1.31.2009

January Book Review - Scratch Beginnings

I can tell what you're thinking. A book review on Brian's blog? First of all, this is where I go to read about random European adventures and see what Brian is up to in London! Second, Brian doesn't really read!

Well, hopefully that's gonna change a little; and don't worry, the review won't be long. One of my goals this year is to read a book every month. Not a significant accomplishment to many of you, but for me it's pretty good. My first book, which I completed during my travels in Switzerland, was a book given to me by my Dad and Kathy for Christmas. It's called Scratch Beginnings by Adam Shepard. It's a true story about a recent college grad who left home with the clothes on his back, $25 in cash, a sleeping bag, and restricted from using previous contacts or relying on his college education. He randomly set out to the city of Charleston, SC where he had a goal of getting a job, saving $2500, have a working automobile, and a furnished apartment. All within one year.

I found the story itself really intriguing, and reading the real life experiences he had with other homeless and disadvantaged people were both funny and sad. You could tell it was Adam's first time writing anything significant and the writing was sometimes a little dry, but the story kept my interest in what was going to happened and didn't cause any hesitation to keep reading. Kinda how I see this blog; not literary by any means but people tell me they enjoy reading it and continue to do so. It also shows pride and the great opportunity that exists in America for those who are disciplined and willing to work hard. You'll also learn a little about homeless living in the south which is interesting enough.

If you're looking for a different type of story and a quick read, I would recommend this book. My next book was recommended to me by my friend Ryan. It's an English authored book called Girlfriend 44.

1.28.2009

Snowboarding in Switzerland

Bonjour! Last week, I spent a long weekend in Switzerland snowboarding with Hayley and Kat. Our co-worker's (Sam's) parents have a condo in the resort town of Leysin, situated about 2 hours from Geneva near the French/Swiss border in Switzerland. Hayley and Kat were in the middle of their two week holiday in Switzerland, and I went to join them for the weekend.

See some sweet pics here: http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/bbergey/LeysinSwitzerland?feat=directlink

My journey started mid-afternoon on Friday. I left work a bit early and made my way to Luton airport. Although flights are often cheap from "London," it means you have to use airports that are actually outside of the city. After dragging my carry-on backpack and heavy snowboard bag on the tube, I caught a train to the nearest station and then a bus to the airport itself. I arrived in Geneva after dark, grabbed a sandwich and pretzel roll in the airport, and caught the next train to Aigle - my connection to Leysin. After arriving in Aigle, I spent an hour in a nearby cafe before catching the next train to Leysin. This entire area is in the French portion of Switzerland, and since I don't know any French, I just pointed and pretended to get along with "Bonjour" and "Merci" like usual. The train journey from Aigle to Leysin was on a cog train and took about 25 minutes. It went from an elevation of 365 meters with no snow in Aigle to 1263 meters in the village of Leysin, where it was dumping new snow. They already had a few storms pass through over the week providing huge amounts of fresh powder, and this storm meant my timing was even better. It had been dark during the entire train ride from Geneva, so I was excited to see the surroundings the next day.

When we woke up the next morning, it was still snowing. Nice, big flakes. Unfortunately this meant I couldn't see any mountains. But it did mean that the slopes were going to be incredible! The three of us walked down to the lifts around 10am to start our day. My two-day lift pass cost me the equivalent of about £60...not too bad. Leysin is one of the smaller and lower resorts in the Alps and my hopes had not been high for the snow conditions or terrain. However, it ended up being one of the best weekends I've had snowboarding. I did the first few runs with Hayley and Kat, trying to offer help and taking some pics. When they went in for a break, I decided to go off on my own for a bit and explore the mountain. I went to the furthest lift on the backside and the conditions were incredible. It was Saturday, but I only saw a handful of others and I had fresh tracks for every run.

The landscape itself was dotted with old wooden cabins and the occasional Chalet flying it's Swiss flag. The old Chalet's are incredible wooden buildings that provide food and services for skiers. My favorite had homemade desserts and loaves of freshly baked bread along with a cozy inside and plenty of outdoor seating with incredible views. Although there are few "on-piste" runs (groomed or well known trails) marked on the map, the "off-piste" (non-groomed, moguls, or trees) options are vast and the conditions were some of the best that I have experienced. One thing I noticed about the map is that it is much less detailed than those that I am used to in North America. It often only shows one or two runs per lift and no off-piste detail.

