Pro's and Con's of the Snow!

12/12/10

1800 (local time)

Welcome to the 12/12! And there is something particularly special about this date... As of this day I have finished my ‘official’ training and I am now in Zurs Austria, sorting out my room. We have moved into a lovely little apartment/flat thing that is located in Lech, which is about 15 minutes from Zurs. I’m fully set up, I’ve been allocated some sick speakers so I’ve been rocking out to some Fugees whilst watching Nitro Circus on 1 of our 3 TV’s Happy Days!

So for the past week, I have been doing my Yeti Manager training for my job at Powder Byrne. We have been situated out in Flims, Switzerland, for 7 days training everyday (almost). We did a team bonding exercise on a high ropes course.

But before we get all caught up with that, I better have a chat about Belfast! Wow, I’ve had great memories from Belfast, and this was just another one for the list. I hung out mostly with Becky, who was a girl I met last year whilst I was travelling around the U.K. We did a whole bunch of stuff, I wandered around the Christmas market in Belfast with her friends, it was fantastic. I experienced my first bit of (proper) snow, it was amazing! But bloody cold and slippery! Anyway, shall we move on!

The ropes course... right, so we partnered up and set off into our teams for the course and headed off!

My partner was my Resort Manager named Gemma or G as I call her, she’s a very bubbly person from South West London (near me) and Frankie who used to play for England when she was younger! I was looking for something a bit more adrenaline packed, but it was still good fun, and I got to know my Resort Manager a lot better!

So I’ll tell you a bit about the company. Powder Byrne is a VERY VERY VERY luxurious family holiday provider that only use 4 or 5 star hotels. Anyway, so my role is a Yeti Manager and a Driver. So a Yeti Manager means that ill be in charge of running 2-3 programs this winter. Yeti’s are kids aged 4 – 9 and ill be dealing mostly with them. The other program I am in charge of is, ‘snoZone’, which is for kids from 10 – 14, so even though im not dealing directly with them, ill still be in charge about what they do and how they get from A to B.

The funniest thing about this job is that I had never seen the snow until last week in Belfast, and now I’m bloody running the whole operation! Potentially a massive clanger on their part! But I reckon ill kill it!

Alright, Pro’s and Con’s about the snow!

Pro - Looks absolutely amazing!

Pro – Any bit of snow can be used as a projectile!

Pro – Unlike Dahab, beers are actually ice cold! And actually nice to drink... bloody Sakara’s.

NEG – It’s farking freezing!

NEG – Its so farking freezing, that my testacies went up inside my body... I think they touched my ribs.

NEG – My ‘outie’ turned into an ‘inie’

So clearly its 3 v 3. But honestly ill think ill stick it out! Looking out my bedroom window during the day looks exactly like a snow ball thing you get as a kid! Its definitely one of the better looking things in life! Probably better than looking out your window in an office job!

Anyway, probably should end it here, as I’ve been getting in trouble for writing too much (sorry for expressing my life Lizzie, GEEZE!)

So ill end it here!

Take care and stay classy guys!

Lots of love!

Steve ‘Yeti Manager.com’

The Team just before the ropes course! aka Team Bonding

Oly De Monfort Appreciation Day! NICE QUIFF!

Accepting my Award? for loudest bloke!

Tom Surrounded By Beers!

Nice Few Ey! out in Flims!

Amazing snow capped trees!

Team Photo!

Dominating the Ropes Course!

Pro Team Photo!

My View outside my bedroom window in Zurs, Austria.

Nice view from the city of Lech, Austria.

G (RM) and Me, first timem on a a chair lift!

Hope you enjoyed the photos dudes! check it out next time!

Leeds! and Touring with Palmer!

26/11/10

1332 (local time)

The next update is written on a train to Belfast! I’ve had a very interesting week! It all started off me leaving London and heading up to Leeds to hang out with my mate from Dahab, John Palmer! On my arrival he had a house party planned for me at another friends of mine, Anna (Steve-O’s Chick) picked us up from Leeds bus station and took us to her student apartment for a house party! Obviously Palmer and I had to be prepared for it, so we picked up 15 bottles of beer aka A Case, and made our way to Anna’s.

