy Zoe again. So it was onto more food preparation, some aperitifs and filling the living room with a container load of christmas gifts. Mention must be made of the human chain that was necessary to move all of the christmas gifts from the back of Owen & Ruth's car into the house.....you might think about hiring some elves of your own next year guys! Then time came to partake of the labours of the last few days food preparation including that 22 pound turkey! Feast would be an understatement. There was always the "back-up bird" at Ruth & Owen's house just in case we ran out.
I was asked on several occasions what the most significant difference was between Christmas in Australia and Christmas in Ireland. Well the simple answer to that is that you can't drink you beer straight out of the shed in Australia! There wasn't enough room in the kitchen fridge to keep all the grog, no problem just store all the grog you will possibly need in the shed at a temperature at or below zero, no beer fridge necessary. The red wine actually had to be put in front of the fire to warm it up before serving! It's also not every Christmas that you get to wrap live chickens as gifts...
Laura had us all sorted for some hiking through the Commeragh Mountains on Boxing Day (St Steven's Day for those of us not aligned with the British Crown). We met up at the Purcell's house and a troupe of about 16 adults and 6 dogs headed to the mountains for the morning. We capped it off with hot port and sausages at the Purcell's afterwards.
We headed home on the morning of the 27th. We decided to catch a bus to Dublin airport for the return journey due to the treacherous conditions. Although we had to get up at 4:30am to do so it was worthwhile as the freezing conditions returned not long after we departed. Thank you to Eamon, Olivia and all of the Meades and Purcell's who fed us and plied us with alcohol and made me feel welcome.
THE COSTA BRAVA
We returned to Antibes on the 27th December and then headed straight back out again on the 28th to Empuriabrava; a residential marina / tourist village on the Costa Brava in Spain. For those of you who are more inclined to leave your feet firmly planted on the ground, there's also a world renowned skydiving centre. We were there specifically to participate in some invitational 16-way skydives with Pete Allum & Joey Jones. There was also a Christmas boogie happening at the DZ so there were plenty of people there, probably around 200 or so, from just about every skydiving country in the world!
Now we can see why the DZ is world renowned. It is a great DZ with excellent facilities and a view to die for. We'd recommend to any of our skydiving friends traveling to this part of the world to include it in your itinerary.
We didn't quite end up doing any actual 16-ways as they were missing a few people due to illness and other factors. We did do some really sweet 12-14 ways, however, with probably no less than 5 or 6 points per skydive. On the last day of the year we joined forces with one of the other organisers and put together some challenging and interesting 3-4 point 22 ways. The last jump on the DZ for 2009 was our final 22 way which was a relatively straight forward jump but it culminated in a 22 way star just to show off to all the people on the ground watching the final sunset load for the decade!
We also went to visit a little town called Castello d'Empuries. Which is a little medieval village whose main feature is its parish church "Santa Maria" which is also called the “cathedral of the Empordà” because of its size and gothic influence architecture. It was built over and encompassed an older roman building. The building of the church begun in the 14th Century and the façade was begun at the beginning of the 15. Century. It is one of the few gothic churches located in a rural area.
THE SKIING EXPERIENCE
Now in consideration of the cold weather and our proximity to the French Alps we decided to find out what all the fuss is with this skiing thing. We're only about a 90 minute drive from some of the best ski stations in France. Now bear in mind that Cathy has never seen snow more than a couple of inches thick and has never been on skis in her life. And the last time I had skis on my feet was at least twenty years ago. So what a better place to give it a go than the French Alps.
There's no hire of ski clothing in this country it seems so we had to go out and buy jackets, pants, gloves, goggles, walking boots and so forth. Luckily we caught the after Christmas sales and found a few bargains. So by the end of the week of planning there was no better time to say "all the gear and no idea"! We booked our travel, lift passes, ski hire & ski lessons and off we went.
We went to a place called Auron. They had a dumping of snow during the previous week so the snow depth was between 120 - 190cm! For our first trip we decided to catch a bus which left from Antibes a couple of blocks from our house and arrived in Auron about 2 hours later. When we arrived at the station we had to find the ski school and organise our lessons. We decided on a private two hour lesson and were promptly booked in for 12 o'clock. We figured we had some time to kill...boy were we wrong! We had no idea how any of this skiing thing works so by the time we changed our combined bus ticket / ski voucher for lift passes, made it through the ski hire queues and then the queues for the cable car up to the ski field we were 10 minutes late for our lesson. At least we now know how the process works so hopefully we will be a little more efficient next time round.
Our lesson was great. We learned how to get into and out of our skis, though I find they come off much easier when you crash than when you actually want to take them off, and we learned how to catch the lifts. Our instructor Dennis was great. We started out with walking in the skis and then the inevitable snow-plough and then onto turns. Dennis helped Cathy out with a magic red stick that kept her steady and no matter where he was or what she was doing he somehow managed to get it in front her and stabilise her at a moments notice. I stumbled along behind trying to get a feel for it again. Cathy did a great job for her first try at it and we finished the day with a couple of runs down the baby slopes on our own. We were only on the slopes for about three hours but that was probably enough for our first time.
