A Warm Winter Day, Then Hockey

This past Sunday, it was a really warm day. It hit 18C, which is very unusual for February.

Not surprisingly, the beer garden was open, even though it's normally closed for the winter.

There were a ton of people enjoying the weather along the Elbe river.

I decided to go to the Hockey game that night. The local hockey team is called the Dresdner Eislöwen and they were playing the Hannover Indians. Watching hockey in Germany is a totally different than an NHL game. First of all, the stadium is tiny. It can probably only hold 4000 people or so, and the fans are really loud, and really love chanting.

The blue team is Dresden. The other is Hannover. It's hard to see, but the jerseys are riddled with advertisements. The place where the player's name normally is (on top of the number) has a huge Freiberger logo (the local beer company). It looks like everyone's name is Freiberger. The name is written below the number.

Also, the Germans figured out an efficient way of distributing beer. Why not have a guy carry a keg and refill the cups? Genius.

A shot from my seat. The top forward is a Canadian guy, and the goalie is Czech...

At the end of the game, the cheerleaders come out. No, they're not on skates...

Dresden ended up winning 3-0.

Two Weeks in Whistler

Now that I work in Germany, I was able to take advantage of the huge amount of vacation time I'm able to get. I went to Whistler with a bunch of my friends for 2 weeks for some real skiing on a real mountain (as opposed to pseudo-skiing on the bunny hills in Ontario). This time, I didn't kill myself by skiing every day, like I did last time I was in Whistler, I skied about every other day.

Unfortunately, the weather wasn't the best. The first day was gorgeous, but thanks to Lufthansa, my luggage arrived 2 days later than I did. The rest of the first week was all clouds and snow. On the surface, that sounds awesome, but when you get to the top of the mountain, you're in the clouds, it's windy, and it's snowing. That makes for some real poor visibility.


Here's the top of Whistler mountain on a windy, snowy day. You can see the snow covered sign that should read "The Saddle" and "Burnt Stew Trail".

Going down "Burnt Stew Trail". All I could see was white, the people in front of me, and the orange and green posts that mark the trails. It's really hard to tell how fast you're going, or seeing the bumps that you might inadvertently go over.

A panoramic of the Symphony Bowl.

Jen getting a boost from Chris on the flat part of Burnt Stew Trail.

Here's a good pic showing how much snow there was. There were snow banks that were probably 9 feet high.

The weather cleared a little bit in the first week. Here's a pic on the approach to Whistler Village.

A view from Blackcomb mountain of Whistler mountain. You can see one of the structures that will be used for the new Peak to Peak gondola, which will connect the Whistler and Blackcomb peaks. What a crazy idea...

We did get some really awesome weather. Here's a snow covered inukshuk on the top of Whistler Mountain.

The top of the Peak chair on Whistler. A cell tower on top of a washroom hut?

A shot from the Whistler Bowl. Normally, I wouldn't ski down this run because it can get really moguly, but on this day, the conditions were AWESOME. You can't really tell how steep this run is, but it's really steep.

Here's a panoramic from the top of Whistler Bowl.

A panoramic from the West Bowl on Whistler Mountain.

Here's the top of Blackcomb mountain. There's a short hike to get to the Blackcomb Glacier, which is a really cool bowl. It's also a really long run, about 10km.

We had to hike past this run, a double black diamond called the Blow Hole. It's REALLY steep and narrow...

Here's a panoramic from the top of Blackcomb Glacier. This is a really cool run.

Another shot from Blackcomb Glacier.

A shot looking up Blackcomb Glacier.

Another shot looking up Blackcomb Glacier.

A panoramic from the top of a crazy double black run called Couloir Extreme.

Jon about to ski down Couloir Extreme.

I'm thinking about skiing down this crazy run...

After deliberating whether to ski down Couloir Extreme, an Australian skier finally convinced me to go down this run. The conditions were really good so it was much easier than it normally is, or so I'm assuming. It was really scary going down actually. I noticed that the snow that I was dislodging was rolling all the way to the bottom of the run. I kept thinking what would happen if I fell...

Here's what this run looks like from the bottom. It does look menacing.

A shot from the top of 7th Heaven, on Blackcomb Mountain.

I wonder what country I'm in...

A battalion of groomers...


A cool panoramic showing the clouds.

A cool shot from Upper Peak to Creek.

A cool panoramic from Upper Peak to Creek.