On the Road

It’s been almost a year ago that we’ve chosen Revelstoke as our first destination of our round the world trip. We’ve been sitting on a balcony in Italy late in May 2015, looked at the various candidates and thought: let’s go to Revelstoke. Our criteria? Decent skiing (well, Revelstoke boasts the highest vertical drop in all or North America – check. Four lifts? Hmmmm.), a proper village (the population is a bit less than 8000 people – check.), good schooling for Molly and Max (three elementary schools in Revelstoke – check.) and affordable accommodation (we found a place to stay on Airbnb for an acceptable rate – check). We got in touch with schools and skiclub with very encouraging exchanges – it started to feel good. Nevertheless, we tried to manage our expectations, particularly with regards to the ski resort (thinking if it’s not that great we can still hop around to other places) and had hopes that we and the kids would meet a few nice people.

Boy, were we up for a surprise! We arrived on Friday, the 18th of December 2015. Saturday was a training day at the ski club, so Max was quite keen to meet the boys and girls he was going to ski with for the next few months. I drove him to the hill and met his coaches: Gill, Filip, Ben and the two Mikes from Ontario and Austria. The following day was Molly’s first training day and we met a whole bunch of people from the ski club and other parents. Pleasantries were exchanged with a few “uh, we have to meet up for dinner/beer/skiing” – I took that for the usual make-you-feel good, but unfortunately rather superficial approach of your typical US American. Little did I know that Canadians are different! Much different! Phone numbers were exchanged and when we came to the ski hill on Monday it took just a few minutes until the first SMS arrived: “You at the hill? Wanna meet up?” – ‘course we did! That was when Darrell gave us a first rated tour around Revelstoke Mountain Resort and we got a first impression of the incredible possibilities on this ski hill. Anna and I were so delighted – we couldn’t believe our luck. Everything was there: enormous amounts of snow and great skiing all around with everything from wide pleasant meadowy lines to steep, narrow couloirs. But – above all: an incredible friendly, enthusiastic, ski crazed community, with all people open, fun and – my impression – happy with their choice to live the ski life in Revelstoke. Thus, my little review starts with the aspect, that I loved most here – the people! Shendra and Chris arranged a fantastic farewell BBQ for us at their incredible place right at the Columbia river – and all our friends, who we had the pleasure to meet in this quarter of a year in BC were there!

Farewell BBQ I — Farewell BBQ, hosted by Shendra and Chris. Beautiful location, spring evening – couldn’t be nicer to say “See you soon”.

Farewell BBQ II — Saying Good-Bye to our friends from Revelstoke with BBQ and fire.

It was quite hard to leave Revelstoke after this intense period – our little family had grown to a very relaxed and happy team with a fun driven life powered by new friends and an incredible ski hill. Continue reading “Three and a half months in Revelstoke” →

Other countries – other transport

Here’s a little gem: in Munich we ordered a boring taxi van to get our baggage and ourselves to the airport. Not so in Vancouver, upon our arrival: we travelled in a stretch limo into town – that was the only type of car big enough to carry both us and our luggage:

Creative use of a stretch limo: baggage and kids - couldn't enjoy the bar on the right side of the picture — Creative use of a stretch limo: baggage and kids – couldn’t enjoy the bar on the right side of the picture, though!

December 26, 2015 0

Getting to Revelstoke

How do you get around in Canada on a family ski trip: no doubt, it has to be a pickup truck. And there we go:

Anna's every bit as excited as Daniel to drive a (original quote Anna) "badass pickup truck". — Anna’s every bit as excited as Daniel to drive a (original quote Anna) “badass pickup truck”.

And a good choice it has been so far: while we felt a bit red-neckish in Vancouver it turned out to be the blend-in automobile in the more rural areas. Revelstoke, our home for the next 3 months – is certainly rural. Since we like our badass truck so much, here’s another one:

Take me home, country roads - what I always wanted to do: drive a pickup truck. — Take me home, country roads – what I always wanted to do: drive a pickup truck.

