SS II

I know it's been frustrating for you not to know whether our trip to Slovakia was in the end a fiasco or not...but here I come with more news.

Second day as I said we decided not to pay a full-day ticket for the bad conditions of the main slopes and to try the night skiing conditions to a third slope near-by that we have only seen one night whilw walking through the resort. This was going to be more cheaper too, almost half the price of the day-long ticket.

It was the most inspired decision we took during the trip. It was cheap, nor crowded and if you were fast enogh you could get there before the rest of the people and "taste" the slope among the first. Very interesting and new sensation. The slope was about 850 m long but quite demanding. We came to life again! Our trip looked like saved...by the night skiing.

We were happy and we used to ski at night. The feeling was great, the slope seemed to be all ours.

Our programme was clear. In the morning, after getting-up (that was almost always at noon) we went wandering the surroundings, the city, the shops and one day we planned a trip to the thermal aquapark in the area.

This is a local monument for those who died during the communist era. The glass walls were spinning around when you touched it.

The small city by night. The benches were practically frozen (here -10).

The Valley it is actually streching between The Low and the High Tatras. Jasna, our resort was on the Low Tatras. But the landscape is splendid. It is perfect for skiing, for hicking and also for bathing in the sun or in the Liptovsky lake (frozen at the time we visited) or the thermal lakes. It was fun! The water was +38 degrees in the swimming pools (very crowded by the way) and outside there was at least - 8 degrees. AND THERE WERE PEOPLE BATHING OUTSIDE! Good grace! Brevheart was a little child compared to these people.

Anyway in the morning we went to the swimming pool and in the evening we went skiing...hm! what a marathon, huh? But it was great. we really felt we were getting again our good shape :).

One day we realized that all the slopes were being opened, starting from the top of the mountain (almost the top) and to the valley. Wow! Finally what we expected! One ambitious man (Peter) proposed to wake-up at 7 in the morning and be at the slopes at 8, to spend all the available time skiing (until 15:30). First seemed to be impossible to achieve but we all had an ambition and we did it. It was great to ski in the morning onto untouched snow.

Images speaks for themselves. Here was the top of the slopes from where you could choose your own personal trail.

Day-skiing turned out very challenging as in the afternoon there was plenty of ice on the slopes and we "had" to fall for the fun of the situation and the spectators. Artificial snow (as most of it was artificial) it's ok but you feel that something is missing. And artificial snow it's not so resistant; it turns into ice very very quickly. Anyway we found a natural slope for beginners and it was a real blessing. Here behind Peter.

Some of us (see the picture above) even leared how to fly....as there were plenty of flying boards on this slope. we had fun anyway, especially when the same character :) wanted to have an extreme adventure by crossing betweend two slopes through the bushes and untouched deep snow layer. Now here we had the greatest time. We were somewhere between the two ski-lifts, in the picture, where you can see the bushes (aprox. where the plane "hits" the mountain, but a bit lower, where starts the mts vegetation). We survived but having NO control at all of the ski. When reaching the slopes we were like Tarzan descending from a tree...everybody looked at us like they've seen some Himalayan conquerors...hehehhe.

Well, our conclusion was that we will be back one day, but maybe on February or March when hopefully there'll be plenty of snow. It is worth it. At the time of our trip ti Jasna the cliff slopes remained closed, as a safety measure, but I think they are the best. Soon to experience that too.

Slovakian Silvester (New Years' Eve) I

Well I'm back on the track and I promise to keep this blog up-to-date. As you all know by now we decided to spend 2007/2008 New Years' Eve in Slovakia in a wll-known ski-resort...so they say. Only when we got there we realized they may be right. Jasna was the name of the resort which streched through the entire Demanova Dolina (valley) dividing the Low Tatras in two. Jasna is a sort of Valea Prahovei from Romania, many tourists, very famous and en vogue. The big difference is that even if crowded you really don't feel that others pinch you or ambush you. Everybody knows to respect your private space of 30 cm round and to say sorry if stepping on your....foot.

Anyway I made the reservation for four people (We - The Balla's and the Mishes) at a privat house, Zdenka's private. We looked for a cheap but nice reservation, not crowded. Also we looked for an apartment with a kitchen so we can cook The New Years' Dinner and breakfast at least. It proved very inspired our idee as we saved some good money and could spend them all on skiing.

