December

Hello,


it is almost December and still hardly any snow in Davos. Because of the snow machines there is enough snow to ski (on 4 listes), but because of the temperatures, the quality isn't very good. It is just too warm for the time of year.

Here I have some graphs from the Davos website:
These are the average max and min temperatres. In November it should be about -4 and + 4 during the night and day respectively, not + 10 as it is now.....

This is a graph showing the average amount of snow on the ground in davos and on the Weissflujoch. There should be around 10 cm of snow in Davos now, but there is none :( On this website they also keep track on which day is the first day after which the snow doesn't melt anymore. The latest that this happened so far was December 20th (in 1989). So, if this year the record will not be broken, we will still have a white X-mas...

So far, the weather forecast doesn't mention snow at all :(

Busy weekend

Hi, it's been a while since my last post, a lot has happened in between. I have been pretty busy :) Last week the Netherlands had elections, and I was allowed to vote on the internet :) That was fast and simple, hope to be doing that again at the next elections. These may come sooner than normally would be planned. The outcome of the elections makes it almost impossible to form a government. It'll be a nice puzzle, no 2 parties have the majority together, so a third party is needed, and the biggest two parties were a bit nasty towards ech other during the campaign, and will have to talk a lot before they can be on the same side again. So, a bit of a mess one can say. Left nor right seem to hold the solution, could be an exciting formation :)

At midnight on the same evening, the sales of ice hockey tickets for the Spenglercup started as well. And since I had promised my dad tickets for this event at his B-day, I had to get some, so I stayed up to be able to get tickets for the most popular game: HCD (Davos) - team Canada!! Unfortunately, the bookingform crashed right from the beginning, and I couldn't get thourgh, I tried a couple of times during the night, but I couldn't get through until 7.30 the next morning!! By then Davos - team Canada has already been sold out :( But I did get tickets for two other games :) So, we are going to see Mora IK - team Canada and HCD - Mora IK. So, we will see Davos and Canada play, just not against each other.... Yesterday I heard that HCD-Canada had been sold out within 10 minutes!

On Friday I had my first try on skies this season :) The snow was pretty good, considering it has been made artifucially and it has been over 10°C the for the last couple of days. It went well, and I am sure I'll get to the level I had at the end of last year :) Sunday Siebren and I went together, and it was fun again. He is a good skier, will be difficult to keep up with him.... I do hope it will start snowing soon, because I was already looking at all my favorite pistes that won't open until there is some real snow coming down. As much fun as it was this weekend, only 2 pistes per mountain will get bored after a while.... On the other hand, the weather has been increadible :)

Saturday was a big day for me. I finally got my new couch :) I had ordered it 8 weeks ago, and I couldn't remember the colour. It is a Mango coloured couch, but mango comes in lots of different shades, pretty much everything between yellow and orange. I ordered it at a store close to Siebren, because that is where I saw it and I liked it right away. I didn't feel like looking in other stores closer to Davos for something similar. The only problem at this store was delivery. Davos is not within their delivery range, and I could chose between picking it up, or paying about 1/3 of the value of the couch to have it delivered. I chose the first. I could borrow Svenja's huge yellow Mercedes camper bus, and the couch barely fit. Also getting it out in Davos wasn't that easy, but we got it out without damaging it, and it is sitting in its place now :) I have put a picture on the Dutch Blog. So, that is it for now, till soon, maybe with some ski action pics....

Little church in the snow

Check out Dutch blog for picture..... Wanted to share this....

Weekend

Hi all,

I have had a weekend full of ups and downs.... It was a weekend of horrible headaches, but luckily while the painkillers did their job I did do some fun things :) Saturday night I went to a very nice restaurant in Hünenberg together with Siebren, Phillip and Nathalie. We had some real good wild!!! (No clue if you call it that in English,. but I guess you'll understand). I had a nice rehpfeffer with 'stoofpeertjes' (little pears cooked in wine, sugar and cinnamon, very yummie). And this was, of course served with spätzli. This together with the salmon as starter and the shoggimousse for desert was a lot of good food......