The drive to Revelstoke gave us a good impression of British Columbia. From Vancouver we drove North East to Kamloops and then East to Revelstoke. And having experienced no winter at all in Munich this year so far, images like that warmed our heart:

It took us over 8 hours to drive the 565 km, but with relieve stops, lunch break at a classic diner in the village of Hope (which I would lose if I lived there) and some more relieve stops it takes time. The travel day ended nicely with a pint and some burgers in the BigEddy Pub just around the corner from where we live. Found our local on day one – good going!

December 22, 2015 9

Arrival in Canada

Man – setting off was quite an act: despite a carefully devised plan with a one day buffer we ended up packing the last items in our house while the taxi to bring us to the airport was already waiting. Pooh. We travelled with 15 bags: four ski bags, four ski boot bags, one enormous ice hockey bag, four backpacks that we plan to use for the trip into warmer areas, the ubiquitous rice bag containing our ABS backpacks and another bag. Now, thanks to Air Canada’s generous baggage policy we ended up paying for only two excess pieces of luggage. Easy to imagine that – upon boarding – we fell asleep and didn’t wake up until we were over New Foundland:

Icy beauty. Apparently people live in New Foundland.

After a monster plane journey with a stopover in Toronto (on this trip we really valued the services of the airport porters who both in Munich and Toronto helped us with our excessive baggage) we eventually arrived in Vancouver – some of us rather exhausted:

Little Molly is quite exhausted upon arrival in Vancouver after a 21 hour journey door to door.

December 21, 2015 2

For a change: thank you, Lufthansa

Generally I find myself disliking Lufthansa more often than liking it: lousy food, intransparent bogus pseudo-tax/surcharge pricing, crap service in case of problems, seat allocation for travellers with toddlers in the noisiest area of the plane – the list is long! Having said that it is only fair to also mention the occasional pleasant surprise with Germany’s carrier no 1 – in this case a much liked bump-up into business class. Thank you, Lufthansa.

August 27, 2014 0

On the way to – Skanör in Sweden

Another trip with my family, this time to Skanör, Skåne, Sweden. Hometown of my wife, pleasant beach village in the Baltic, dream golf location with three of Sweden’s best golf courses within a few kilometers/a couple of miles.

However, before arriving the gods have set travelling. In this case a plane journey with our home airline Lufthansa. Not the worst of all carriers, certainly when I look at their safety record and rating. Still a good choice when you look at the drinks being served. But bugger me, the shite they try to pass as food is encroyable: even the flight attendant showed signs of surprise when a passengers wanted one of those sad excuses of a sandwich. I’d say: leave it. Keep serving free drinks and just forget about the rest. Enough rambling: I am looking forward to a few days with the family, a round of golf and the 70th birthday of my mother in law. Party! On the way into Kastrup, Copenhagen’s prime shopping center doubling as airport, we had a great view of the Öresund bridge, which connects Denmark and Sweden:

June 18, 2014 0

Kazakhstan – Here we go again!

On the road again: this time, unfortunately, a very short work trip only! From a travelling perspective probably the worst scenario: hard work from Monday to Friday and then back home in the true red-eye-clipper on Saturday morning at 3.50! So hopefully I’ll still find some new place food and drinks wise – stay tuned!

First hop on the way to Almaty: Munich - Frankfurt. — First hop on the way to Almaty: Munich – Frankfurt.

June 1, 2014 2

On my way home

While I thought that I knew what it means to take the red-eye-clipper at 6.50 int the morning the term took on a new dimension with my 3.50am flight from Almaty to Frankfurt. Next stop:

April 19, 2014 0

Food in the Air – Thank you, Lufthansa

Now, we have already learnt that economy passengers are not particularly valuable to the great German airline Lufthansa: at boarding time they get told that only people who live in airplanes (they call them senators) or bribe themselves into the heart of this carrier by buying a first or business class ticket are human and have to be treated properly. The rest is, well, economy scum. In order to stress this Lufthansa pretends to serve them food, but they actually get – that:

Airplane food at its best - pasta with beermat texture and no flavour at all. — Airplane food at its best – pasta with beermat texture and no flavour at all.

April 6, 2014 0

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Travelling to remote and not so remote places

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Three and a half months in Revelstoke