The apartment was situated at aprox 8-10 km from the slopes, but it was worth it as we travelled by car and the gas was more cheap than staying at a fancy hotel with 300 Euros/person for 5 nights as some Peter's friends did. We spend 150 Euros/couple/7 nights. I think it's a bargain, ain't it? If you're intrested just check this out: pension@europe.com

Here's our kitchen

First day was with accomodation. Anyway we travelled almost a day from Baia Mare to Demanova so we arranged things in the HOUSE :) and had a trip to a supermarket in the near-by town: Liptovsky Mikulas. Well we had the unpleasant surprise to see that the ATM from some local bank didn't accept our credit card and we tried a little desperation. All our money was on the credit card. We had some euros - cash money but in Slovakia you cannot pay in Euros. Nor you can find slovak crowns in Romania :)

Well, we "visited" the city to the next 2-3 ATMs in town at a -8 C, hoping to find a dear one which could give us the some damn money!!!!!!!!!!!

We looked for banks we knew from Romania, OTP, Unicredit and nothing. We were quite desperate. If we couldn't pay by credit card we were f...ked! IF YOUKNOW WHAT I MEAN. And in the middle of nowhere, appears an ATM from a promiscuous local bank. I said we must give another try. And BINGO it worked. God bless the unknown banks!

The next stop for the first thrilling night was in...BED!

Second day was our first in the ski resort and on the slovakian slopes.Unfortunatelly it hadn't been snowing for a long time, so the snow was almost entirely artificial. Interesting feeling until the first fall. Ouch! The earth was really frozen! And the ice on the top of it too! The slopes from the top of the mountain (2000 m) were not open because they were not safe enough! We were dissapointed! We payed a fortune for a small slope and another one with ice. And it was so crowded that we had to stay for 1 hour to wait for out turn to the ski-lifts. Horrifing!

This was the first image with the slopes we had. At this point we were amazed and satisfied!

The second view of the beginners' slope from the ski-lift. It was great for beginners but the others we had to give our best to have a little speed. Here started the dissapointment.

Peter decided to climb the slopes carring his skiies on his back. And I as a faitful wife followed him! He crossed from one slope to another so we discovered the gondola slope. Beautiful and abrupt...but full of ice. I reached the slope taking into consideration the indicatives from the slopes and the near-by forest. we decided to come tomorrow, maybe for a better ski session.

We drowned our hopes in a glass filled with finest Romanian wine.

Tomorrow would be a crucial day. Was it worth while coming all this way only to be frustrated?!

PS: To see picture in advance pleasa visit: www.picasaweb.google.com/ancu.bm

Welcome 2008!

Happy New Year to you all! May all your wishes come true in the nest year and hopefully we'll meet more often, at least with some of you!
I'll post some pics with this wonderful short holiday and tell you all about it. But for now I must get used to this office again, with everybody geting stressed here...for now it's ok.
I hope you all had a great winter holiday and I hope you will share the feeling with us!
Have a great Monday...if you can! I'm still trying.
Kisses

I HATE Flickr

God, who invented www.flickr.com/photos? He/She must be killed...I mean after uploading all my photos this stupid site tells me that I have reached my free upload limit so from now on if I want to upload more photos I must pay 25 $/year. And as a favour they/it didn't erase my old photos but if I want to see them I must delete the new ones. GEE! Is there anybody as stupis as I was when first choosing flickr???

Now I want to quit them for good! I'm waiting for your advice.

As a relaxation you can see photos from this weekend, from Cavnic ski adventure, on my "STILL - to become abandoned" flickr account on the botttom of this page.

I'm really waiting for your prompt advice. SenQ!

Laziness

...I know, I know I've been very lazy lately. Fortunately you are nice, patient guys and you understand. Actually at work there were some busy weeks, usually this always happens at the end of the year. Everybody gets crazy, everybody is in a hurry, everybody wants to buy thousands of presents, etc. So it gets crowded and noisy. The town is always full of cars and people wandering around hoping for a bargain, the Christmas ligts are already turned on in the city (I promise some artistic photos of that...in case I convince my BEAR - to be translated HUSBAND to walk with me:), so the Christmas spirit is everywhere... It is very nice but when you feel that even the last hope that today or tomorrow I will finish my tasks at work vanishes and you see yourself hopeless, you kind of get nervous....just a little!

Last wkd we went to Baia Mare and to Cavnic for ski. It was very nice, quite warm. I will post some pictures when I will finally download them from my camera.

I'll keep you up-to-date guys...do not dispair!