On Sunday we went to Myther (a ski area in the middle of Switzerland), for a nice walk with Erich and Ursi. I wasn't feeling too great, but the walk was still very enjoyable, only the ride there was rough.... (See pics on Dutch Blog)

When we got back we watched Ice Age 2, funny movie, and after that Siebren cooked me dinner, while I took a nap (isn't he sweet ???). I decided not to drive back to Davos, as my head was not clear, and driving with a headache is not the best thing to do on mountain roads.... After dinner we watched another movie, The fast and the Furious; Tokyo Drift, let's just say it wasn't the best movie I have ever seen (No story line, bad acting and senseless burning of rubber). Monday I drove back, with still some head problems, but the painkillers worked long enough to get me home safely :) I was happy to drive with daylight :)

Back in Davos, winter is still not really here.... Yes, we have some snow on the ground, yes, two ski lifts are running, but it is too warm..... It is snowing now, let's hope it'll stay..... But I guess that there won't be a 'langlaufplausch'.

Skiing!

Hello, it looks like ski season will start this Saturday, not that it has been snowing much, but I guess they have been making lots of snow, at least enought to cover 1 full piste :) Even Parsenn is opening one week ahead of schedule :) But, I won't be skiing, I am going to Zug.
I remember the first year I was here, it wasn't that good anyway the first day, maybe next week.... But it is time to get my skies serviced and to buy new ski boots. My old ones fell apart last year and have been fixed, but not properly, only a matter of time when they will fall apart again :(

ISSLS

I have done it :)

I have submitted an abstract to ISSLS :) Now let's hope it will get accepted...

That's all for now, from a foggy Davos...

Cheers!

Kilbi in Baar

Hi, this weekend I have been to Zug again, and I have been too busy or lazy to update over the weekend, so that's why I am doing this now. I had a good weekend:) On Saturday we went shopping, and went to Grand Café (Zug still has one) for some drinks with Phillip and Reto. In the evening, we were invited to Pascal's house warming party. He only lives about 2 minutes away from Siebren, so we went there, and after that we went to a Kilbi (ehhhh, English word could be FunFair).... It reminded me a lot of the Fair in Heemskerk where I used to go with my cousin Alessandro. It has some fun rides and a big party tent :)

Look for pics on the Dutch Blog:)

Betriebsferien

Hi, it is very clear that we are still in low season here in Davos. Last Friday we wanted to go to Chämibar for some cheap pizza and beer, but they were closed :) They are on vacation (Betriebsferien). They do deserve a vacation while they can, because it will be crazy all winter again. Ever since Grand Café Latino has closed, Chämibar has been our new 'place to go for Friday night beers'. They will open again in less than two weeks, but then it may become a bit busy in there as winterseason will start next week :) We'll see, otherwise we'll find another place for our Fridayevening tradition:)

Garbage bin: Sign of winter :)

Good afternoon, a quick note during lunch break. This morning Davos was looking very nice. There were a lot of clouds down in the valley, at some points you could see in between the clouds onto nice white mountainpeaks. Unfortunaltely it was hard to find a spot to take a nice picture of this. I managed to take one nice picture on the way to work, see (as usual Dutch BLOG).

Today has been a very exciting day!!! They have put up a garbage bin in front of the AO (second pic)!!! This means winter is coming. You may think why on earth someone would put a garbage bin in the middel of grassland where only the occasional sheep or cow passes by! Well, in summer you'd be right, no one ever passes there, but in winter this is where the X-country ski trail will be :) So, in preparation for winter season, they put up garbage bins along the trails (before the snow is actually there).

They don't just put up garbege bins, as you can see in the last picture, they also put 'traffic signs' up, so no accidents of people colliding with each other will happen. They also build small bridges over ditches and some roads. Really, getting ready for winter is quite a bit of work here in Davos, and I am not even talking about getting ready for the down-hill season!

Hyves

YES, I Hyve!!! Whatever that means.... Carolien invited me a couple of days ago to become a member of her Hyve, so now I have my own hyve as well.... The problem is that I don't really know what to do on that site, I already have my BLOG to update. So, all I did was put a link to my BLOG on there and I invited my brother, Rogier, to my hyve.

Now, my question to you is if you hyve, and if you would like to be a member of my hyve (only two 'friends' is a bit sad), and if you can explain the fun/use of hyves to me.... The thing I understand about hyving, is that it is easy to keep your friends up-to-date of what you do, and it is easy to leave messages to one another, but I can do that per e-mail, and people can leave messages on my BLOG!! Please explain it to me, I just don't understand :(

Hope to hear from you :)

I won!!

