New Years in Mammoth

Chris and I went to Mammoth for New Years to see our bestest friends and go skiing - my first attempt ever. We also soaked in the hot tubs, ate blueberry muffins, attempted a trip to the hot springs - lets just call it an offroad adventure, played Spades, and sampled Scott and Kevins year-in-the-making barley wine (yum!).

Skiing, aah, skiing - my new friend... This picture was taken on the lift up to the top of the craziest run ever - Sesame Street - it doesnt get more bunny than this.Kevin, me and Scott all going for a ride- check out my awesome orange goggles!

Here it is - proof that I actually strapped ski's to my feet and slid down the mountain. Chris said I had good form...

Here is Scott and Kev at the top of the mountain. They, along with Chris, went to do some harder runs - maybe you can see me down at Sesame Street... It was perfect weather for skiing - a warm, sunny, windfree day.
Towards the end of our sesh we took the gondola up to McCoy's Station and had a beer - brewed locally - it was quite tasty and pretty funny when the foam started freezing over. Kevin definitely wins for best ski hair ever - with Chris following close behind. Scotts hair was perfect all day, seeing that he snowboards like 4 times a week. Getting down from this part of the mountain was quite an adventure for me - highlighted by falling often, screaming loudly, and laughing hysterically. All in all, it was a great way to spend the new years!

Belgium

Aah, Paris...

Belgian Beer Festival

After about 12 hours in London, we shared a cab with an older couple - also from San Fran- to the train station and boarded the train to Brussels. Me not understanding time changes, I got us tea about 5 minutes before the train arrived because I thought we had an hour. This was a really nice train.

When we got to Brussels, we stepped into a huge crowded Farmer's Market type thing right outside the train station. I bought a mango - mmm - which we feasted on while we walked 20 minutes to the Grand Place. The beer festival was awesome and we jetlaggedly drank a bunch of different kinds of beer. I had lotsa fruity beers - cherry, apple, raspberry, pink grapefruit, banana, etc. Chris had a bunch of different kinds as well.

We had all our stuff with us and it was drizzly and we were tired, but all in all Im so glad we got to be there.

Europe: Are we there yet?

With a twinkle in our eyes, excitement in our hearts (and a bit of fear in my gut), Chris and I boarded the plane that would take us to New York. From there we would go to London for about 24 hours and then to the continent for our first ever, once in a life time, magical, adventurous, life changing, fabulous backpacking trip through Europe!!! As we neared JFK, the captain told us that we would have to circle a bit because of backup due to Tropical Depression Ernesto. I didn't get to worried that we'd miss our connection because there were alot of others on the plane headed to London too. As soon as we got off the plane we started running to the terminal - Chris leaving me behind in the dust. We all got to the terminal and Chris was no where in sight, but our plane was there at the end of the tunnel. We told the lady at the counter and she made a phone call and started checking us in - until the plane pulled away from the tunnel!!!! She told us that the pilot must have made the decision and once it started leaving, there was nothing that she could do. It was right about this time that Chris came running up - apparantly he had been lost and running around the airport while all this was happening -he shouldve stuck with me ; ) I told him the bad news and so began the long wait until the next flight and the confusing airport people all telling us different things about what was happening. In the end, we didnt get on the last flight out that night, but got a free annoying cab ride to Lucy's place in Brooklyn. It was good to see Loody, although she spent most of the time trying to find us something to eat. We had a short nap and headed back to the airport - this time we got on the plane and made it to London around 10 pm - missing our day to explore London, but SOOOO glad to be there anyways.