Back to ... civilisation

This wkd was for outdoor activities. After attending so many "indoor" events where our main occupation was eating, drinking and socializing we decided to get our noses out in the nature, especially that it had been snowing heavily the last weeks. We planned one-day trip nearby Cluj, and our first thought was to go near Tarnita Lake and climb the hills for a great panoramic view of the area. Well, Sunday at noon, together with our extreme outdoor partners, The Mishes, we packed some apples, water and some sweets and we drove into the wild.

As Mishu cried out for some snow, our driver (Peter), made us all a surprise and keept on driving long way after we passed through Tarnita Lake.

This is one of the dam's views

The road soon started to turn into a sinouos and snow-covered one. But our "race car", winter equipped, didn't let us down and we could soon reach the top of the hills and enjoy the great Marisel area.

Even if in Cluj there's no sight of snow here we could play with lots of it. The snow layer was about 20-30 cm thick. Enough to have a snow fight me and Peter and then me and Peter against Mishu...which of course Mishu lost! Anyway the Mishes were not in the mood for snow fighting...but will have plenty of time to "educate" them in that spirit as we booked our New Year's Eve with them in Slovakia...hehehehe. Hopefully they won't read this, so will clearly have an advantage with that!

Up there on the top of the hills we discovered again the quietness and peace of the old Romanian villages. Unfortunatelly, lately the Ro villages have turned into a strange mixture of old and new, a kitch, trying to be modern but at the same time keeping some old traditions. Here at first sight we felt like time stopped and that the village remained as I used to know it in my childhood.

We walked for aprox. an hour on the plateau on a terrible freezing wind but it was worth it to see people:

Make new friends:

This cute puppy (yes! he's a puppy from an interesting Romanian dog-race "ciobanesc" meaning the dog that watches for the sheep herd). This kind of dosgs can be very dangerous if you step on their territory, but this one was like a doll. Despite his fierce name "Ursu" (en. bear) he was very calm and friendly. I must underline that I guessed by mistake his name...hehehhe. Here, in this picture, he's having his siestaafter eating like crazy the cake we gave him. Anyway I would like to have a house with a yard and a dog like this one. I love dogs they are so dedicated and faithfull animals.This one came with us for a long way...well I think he had other reasons than just friendship..he was for sure thinkink of those cakes!

We admired the nature's agony...the last moments of life before complete burrial beneath the snow! The light was not so good for pictures!

This is the most normal picture Peter could take with the "author". He's always playing!

Anyway it was a nice trip...which ended with a feast at Motel Gilau and then a nice dessert home-made to which all the four protagonists took part in. We also played scrrable game. It doesn't matter who won, does it?! :)

Teambuilding

The news that "I MUST" participate to the company's teambuilding "adventure" next wkd pissed me off! We are supposed to go to a fancy hotel in Vartop, near Arieseni, visit the places and do team extreme (hahaha) sports and play other team games. Well, besides the fact that I have seen the area and did all the "extreme" sports already, they're planning for us to leave Cluj on Friday morning and come back on Sunday afternoon...Imagine 3 days of staying nose-to-ose with my colleagues. Good God! I know that that's the spirit but I rather stay at home with my darling and get bored in front of the TV (which won't be the case) than get bored with other 30 "team players". And, imagine that if you try to skip the extraordinary meeting you'll be seen FOREVER like the black sheep of the company. Shitty thing!

The Romanians have a very wrong ideea about teambuilding meetings. They saw/heard smth like that happening in the Wild Wild West at big companies, and BUM! they copy-paste the thing and think they are adventurous and extrem....alow me to HA-HA!

I understand for example a maximum 2-day teambuilding, but 3 days out of which one is just eating breakfast and way back home is stupid! And the ideea is that you do climbing on a rope and other silly things and you're supposed to feel like climbing the Himalaya Mts.

Well I think I'm so nervous is because I already know some of the guys who will show us the adventure (the pros), I've already done almost all the stuff they're going to do, I've seen the area (and seen it 2 months ago) and eveywhere in RO there's snow on the slopes and besdides all these: my dear husband is not allowed at the meeting and I have to stay away from all of that...Why???? Because I have to be a "Team PLAYER".

The truth is that some of "OUR" are so mean and so lack team spirit that they actually need to spend a month in teambuilding.

Yucks!

See here the site of our team leaders or whatever the extreme future-teachers: http://www.adventureinc.ro/

Here just a small view of what will do.

If they try to paint our faces I'm OUT.