A ski pass at Leysin also allows you to use the resort of Les Mosses, connected by a shuttle bus. I thought I would take advantage of that, but never saw a reason to leave Leysin since the conditions were so great. It also looked like most of the lifts at Les Mosses were drag lifts, and I didn't feel like giving effort both up and down the mountain.

The weather on Saturday slowly began to clear up, which provided excellent views of the surrounding mountain range and the valley below caked in fog. I eventually stopped for some lunch and enjoyed some goulash (meat stew) and freshly baked bread. I then met up with Hayley and Kat for a few last runs of the day. We all enjoyed a few post-boarding beers and hot wines at the chalet near the bottom of the lifts and then walked down to the village to stop at the grocery store. We bought some stuff for dinner, including some great regional cheeses and some fresh bread. We still had some time to kill before meeting Kat's friend at the train station who was coming to visit for the night, so we checked out another local pub before heading back home. Kat's friend, Isa, lives in the town of Neuchatel, a 2 hours train ride away. Lucky for us, she brought with her some local sausage called Saucisson Neuchateloise. It was excellent and went very well with our pasta! That night we enjoyed a great meal in, a few beers, and even watched Hunt for the Red October on VHS. I had never seen it before.

We woke up on Sunday to the most perfect day you could imagine. Not a cloud in the sky and, in all, around a foot of fresh powder from the last 24 hours. The others were a bit tired (and sore) from the day before, so I headed down to the lifts on my own to get in an excellent morning of fresh tracks on the back side of the mountain. The slopes were a bit more crowded due to the weather, but still nothing that stopped me from carving my own lines all day long. I also discovered that the very top of the mountain was open, which hadn't been open the day before. The resort actually has "two" summits. The first, at 2048 meters, is La Berneuse. There is a glass building with a balcony at the top where you can enjoy food and apparently a revolving bar. The other top at 2205 meters, Chaux de Mont, provides excellent views and difficult skiing. I did two runs from Chaux de Mont, and they were by far my favorite runs of the day.

I met up with Hayley and Kat when they were ready to go in the mid-afternoon and did a few runs with them. We took turns taking pics and videos of each other on the runs. I even tried a few jumps in the terrain park. I probably got a whole inch or two of air. Hayley and Kat eventually headed back down to the bottom Chalet while I did one last run. Even though my legs were shaking by the time I was done, I had put in a great weekend of snowboarding. We enjoyed one last slopeside beer and headed back to the grocery store and our place for another dinner in. We were pretty beat by the end of the second night, so we eventually turned in pretty early.

The next morning, I was up at 4:30am to catch the first train out of Leysin and back to the airport. I enjoyed one last piece of French food, a fresh croissant, and boarded the plane on my way back to London. I want to thank Hayley and Kat for letting me crash with them for the weekend and an excellent time! I can't wait to board my next European resort!

PS - There were other pics taken with other cameras, as well as quite a few videos. Once I get all of them, I will post another blog!

1.16.2009

Manchester v Chelsea

It was my first weekend back in the UK and I was off on another last minute trip. This time it was up north to Manchester, the 2nd biggest city in the UK. More importantly, it's home to the Manchester United football team. That's soccer to all of us non-European folk.

See Pics: http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/bbergey/ManchesterVChelsea?feat=directlink

Manchester United is like the New York Yankees of football. One of the most popular football clubs worldwide with around 330 million supporters, their fans make up almost 5% of the world's population. This makes it extremely hard to get tickets, especially to a game against one of their main rivals in a heated race to be atop the Premier League. Fortunately, Hayley's dad has some great connections and one of them came up with two extra tickets to the game last Sunday. Better yet, he booked a hotel for us to stay in after the game as a early birthday present to Hayley. We started the four hour drive early in the morning and got to Manchester with plenty of time to have some lunch and meet the ticketholder at a local pub.

Man U's stadium, Old Trafford, is one of the premier stadiums in England and holds 76,212 spectators. The grounds, also known as the Theatre of Dreams, has been the club's permanent residence since 1910, with the exception of an eight-year absence from 1941 to 1949 following the bombing of the stadium in the Second World War.

For those of you that don't know the culture of European football, it's absolutely manic. The area surrounding the stadium quickly filled with thousands of people as gametime approached. Before the game, they lined up outside pubs waiting to get inside. They packed the streets and bought souvenirs and food from one of the many street vendors. Police on foot and horses kept everything under control, but it didn't stop fans from yelling at the opposition. Songs and chants were breaking out constantly, and everyone knew the words to everything. Entering the stadium was no different. Small groups started singing a chant, which would quickly catch on and spread throughout the entire grounds. Having the worst thoughts of crowd mayhem in mind, I was slightly surprised by how civilized things seemed to be. However, the small visitors section was lined by an unbreakable force of police to keep anything bad from happening.

