Did I mention the terrain in Val D'Isere is magnificent?
I have to figure out a way to take an entire winter to tour the towns in the French Alps and get a good sampling of all the skiing available. I'm pretty sure Val D'Isere is some of the best available (at least at my level), but I'd like to know what I'm missing, too.
In a weird coincidence, there were a few games of a winter polo match being played during our visit. It was fun, and we wound up standing around in the cold to watch for much longer than we thought we would.
In addition to the wonderful skiing in Val D'Isere, the town has a lot of old world charm.
For the best breakfast, you must go to Chevallot (the one on the main road). Their "petit" dejeuner is huge, and every bite is mouth-watering.
I took another ski vacation in Val D'Isere a few weeks ago (I've been there twice before, in 2007 and 2003). This has got to be some of the most glorious ski terrain in the world!
Babylon by Bus is the autobiographical account of two young American men, Ray Lemoine and Jeff Neumann, who head for Iraq to become NGO workers soon after the defeat of Saddam Hussein, during the “lull” before the major insurgency.
I’ll be brief. My impressions are accurately reflected by the 1-star and 2-star reviews at Amazon.
The narrator (the story is told from the POV of LeMoine) has an almost comically arrogant attitude. He and his friend, both surprisingly jaded for people so young, seem compelled to encourage each other into the most inane, pointless behaviors. If you ever want to understand why people hate Americans, this book gives numerous examples of the stupidity that sometimes makes me embarrassed to be American myself.
The story makes some vague claims about the good that was done by the two authors in organizing aid to war victims under the CPA. I suppose this proves that two fools just might accidentally do something right once in a while.
I give this book two stars because I think it might be educational. In a few instances, their underlying experiences are interesting, from a sort of back-alley perspective. Unfortunately, the whole story reeks of their overweening self-righteousness and “too cool for school” perspective. When they are assaulted by two men who beat them with their shoes, you want to join in and shout along with the attackers “You are stupid men! You are arrogant Americans!”
To get a grittier feel for post-war Iraq, I’d much rather have heard from some of the interesting characters described in the book, such as Marla Ruzicka or A Heather Coyne. I don’t have any good recommendations for alternative information sources, however.
Full disclosure: I opposed the invasion of Iraq, as did the two authors. So my criticisms have nothing to do with their claims of liberalism.
I picked up the audiobook of Babylon by Bus at the library today. I have a lot of driving to do tomorrow, and I was looking for something interesting to occupy the time.
I got through the first disc today. So far, I’m finding it kind of irritating. Their attitude strikes me as exceptionally cavalier and stupid. This may be aggravated by the sound of the narrator’s voice. I’m still planning to finish it, and I hope it improves.
I’ve just finished reading “Mission to Africa,” the first section of Angelina Jolie’s Notes from My Travels.
In the Introduction, she writes “I don’t know how this will be as a book, how readers will find it. I am not a writer.” You can tell that; her writing style is fairly simplistic, and this is not a standard travel journal. But she still does a good job at telling her stories from her unique perspective.
Jolie seems to be much more of a “feeling” person, not so much a “thinking” person. I don’t mean this in a bad way. There’s not a lot of introspection here about how she came to be interested in humanitarian issues. There’s very little historical detail or context provided. She’s telling you what she sees and feels, in a very raw and unprocessed way. She’s really very good at conveying her feelings and her horror at events going on in the world, and her empathy for the people suffering through them. The book seems to reveal as much about her as a person as it does about the situations she observes. So far, it’s an interesting view. I hope the book finds a wide audience.
While in Florida, I got to dip my toes in the ocean off of Fort Lauderdale. It was a lovely break from the cold northern winter!
This is a look down a little alley way off Las Olas. The kids seemed to be enjoying their day!
After hanging out at the Jazz Festival in Fort Lauderdale, I took a walk over to the Art Festival on Las Olas. These are some interesting mobile animal sculptures that were set up at one of the intersections along Las Olas.
I covered both the east and west coasts of Florida on my vacation... this is a view of a colorful umbrella at the Jazz Festival in Fort Lauderdale last weekend.
I've been down to Florida for a little fun and sun. It was heavenly! I even went swimming along this here beach.
My vacation wound down in NYC, with a short visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This is a view of a sculpture and a couple of paintings from the Muriel Kallis Steinberg Newman Collection, now showing there. Definitely worth the trip, it fills numerous rooms with modern paintings, lots of Miro, Klee, Balthus. There's a really beautiful painting by Frankenthaler with salmons, pinks, and blues; a super Pollock; and a few interesting pieces by artists that I'd never heard of before (Esteban Vicente?). I could have spent more time looking around... hope to get back there soon.
This is a view along the blue piste called Lower Standard, under the gondola, looking down at Stratton Village.
We had the best ski conditions on Monday. By Tuesday, the warmth had caused the snow to get a bit icier than I like, but it was still not bad.
On Wednesday, we had really bad luck - we got hit by a rainy downpour just as we were heading for the ski tent, so we decided to skip skiing for that day and headed into Manchester for sightseeing and good eating (Zoey's maple bread pudding is a must, IMHO).
On Thursday, we did more skiing. By then, conditions had worsened. The trails were becoming granular and icy, due to the rainfall. However, my skiing skills were up to the challenge and I enjoyed the day overall. In fact, I actually enjoyed the increasing test of my skills as conditions gradually got a little worse the longer we stayed there...
Unfortunately, Friday was a total bust, with rain making the conditions so poor that we decided not to ski. Luckily, we got comped with two "gift certificates" that we happily spent in the village. I would have preferred a good day of skiing, but it was better than nothing. Stratton does a good job of keeping people happy even when the weather does not cooperate.
Altogether, we did cover quite a lot of territory at Stratton, doing multiple runs of the greens - Lower Middlebrook and 91 - over by Sun Bowl Lodge; skiing most of the little maze of greens in the area of Lower Tamarack; and also most of the greens that start at the summit with Mike's Way and Upper Wanderer. We became comfortable with some of the blues as well, including Betwixt and Yodeler. I think if conditions had been better, I would have done a lot more skiing along the blues.
I went on a ski vacation with a friend last week. This year, after considering my perennial favorite, France, and also looking into options in Quebec, we decided to give the Northeast US a try. The exchange rate was a big factor here.
We decided on Stratton, given the large number of easy and intermediate trails, and the convenience (within reasonable driving distance).
We had good luck and bad luck. The week prior to our vacation, the northeast had been through a few frigid days (in the teens), with a good snowfall. This must have helped to build up the snow base at Stratton.
However, by the day that we arrived, Sunday, January 6, the weather had begun to warm up. On Monday, it had become unusually warm, in the 40s. Snow was rapidly melting. The photo here was taken on Tuesday. By that time, practically all the snow was gone from the center.
Something else you can notice in this photo is the lack of crowds - indeed the lack of people altogether. Apparently during this particular week, the one after Christmas week, there is a lull at Stratton (perhaps this is true of all US ski resorts?). Since I hate crowded skiing conditions, this helped a lot. It is something that I will keep in mind for my next trip.