Hi,

so after another day of 'playing' with SPSS I can conclude that I won :) For the people who don't know this program, this is a program that should make it easy to do some statistical tests, but unfortunately, it isn't always easy... But, I have found some interesting data in the mess of numbers :) So, it isn't all bad, and my PhD is not lost yet :) I have also written an abstract for ISSLS, and I hope it will be accepted :) First, I have to see that Keita likes it....

Well, I guess that that is all for today.... Cheers!

Funny movie

Hi, thanks to James, I saw this little movie :) Just wanted to share... He has more, check out his blog :)

Enjoy!!

Spring???

Hi all, just a quick note, wanted to show you this image that I took from the Davos website. This panorama was taken around 3 pm today, doesn't it look beautiful!!! If feels like spring now, the snow is melting and the sun is warm!!! It is hard to be sitting inside battling statistics, but it has to be done :( I did go for a run at lunch time, which was very nice, a good way to clear your head :)

OK, back to the battle, so far it seems like statistics are winning :(

Walk around the lake:)

Hi all, having a BLOG is a good motivation to take out my good OLD digital camera. I haven't used it much lately since it is old, slow and cumbersome, but for some snap shots it is still ok, as long as you're not trying to take pictures of anything moving :)

Siebren is on his way home after spending the weekend here in Davos. He hasn't mounted his wintertires yet, so he wanted to leave before the roads may get slippery, can't blame him after my little adventure last Wednesday. It just started to snow again, but I don't think it'll continue.

This afternoon we went for a walk around the lake like all good citizens of Davos. The weather wasn't that great anymore, but at some times the sky was just beautiful!! And it is always nice to get some fresh air :) I have put some pics on the Dutch BLOG!

Beautiful morning :)

Good morning :)

Last night Siebren and I met Sophie, Kirsten Laszlo and Nora in Chaemibar, that was fun!!

This morning we woke up to a beautiful day :) We will probably go into town for some ski cloths shopping, and then maybe for a walk through the snow :)

I put some pics up on the Dutch Blog.

• Sheep at AO in the snow,
• Chaemibar last night
• This morning the view from my balcony (Parsenn)
• View from my balcony (Jakobshorn)

Enjoy your day :)

Brrr

Hi all,

I have put some pics of the Dutch blog of the snow yesterday and this morning. It is getting real cold here now, yesterday morning and evening it was -5 in Platz and -6 in Davos Dorf!!! Not sure how cold it was this morning, I had to concentrate on the road (and not look up to the thermometer)..... Even with spikes, biking can be a little tricky. Breaking is never fun in winter....

Enjoy the pics, and till l8r!

Netherlands

Hi hi,

I have returned from my family weekend in the Netherlands :) It was nice to see everybody again. On the Dutch blog I have posted some pics :) Especially the one with my niece and nephews is cute :) It was nice to be an auntie again, even though it was only for a long weekend. They seem to like the life in France, but are still happy to see their grandparents. Ivan helped baking apple pie, it was delicious :)

On Sunday night we had a B-day party for my dad and Rogier. This was good, very busy.... On Monday I went shopping with Marcela. I still like Alkmaar, it is a beautiful city, and good shopping. I bought some pants, a nice top, and jacket. I also saw a beautiful dress, but since I need winter tires (see below), I decided not to buy this.... But, guess what... When I mentioned it to my mum, she wanted to buy it for me for the Holidays, how nice is that :)
Tuesday I had to return, and unfortunately, I had a migraine the night before, and wasn't feeling too great.... Luckily I only traveled to Zug, not Davos.

I also got to see Siebren this weekend. No, he didn't come with me (he visited with me three weeks ago), but he took me to Basle airport on Saturday morning, and I went there Tuesday evening. I went to bed early as I still wasn't feeling super, but Wednesdag was better. Wednesday was a Holiday in Zug, so Siebren had the day off. I had already taken the morning off, but decided to make it a full day. We went for a drive through the Canton of Zug, went up the Zugerberg (mountain of Zug). In the pm we went for coffee (tea for me) at his parents. So, an easy nice day... Except the weather wasn't too great. Especially in the way home I wasn't too happy with the weather. Halfway it started to rain, which turned into snow later, and on the Wolfgang pass the road was snow covered :( Not too nice on summer tires... But I noticed that my tires are pretty good, only on ice I had no grip.... I tis time to change them, and I will need two new tires.... Will get them SOON....

That's all for now. Tomorrow I'll show some pics that I took this morning (cable of camera still at work, oops)... Winter has come to Davos :)

Update

Hi all,

tonight I will update you on my weekend at home... Sorry, but I have to work now....