We liked it so much we are heading back there again next weekend...
They really know how to do Christmas over here. In Antibes the city council set up a full-on Santa's wonderland in one of the town squares complete with manufactured snow and market stalls, in the other square there was a luge slide and ice rink for the kiddies, more snow and more market stalls. And then there were the lights. Not just draped over the buildings but all throughout the streets and really quite tasteful. Cathy reports that they had spent weeks setting them up; she gets to see all the "out of hours" work when she runs at some ungodly hour each morning.
We went to Nice on the Saturday before Christmas and they really turned it on with a massive ferris wheel, light shows, christmas carols, christmas crafts & food stalls and an outdoor ice skating rink. There was even real snow on the ground and on the cars! Unfortunately we didn't take the camera so you will just have to take our word for it. After checking out the Christmas festivities of Nice we went to the old town for a drink and then found a restaurant and partook of some vin chaud (hot wine), crepes (genuine Bretagnois faire) and more vin chaud (it was a cold evening OK).
Speaking of snow and cold, most of you may have heard of the outrageous weather we had over here in Europe in the week or so leading up to Christmas. Temperatures plummeted, snow fell everywhere, airports, trains and even whole countries were closed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/December_2009_European_snowfall
Generally we were not too affected here in Antibes with the exception of some slightly cooler weather.
We were, however, a little worried about our trip to Ireland as they and the UK seemed to be particularly hard done by with the weather, after a two hour delay we finally left Nice for my first Christmas with the Meades. The road trip from Dublin to Fiddown was going to be a bit of a wild card as there were severe weather warnings urging people to stay off the roads due to the freezing conditions. The ice slowed us down a bit as rubber, ice and brakes don't really mix too well. The thick and falling snow also slowed us a little but we eventually made it, thanks to Laura's outstanding driving abilities.
Speaking of snow and cold, most of you may have heard of the outrageous weather we had over here in Europe in the week or so leading up to Christmas. Temperatures plummeted, snow fell everywhere, airports, trains and even whole countries were closed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/December_2009_European_snowfall
Generally we were not too affected here in Antibes with the exception of some slightly cooler weather.
We were, however, a little worried about our trip to Ireland as they and the UK seemed to be particularly hard done by with the weather, after a two hour delay we finally left Nice for my first Christmas with the Meades. The road trip from Dublin to Fiddown was going to be a bit of a wild card as there were severe weather warnings urging people to stay off the roads due to the freezing conditions. The ice slowed us down a bit as rubber, ice and brakes don't really mix too well. The thick and falling snow also slowed us a little but we eventually made it, thanks to Laura's outstanding driving abilities.
Christmas eve was spent doing last minute shopping, preparing food, eating food and popping across the street for "a pint" (which actually means the consumption of about 10 gallons of beer). Christmas eve evening we all piled into a couple of vehicles and braved conditions yet again to head over to Cathy's cousin's house for some more pre-christmas cheer. I was personally still processing the remaining 6 gallons of beer so just wobbled about the kitchen for a bit. Thanks to Therese & Pat for their hospitality - you have a wonderful house...good luck filling it up!
Christmas morning was briefly interrupted with an ill baby but after some more dare-devil driving by Laura and the right medication, the world was back in order and we had a smiling happy Zoe again. So it was onto more food preparation, some aperitifs and filling the living room with a container load of christmas gifts. Mention must be made of the human chain that was necessary to move all of the christmas gifts from the back of Owen & Ruth's car into the house.....you might think about hiring some elves of your own next year guys! Then time came to partake of the labours of the last few days food preparation including that 22 pound turkey! Feast would be an understatement. There was always the "back-up bird" at Ruth & Owen's house just in case we ran out.
I was asked on several occasions what the most significant difference was between Christmas in Australia and Christmas in Ireland. Well the simple answer to that is that you can't drink you beer straight out of the shed in Australia! There wasn't enough room in the kitchen fridge to keep all the grog, no problem just store all the grog you will possibly need in the shed at a temperature at or below zero, no beer fridge necessary. The red wine actually had to be put in front of the fire to warm it up before serving! It's also not every Christmas that you get to wrap live chickens as gifts...
Laura had us all sorted for some hiking through the Commeragh Mountains on Boxing Day (St Steven's Day for those of us not aligned with the British Crown). We met up at the Purcell's house and a troupe of about 16 adults and 6 dogs headed to the mountains for the morning. We capped it off with hot port and sausages at the Purcell's afterwards.
We headed home on the morning of the 27th. We decided to catch a bus to Dublin airport for the return journey due to the treacherous conditions. Although we had to get up at 4:30am to do so it was worthwhile as the freezing conditions returned not long after we departed. Thank you to Eamon, Olivia and all of the Meades and Purcell's who fed us and plied us with alcohol and made me feel welcome.
THE COSTA BRAVA
We returned to Antibes on the 27th December and then headed straight back out again on the 28th to Empuriabrava; a residential marina / tourist village on the Costa Brava in Spain. For those of you who are more inclined to leave your feet firmly planted on the ground, there's also a world renowned skydiving centre. We were there specifically to participate in some invitational 16-way skydives with Pete Allum & Joey Jones. There was also a Christmas boogie happening at the DZ so there were plenty of people there, probably around 200 or so, from just about every skydiving country in the world!