The game was great! I was fully decked out in a brand new t-shirt and scarf and ready to show my Red Army pride. Unfortunately, our seats weren't together, but it didn't stop me from having a wonderful experience. The first goal, scored by Manchester, caused the grown man sitting next to me to give me a hug. Apparently my palm held in the air waiting for a high-5 wasn't good enough. We went on to score two more without the opposition scoring at all. It was an amazing game overall and the true Manchester fans were on a high for days. It's like the Yankees beating the Red Sox, or Oregon beating Oregon State. It was a big deal and I was happy to witness it.

After the game, we went back to the hotel to change and get ready for dinner. We took a cab down to the central area of Manchester. We had a huge Chinese meal in China town and then strolled down to Canal Street, a strip of bars and restaurants on a few pedestrian-only blocks along a canal. We finally headed back to the hotel as we were both wiped out and knew we had a long drive back Monday morning to get back to work.

On our way back the next day, we decided to take a slight side-trip to the Snowdome, an indoor ski/snowboard slope. It was actually quite impressive and filled with machine made snow. Escalator style belts take you up the hill so you can ski down the slope which is 170m long by 30m wide with an incline of around 1:7. You pay by the hour and rentals are included. Our hour of boarding was a lot of fun and I tried give Hayley some pointers while I practiced riding goofy. It was a good end to a great weekend!

1.10.2009

Happy New Year!

Hey Everyone,

First things first...I hope all of you had a great holiday season! Whether I got a chance to see you or not, I wish you a Merry Christmas and all the best for the New Year. So far, it seems to be going pretty well. I'm back in cold, cloudy London. It's nice to be back, but did I mention it's cold? Because it's really really cold. The thermometer reads around freezing every day, but it feels like twenty below. It must be the moist, humid air.

I've included a few pics of my trip, most of which involve food. I guess it's becoming a theme, but on this trip it was more important than ever. I wanted to visit as many of my favorite places as I could, and I would say it was definitely a success. http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/bbergey/Christmas2008Stateside?feat=directlink

My trip back to the States was wonderful! It was like I had never left, and I fit right back in with all of my great friends and family. The trip started with a horribly long and delayed flight, a snowstormed and crazy Chicago airport, and my first week in Colorado. It was nice being back in the Boulder office seeing everyone again. And it was really nice seeing all of my great friends there. I have to thank Ryan & Brianne and Julie & Steve for letting me crash at their places. It was great catching up with everyone, enjoying a few beers at the Sun, having a traditional sushi night, going to our favorite China Buffet, and having happy hour at the Med. I even got to touch pearl street and enjoy a Rio margarita. Most importantly, I got two great days of snowboarding in! Well, maybe the first day's negative temps with 30mph winds didn't make it that great, but the 2nd bluebird powder day at Vail made up for it.

I was very lucky to fly into Oregon as scheduled due to the Great Arctic Blast of 2008. Portland/Salem saw more snow than they have seen in over 50 years and it shut down the city, like normal. My flight did arrive, but my dad didn't. So I sat in the airport 3 hours waiting for him to finish his 5 hour drive to pick me up; a drive that usually takes less than an hour. It was great seeing all of the family for Christmas and the following week. And of course the Bergey siblings were up to no good as usual. I miss you guys a lot! We had a good Christmas eating way too much food, playing Wii and eating more food. Throughout the week I was able to enjoy all my favorite food establishments and do way too much shopping to take advantage of the cheaper prices outside of London. I was also able to make up for some lost time and watch plenty of football, including Oregon beating OK State in a great Holiday Bowl game! New Years Eve was spent with Michelle and Blaine and we had an awesome time at the Alibi...one of my best new years yet!

Unfortunately, the trip allowed me to gain about ten pounds, so here I am starting the new year out right. I'm back at the gym getting back in good shape with another goal of running a half marathon. Maybe this year my knee will hold up and I'll actually run the race. I'm also planning a couple snowboard trips now that my board is here, and looking forward to my mom's visit in April.

It was so nice to be back in the States and I think it made me realize that I'll be back at some point, for good. But until then, I'll be here enjoying Europe and waiting for my friends and family to visit. Cheers!