Straight away Palmer and I got involved knocking back the beers! Eventually her friends started arriving, and we found out that the party was in fact a continued birthday party! No drama’s, beers were drunk and eventually the chat got very poor, so we picked up our jackets and thought it was a good idea to find the local bar or club where everyone was going, after about 30 minutes of walking, we stopped at a burger shop, got some food, and went back to Anna’s and crashed!

The next morning was very interesting, we stumbled down stairs and it looked as if a bomb had hit the place! There were smashed glasses everywhere, empty bottles scattered over the floor, and the stench of alcohol made you want to bring up yesterdays burgers! It wasn’t a pretty sight. Eventually we convinced Anna to drive us home, back to Palmers!

As soon as we got back, Palmer wacked on the stove and cook us some well deserved (and well needed) bacon and eggs! That sorted us right out!

We weren’t at Palmer’s for long until we were meeting John Newby. Newby worked out for Vass a few years back, but I met him when he came out on holiday with his girlfriend. Anyway, back to the story, so we got some stuff together and headed out to Newby’s, I knew straight away we were in for a messy couple of nights! I’m not going to get into intricate details, but I probably wont be going back their any time soon! J

Righteo, so after Newby’s, Palmer and I went back to his place to relax for a couple of days until we flew out to Dublin. I had a few things to do because I found out that I got a job out in Austria for a winter season, but ill get to that in a minute.

So Wednesday came along quite quickly, and the next thing I know, is that I’m on a flight to Dublin, to hang out with Palmer’s girlfriend. I wasn’t going to be able to tolerate being the 3^rd wheel for more than two days, so on the Friday I had book a train up to Belfast to see a few old friends that I met out there last year. So that brings me to where I am now, stuck on a train to Belfast.

But... before I do, I might as well add, that Palmer and I didn’t just sit around and do nothing with our time in Dublin... No! We were tourists and we did touristy stuff... So we went to the Jameson’s distillery of Whisky, I ended up being a taster, and had to do several shots of different whisky’s so inevitability I was slightly tipsy when I left the distillery! Luckily it made it super warm, so Palmer and I decided to go to the Kilmainham Gaol, if you knew your trivia, you would know that I did visit this Gaol last year... and ill be honest, I think it should have stayed that way... it was way to cold and boring to do it, but we both had a fun time! Anyway I think its time I shall move on!

I’ll tell you a bit about job this winter. So most of you know, that I’ve never seen the snow before so a winter season would be the best way to see the snow and potentially earn some much needed pounds. So I went to an interview with a company called Powder Byrne on the 12^th of November. I thought the role was for a drivers position, but I was much mistaken, it was for a ski guiding position, so when I was asked ‘where would you put his ski’s if a guest has a potentially broken leg’ I had no idea what to say! Anyway, I must have impressed them somehow as I was called back for another interview. So I obliged and went along. I had done a bit of study on job interview questions, and had memorised the company’s philosophy, I was set!

Ill cut a long story short and say to you, that I DID get a job out in Austria this coming winter season, and I’m a Kids Club Manager, more specifically I am the ‘Yeti Manager’ from ages 4 – 9 I’m not all that sure of my rolls at the moment, as I haven’t seen my job description yet, but from what I gather is that my roll ensures that the kids are safe, and are kept happy whilst their parents are having fun on the slopes. I’m super happy, as it will be my first opportunity to see the snow!

So now, my plans have changed, ill be flying out to Switzerland for a week’s training in Flims, and then out to Austria to a place called Zurs where I will be working from the 11^th of December until the 20^th of April!

I can’t wait!

I might add in here that I have to thank all the people that have let me crash at their house whilst I sort my life out!

A big thankyou goes to Lizzie and Lionel (once again) as they have almost been my personal assistants for collecting mail, sending it off, helping me out with contracts, the list never ends! So a big thanks goes out to them!

Another thankyou is to John, Margret and Patrick Palmer who let me stay at their beautiful old house, that was built in the 1900’s (I think). Thanks again mate! You’re a bloody legend!

Anyway, that almost wraps it up!

Looking forward to hitting Belfast only 1 and a bit hours to go!

Take care!

Steve xx

Check Out The Photos. 'they are a bit mixed, but enjoy'

The Kilmainham Gaol

Palmer, Ciara and Myself! At the bar in Jameson Distillery

Palmer, Ciara and me again!

