Chamonix, France

I'd skied the Swiss Alps.  I'd skied the Italian Alps.  Heck, why not ski the French Alps?  While Zermatt still reigns as my favorite ski destination in Europe (and Beaver Creek still tops the entire list as my favorite place in the States), Chamonix has a lot going for it -- if only we hadn't been there when the rest of Europe was on ski week!  Nevertheless we had a blast exploring the town, meeting tons of people, eating excellent food, and getting a few runs of early-Spring skiing in.  My first snowshoeing experience was also amazing, I can't wait to do it again!

It was a great 5-day getaway with a wonderful group of ladies but I can't say I'm sad to be putting away the ski gear.  It's beach time now!!

Chamonix

Au revoir, Linds

London

Every so often I get an intense urge to be around English speakers.  Not that I'm not around them daily at my job... but once I leave the confines of my workplace I'm bombarded with Spanish.  Loud, fast, obnoxious Spanish.  The lisp is starting to drive me bonkers (you all know why the Spaniards talk with a lisp, don't you?  If not, google it).  I thought Puerto Rican Spanish with their dropped letters and slang was bad... wow.  I've picked up a ton just through listening but needless to say I can't wait to get home at the end of the day and get out of the Spanish madness. 

So, with that being said, I jumped at the relatively cheap tickets to London one weekend and made it a 36 hour trip.  To say it was a whirlwind is an understatement.  Dana and I literally traversed the entire city, saw every major sight, stopped more than enough for a pint (or four) and even caught a show in the West End.  It was tiring, it was crazy but it was so much fun.  And the Brits didn't disappoint.  More than once we found ourselves saying, "Wouldn't life be so much different if we lived here?  I think I could actually live here permanently!  The people are so nice!  The men are actually attractive!"  None of those phrases are ever uttered in Madrid  :) 

London



Cheers!

Linds

And Happy Valentines Day!!

Real Madrid Game

Although I find watching soccer to be right next to eating vegetables and reading science fiction on my list of least favorite things to do, I got the opportunity to go to a Real Madrid game and couldn't pass it up.  Not only are tickets to games extremely hard to come by, if you do they are super expensive and typically in the nosebleed sections.  A coworker of mine has season passes because his wife works for Real, so she had a few extra tickets and I was able to go along.  It was quite the experience.  Not only is the stadium bigger than anything I've ever been in (I think it holds 80,000) but the people are insane!  Since it's Spain, we went to the bar for a few hours before the 10 pm kickoff.  Our seats were on the goal line about 20 rows up--- incredible.  While it wasn't the most exciting game (Real scored their two goals in the last 4 minutes of the game) I thoroughly enjoyed watching the people heckle one another, yell at the refs, and laugh at the "injured" players.  And in true Spanish style, we went to the bar during half time and after the game.  Not a smart decision on my part considering I had to get up for work 3 hours later...

 The Stadium

 My coworker Juan Carlos and I

 The view from our seats... amazing!

 The beloved Ronaldo

Our crazy crew, out way too late!

Now that I've seen both a bullfight and a futbol game, I feel I've truly had the full Spanish experience. :)

Ciao para ahora, L