Now we can see why the DZ is world renowned. It is a great DZ with excellent facilities and a view to die for. We'd recommend to any of our skydiving friends traveling to this part of the world to include it in your itinerary.
We didn't quite end up doing any actual 16-ways as they were missing a few people due to illness and other factors. We did do some really sweet 12-14 ways, however, with probably no less than 5 or 6 points per skydive. On the last day of the year we joined forces with one of the other organisers and put together some challenging and interesting 3-4 point 22 ways. The last jump on the DZ for 2009 was our final 22 way which was a relatively straight forward jump but it culminated in a 22 way star just to show off to all the people on the ground watching the final sunset load for the decade!
There are no photos of this part of the trip yet but watch this space...
As with any skydiving event, there was always bound to be a weather hold at some point. We were put on hold due to some tricky wind conditions on the second day; this gave Cathy and I a chance to see some of the local sites. We were recommended to head to a little fishing village called Cadaques, it was a fantastic drive over the mountains to the northeast of Empuriabrava. We didn't quite make it Cadaques itself other than just passing through because we spotted some signs to Salvador Dali's house so we headed off in that direction.
We had a tour of the house that Salvador Dali lived in. What a bizarre place - it started as a little 4m x 4m room but ended up being this sprawling maze of additions, each of which got more and more eccentric as time went by. The final parts of the house were the gardens which included 2m high concrete eggs, Pirelli tire signs, telephone booths, pink lip couches and the Michelin Man! Definitely a great experience to have stumbled across. Apparently we were very lucky to get in because it is usually booked out up to three months in advance.
As with any skydiving event, there was always bound to be a weather hold at some point. We were put on hold due to some tricky wind conditions on the second day; this gave Cathy and I a chance to see some of the local sites. We were recommended to head to a little fishing village called Cadaques, it was a fantastic drive over the mountains to the northeast of Empuriabrava. We didn't quite make it Cadaques itself other than just passing through because we spotted some signs to Salvador Dali's house so we headed off in that direction.
We had a tour of the house that Salvador Dali lived in. What a bizarre place - it started as a little 4m x 4m room but ended up being this sprawling maze of additions, each of which got more and more eccentric as time went by. The final parts of the house were the gardens which included 2m high concrete eggs, Pirelli tire signs, telephone booths, pink lip couches and the Michelin Man! Definitely a great experience to have stumbled across. Apparently we were very lucky to get in because it is usually booked out up to three months in advance.
We also went to visit a little town called Castello d'Empuries. Which is a little medieval village whose main feature is its parish church "Santa Maria" which is also called the “cathedral of the Empordà” because of its size and gothic influence architecture. It was built over and encompassed an older roman building. The building of the church begun in the 14th Century and the façade was begun at the beginning of the 15. Century. It is one of the few gothic churches located in a rural area.
THE SKIING EXPERIENCE
Now in consideration of the cold weather and our proximity to the French Alps we decided to find out what all the fuss is with this skiing thing. We're only about a 90 minute drive from some of the best ski stations in France. Now bear in mind that Cathy has never seen snow more than a couple of inches thick and has never been on skis in her life. And the last time I had skis on my feet was at least twenty years ago. So what a better place to give it a go than the French Alps.
There's no hire of ski clothing in this country it seems so we had to go out and buy jackets, pants, gloves, goggles, walking boots and so forth. Luckily we caught the after Christmas sales and found a few bargains. So by the end of the week of planning there was no better time to say "all the gear and no idea"! We booked our travel, lift passes, ski hire & ski lessons and off we went.
We went to a place called Auron. They had a dumping of snow during the previous week so the snow depth was between 120 - 190cm! For our first trip we decided to catch a bus which left from Antibes a couple of blocks from our house and arrived in Auron about 2 hours later. When we arrived at the station we had to find the ski school and organise our lessons. We decided on a private two hour lesson and were promptly booked in for 12 o'clock. We figured we had some time to kill...boy were we wrong! We had no idea how any of this skiing thing works so by the time we changed our combined bus ticket / ski voucher for lift passes, made it through the ski hire queues and then the queues for the cable car up to the ski field we were 10 minutes late for our lesson. At least we now know how the process works so hopefully we will be a little more efficient next time round.
Our lesson was great. We learned how to get into and out of our skis, though I find they come off much easier when you crash than when you actually want to take them off, and we learned how to catch the lifts. Our instructor Dennis was great. We started out with walking in the skis and then the inevitable snow-plough and then onto turns. Dennis helped Cathy out with a magic red stick that kept her steady and no matter where he was or what she was doing he somehow managed to get it in front her and stabilise her at a moments notice. I stumbled along behind trying to get a feel for it again. Cathy did a great job for her first try at it and we finished the day with a couple of runs down the baby slopes on our own. We were only on the slopes for about three hours but that was probably enough for our first time.
We liked it so much we are heading back there again next weekend...
Posts
1 comment:
Hi Adrian,
we (your loyal fan club)are awaiting the next update
Post a Comment