Me and the Tour Guide... Legend

Newby, riding the stupid kids bike!

Sending some Whiskey

Me and Palmer at the Marrying spot!

Another classic joke from the Tour Guide!

Waiting at the Distillery 

Ciara, Palmer and Me at the Bus Station!

Some Horse Faced Woman!

The Crew!

CHAT SOON! DUDES!

The End of an Era!

10/11/10

1504 (local time)

Bloody hell its cold!!! That’s right, im no longer in the sunny shores of Dahab, Egypt, if flown north west, to the cloudy, damp and cold island of London, England!

Now before I start rattling on about London and my plans I firstly want to recap and talk about the amazing time I had in Dahab!

Like you may already know, I started out in Dahab on the 12^th of April! And eventually  my contract finished on the 8^th.

Throughout this time, I almost spent every single day in the water, if that was swimming, snorkelling, free diving or windsurfing, you couldn’t keep me out of the liquid!

I can definitely say that this summer was the best summer (or winter in Aus) I had ever had in my life! It was just non-stop party. What makes the place so special is that, there are so many different things you can do and try. For example, if there is no wind, go snorkelling if you don’t like doing that, go down the road into town and hire a 250cc motorbike for the after noon and razz it around in the desert.

If you had to ask me, what my favourite memory about Dahab was, I would have to say it was my 22^nd birthday, unfortunately I don’t remember all that much from it mostly due to the 22 shots I had to finish off. But from the parts I do remember it was all just dancing and seeing all my friends at the party left me with a super warm feeling, it was just a pity all my mates and family from back home weren’t there to celebrate it with me.

All in all, most Saturday night parties were an absolute ball. Pretty sure I cana-brava’d and danced most girls (and blokes) that came to Dahab. Even parties where the guests weren’t all that much fun, it was just great to be around your friends.

My day off’s with John Palmer for most of the year were on a Thursday, normally it was windy so we would just spend hours and hours out on the water, if it wasn’t windy myself and Palmer would just chill out with anyone else that had a day off on Thursday, if it was Marco from Harry Nass, or James and Sam from Neilson. Anyway the time eventually came for Palmer to leave as manager, and next time I looked there was no longer any ‘old’ staff, instead all the summer guys, were replaced with the winter staff. Now for the first couple of weeks, it was quite hard working with new staff, because generally the guys didn’t know what was going on, but after 3 – 4 weeks we had a rhythm. A new team was back in action.

I was now sharing a room with Luke (the Cone) Baillie, who was sick of his day job as a painter decorator so he packed up and arrived at the steaming head of Dahab. Luke had done a fair bit of travelling to Australia but mostly if not all to the West coast to ride the epic waves of Geraldton, Margies and the rest.

Luke and I now shared a day off on Sunday... Now Sunday Day-Off’s can go one of two ways, you would either be ridiculously hung-over or just moderately, either way you were going to be feeling under the weather. If there was wind, we would attempt to rip it up windsurfing wise, if not we would probably just lay in bed for a while, watch a movie, chat to mates, or if we had the energy boot up the X-Box 360 and play each other on FIFA.

When it hit about Midday we would eventually summon up the energy to head into town for a greasy hamburger and the heavenly Chocolate-Banana Milkshake at Funny Mummy’s or Shams. Once we were fuelled up, we would wander down the street to the local games room, say G’Day to the cute chick (but an outrageous accent) from Liverpool. We would spot ourselves a Table-Tennis table and fully session table tennis. The embarrassing thing is, that Luke is a very solid tennis player and also not a bad Table Tennis player, but he clearly underestimated the gifted ‘Flack’ family name, with just a natural talent to be good at pretty much everything!

But honestly we had some good rallies, but it was the unbelievable strength of my right arm that often let me down, as I was generally smashing balls off the table. Good fun though.

Another member of the team I haven’t mentioned yet was our team dog Mutley! This dog rocked up on our beach on a Wednesday, with a very broken hip, and a tail that was way to short to have been professionally docked, no one had any idea who’s or what it was doing here!

It wasn’t until a German guest named Patrick took the dog under his wing, fed it, took it to the vets to get a check up, the Vet said that ‘the dog’s hip was broken a long time ago, and has now fused back together in completely the wrong spot’ so the vet didn’t do really anything to help the dog, apart from clean it and get rid of the ticks... oh I forgot to mention that the Vet chopped the dogs nuts off... So Patrick the friendly German, took this helpless dog to get it treated for, but instead he just got the dogs nuts chopped off, quite amusing really!

