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Skiing season 2008/9

admin — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 09:33:30 +0000

In the attempt to get things here up-to-date, here’s a quick look at the winter season 2008/9. Nothing much happened, except work and skiing week-ends. I re-visited some places I’d been before, and tried out some new ones. In short chronological order:

I ended 2008 with a trip to Zermatt, to see the Matterhorn, a week before going home for Christmas. Left by train at 7am (!) and returned at night at 10pm, 3.5 hours ride, but to me it was worth it, since I wanted to see this landscape with my own eyes.

Upon return in 2009, here are some images, in chronological order, in case it can tempt you for a skiing trip in Switzerland/Austria:

Davos/Klosters (CH)

Flims/Laax (CH)

Hoch-Ybrig (CH)

Flumserberg (CH)

Lenzerheide (CH)

Ischgl (AUT)

St. Anton am Arlberg (AUT)

Titlis (CH)

St. Moritz (CH)

Elm (‘s deep , CH)

Summer night wakeup call

admin — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 16:51:58 +0000

Euro2008 is over for the Romanian soccer team.

After a brilliantly executed tactical (albeit sinfully boring) goalless draw against world championship runner-up France and a sensational 1-1 against world champion Italy, after one of the most thrilling games in the competition, they lamentably failed to beat a relaxed Dutch squad to qualify to the quarterfinals.

Typical. 3 outstanding games in a row would have been too much. And yet, Romanian fans in the “yellow ground” had hoped till the last moment. It was for the first time in history that Romania had a significant contingent of fans at a final tournament abroad. Outstanding and touching experience to be there.

Some video impressions below and in the video corner in the bar on the left. The summer night dream is over.

Romanian fans @ Romania-France 0-0:

and Romania-Holland 0-2:

EuRoMania

admin — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 02:28:42 +0000

Euro2008 (soccer, for the ones who don’t know on what world they live in ) is in full swing this month.

Romania has survived a hard-fought game against World Champion runners-up France, 0-0. For a neutral person, quite a boring game, but from an “involved” perspective it was amazing, especially for the ones in the stadium. The atmosphere was sen-sa-tio-nal, for the first time our national team had almost 10000 supporters on a foreign stadium, matching and surpassing in noise the french supporters (!).

A terrible match is ahead, against a wounded World Champion, Italy (cool group we’re having, huh?). Italians have shockingly lost 3-0 in the first game, it is pretty much by and large “win or go home” for them. This will be the test.

I’ve collected photos and videos from this tournament. The photo gallery is here, and will keep being completed during this month, what you see below is the stand as of today.

The video collection is on the side. Enjoy, and

Hai Romania!

snowboarding

admin — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 08:04:00 +0000

finally i realized what snowboarding is approximately about. i thought i knew from the first day, but i was wrong. in the first days all i did was brrrreak, turn, brrrreak, or slide laterally out of control, brrreak, turn, brrreak.
this weekend i went with L&C to Flims, for half a day. it is unbelievable how much you forget at the initial stages of learning a sport. and the gap is big, as you remember the last images with you being better at the end of the previous day, only to have an utter disappointment the next time you go. saturday i barely had time to get a bit in control, and the day was over. the good thing was though, i went on sunday, to flums, which is closer, and managed to wake up and go in the morning. it made a world of a difference.
stayed on the blue (easy) slope for a few times, till i finally managed to “connect” some curves, into a very pleasant slalom. ahaaa! so that’s what it is about. speed improved as well, so i didnt have to run over the flat areas any more, which was extremely annoying.
then i went on to the red slope, which is waaay longer, and therefore very enjoyable. steeper, but ok.
now i’m curious, next time i go, how bad the first descent will be. till then, a few pics below, taken with the phone camera.

Big boxing night

admin — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 08:50:00 +0000

Last night, the Romanian Lucian Bute, IBF world champion boxing for Interbox in Canada, had to defend his world title against a former world champion, William Joppy.

Here is Joppy’s preview of the fight

and here is the outcome