Anyway, so when Patrick left, he left us in charge of the dog, so we took it on board as our Team Dog! I ended up growing very fond of this dog, it was fantastic seeing Mutley come from a very broken fragile state that just slept all the time, to being this very, very energetic puppy that wanted to play all the time! It was a really nice transition! I think the dog and I bonded, and it ended just following me around on the beach, to when we took it home. I also pulled a few nasty huge ticks off the dogs back, that I’m sure wasn’t all that pleasurable!

Right, before my departure to the friendly country of England I had the pleasure of seeing my cousins! Scott, Jenna and Matt came down to Dahab to predominantly do some diving but they also made some time to drop in and see me whilst I was at work! It was a bit tricky, as I couldn’t hang out with them all the time due to my work, but I did have an absolute ball with them.

Scott arrived first, as he wasn’t doing the trip around Egypt, on one of my days off where I was extremely hung over Scott took me diving off Blue Beach Hotel. I don’t mind snorkelling, but generally it gets pretty boring seeing the same fish, but where I went with Scott it was unbelievable, FISH EVERYWHERE! And big ones as well! I had a ball, Scott went down in a wetsuit whilst I went down in boardies, we lasted until about 2 hours, when I eventually got to cold and had to get out! It was fantastic, defiantly the best bit of snorkelling I have done in my life!

When I had the time, I was chatting to Matt and Jenna about their plans for the next journey of their trip, and it sounds fantastic, and they offered me to join them if my winter season job doesn’t work out. They are going to have an absolute ball, but it did make me think about our family Christmas, their will be no one there!!!

So the weeks went by, and the date for me to leave was very much creeping up on me, it wasn’t until the Sunday I was going to leave that I thought that I was really going to miss the place, but to be fair; I was more than ready to leave.

The windsurfing was more than amazing, tricks-wise I came over here just learning how to spock, but I came away with variations of spocks, flaka’s, grubbies and forwards, I was slightly upset that I didn’t get any switch, but I was definitely getting close to landing punetas. Alright, so that’s enough chat for all you guys that don’t windsurf.

I think you all may be Dahab’d out by now, so I’m going to talk a little about my plans as of the 10^th of November.

So at the moment, I have an interview with a luxurious snow company called Powder Bryne on Thursday, so I’m going to do some study tonight and tomorrow about that so I have the best possible chance to get a job with them. If the interview doesn’t go so well, then I’m kind of farked...

If things don’t go to plan, I might do a bit of travelling around Europe, or keep persisting with Winter Companies about jobs for the winter. If I’m desperate, I might just fly over to France or Switzerland and just be there to find some work! Who knows, I’ve never done this kind of thing before and it doesn’t really help that I’ve never seen the snow! But they don’t have to know that?

After the interview, it will be just a big catch up, ill probably find myself up in Leeds, hanging out with John Palmer and from there... Who knows? Maybe Ireland!

So on that note

I will end it here!

Good chat dudes and dudettes!

Steve xx

Wipe Out!!! Doing the super man!

Trying to teach an older lady how to beach start... she didnt get it after 3 days...

Another Crash!... taken by Cat Ridley.co.uk

Race Day!

Getting attacked by a camel!

The Lovely 22 Shots for my birthday!

Club Dahab!

Flaka!!!

Col and Me!

The photo that was used in BOARDS mag, taken by Danielle from GetWindsurfing.com

Keeping Things Real!

I Love this photo! Thanks Phil! one handed flaka!

The Team Photo! 

Biggest flag on the beach!

Palmer and I hanging!

Palmer's bike, taking it for a razz into the desert!

Sat Night Party... Theme Melon!

My birthday dinner!

the 22 shots lined up!

Happy Birthday Mum!

Marco's Birthday and Hi Pants Crew!

Sat Night party... Theme Olympics?

My Cousins! Jenna, Me, Scott and Matt!

Thursday Night Is... Bedouin Night! The Cone (Luke), Me, Mutley and Geeza!

Me and Mutley!

  

Trying to back flip off a boat... didnt end well!

Thanks again guys!

Chat soon! xx