Sifty Tom gets Continental

Author: Tom
Email: sifty~tom@hotmail.com

Well after a couple of weeks of ringing employment agencies, and generally getting annoyed by their utter lack of usefulness, I was quite looking forward to hitting Denmark. Eric had mailed me in the states and asked if I was keen to go to Denmark on a £1 flight. I thought for about 2 seconds and said yes. It was of course slightly more than £1.. about £27 return since you have to pay airport taxes. Still it was ridiculously cheap. They manage this by flying in and out of less popular airports, with lower landing fees. In the UK this meant Stansted instead of Heathrow. Which wasn't really a problem since it's a lot closer, a 40-minute coach ride from the bus stop located about 20 metres from Eric's place. However in Denmark it meant landing at an airport in the middle of nowhere and a bus to Denmark's second largest town, a place called Aarhus. The locals seem to pronounce this almost 'Arse'. So being a trip with five lads this became its name.

I was travelling with Eric, Erics workmate and MTBer Robin, a friend of Eric's Stephen, and his friend 'from op norfth', John. Nobody had bothered to do any research short of myself flicking through a lonely planet guidebook in the bookshop to check I didn't need a visa. So we turned up not knowing anything about the place. Eric had booked us into supposedly cheap hotel, a 'Best Western' chain hotel. This turned out to be a beautiful 1920's hotel called the Hotel Ritz. Amazing service, immaculate rooms and a full, all you can eat breakfast, and it was right in the centre of town. All round this was quite a cool hotel, and after my later experiences of marginal hotels, truly a organised and stress free place to stay.

We pretty soon found a good café bar and installed ourselves there. The next day after recovering from the impressively expensive beer prices, late opening hours and mild hangovers we tucked into a massive breakfast. With the plan that the more we had for breakfast the less lunch we needed. The breakfast was almost worth the trip alone. There must have been about 5 other people staying in the hotel, and there was a staff of two running around cleaning up and restocking all the various foods. All of the menu was super fresh, impressive since it was so cold outside nothing would ever have grown there.

We pretty quickly worked out why the flight was so cheap. It was the off season tourist wise, town was pretty dead and did I mention cold? We found that had we wanted to go to Copenhagen, as most of the rest of the flight had done, we would need to take a 4 hour train ride, and pay again for another hotel. So decided that Arrhus was it, we set about finding stuff to do, slightly hard since the visitor centre was on winter hours and shut till Monday. After asking at several bars we found there was a village of old Danish houses, a science museum, the museum of Danish art, Legoland, a couple of Viking museums, and plenty of cafes to check out.

A Danish Street scene. Note the throngs of tourists. I think we picked the height of the season.

Well the village was good, lots of traditional 16^th century Danish houses rescued from demolition in other parts of the country, dismantled moved and reconstructed in a mock village. Pretty impressive seeing as they were built without using any bolts or nails and most were three stories high. Legoland was a bus ride out of Aarhus, and the bus that took you out there and back only ran on Sundays and Tuesdays at 10am. We found out about it at 11am on Sunday. I was a bit peeved since I would have been very, very keen to see it. Oddly everyone else seemed almost happy.

The museum of Danish art turned out to be between exhibits and only 3 out of five halls were open. The Science museum was open and pretty fun although about half the exhibits were labelled in Danish!

After wandering around and around the block in town looking for the smaller of the two Viking museums we decided that between the five of us we couldn't be that useless at following a map and that it must have been replaced by a bank. Eric was most insistent that we find it saying that we had to see at least one Viking display. About half an hour later, after asking numerous people with marginal English where it was we were standing outside the bank again having finally given up. While we were debating which café to spend the rest of the day in Steven noticed under the opening hours of the bank in even smaller print was a small label saying the Viking museum was in the basement! It was of course Saturday evening and the bank was shut till Monday. On Monday we decided the larger of the two museums was worth a visit so we climbed on a bus and headed out of town to it, after checking at the Tourist office that it was open. We were told it was normally shut on Mondays but since it was the school holidays it would be open.

At the bus stop, in our usual map-less disorientation we asked a local which way to the Viking outfit. He kindly informed us in his best American accented English, that it was just down the road, and that it was shut. Arrggh!! But he turned out to be a student at university attached to the museum, studying Viking history and told us most of the display was pretty dull anyway. He volunteered to show us around the outdoor bits. In his best American surfer speak he told us basically everything we ever wanted to know about Vikings. The main points being "they never had horns on their helmets, dude, and they weren't really mercenary raiders but just farmers rarking up the poms on occasional visits abroad". The other most common misconception was that they were wiped out by the Danish. In fact most American visitors apparently considered that, quoting here from Felix, our 'guide', "you dudes must have wasted the Vikings like we wasted the Indians huh?" In fact the current Danish people are directly descended from the Viking age farmers.

Anyway the small display in the basement of the bank was open when we got back into town and after a quick look it was back to one of the two cafes we had adopted.

This being my first visit to a foreign language speaking country I was a little worried the potential linguistic communication issues. But found that on the whole most people spoke either very good English, or basically none at all. Infact the usual answer to the polite question of 'do you speak English' was a 'oh, a little'. This usually meant they spoke perfect english, with no accent and a massive vocabulary that would do Webster's proud, and left us sometimes more confused by what they had said than if they hadn't spoken a word of english.

Robin, Stephen, Eric and Robin. I'm impressed nobody has a normal expression on their face. I should really stick to taking photos without people in them.

We flew out of Denmark on Monday night, getting back home to Erics in Cambridge at about 1am. Eric had three hours before leaving for Switzerland, I had booked my flights there to depart the UK a day later and get back a day earlier. Hoping to save a little money with two less days skiing. Eric disappeared in the middle of the night, leaving me to travel on my own. The flight was another cheap one, not quite as cheap as the Denmark one, but at least you didn't have to walk over the tarmac to get to the plane. The flight over I got another window seat and perfect weather, we flew out over Dover, where I could look down and see the white cliffs, then over Paris, where you could quite clearly see the layout of the city and the huge avenues.

Switzerland was as I expected super organised and very clean. From Geneva airport I climbed onto a train to Aigle, at the other end of lake Geneva. By now it was dark, and I was fast discovering why I should have done French at school. Unlike Danes it seems that the French aren't so worried about speaking English. Still it is amazing what you can get across by pointing and waving your arms around. From Aigle I was heading to Villars. Or more precisely Arveyes, where the Hotel was, which was near Villars apparently.

As usual I was travelling with out a detailed map, and on Erics SMS'd instructions. I was a little worried when I found that the ticket I had been sold in Geneva was for a bus from Aigle to Villar. Where as everybody else on the train with skis was heading on further to Bex and then on a tram to Villars, via Arveyes. I was freaking out about whether I was going to get marooned in Villars, miles from the hotel. Infact after a serious non-English conversation with a girl at the station I was told that taking the bus was the most optimum route and I could catch a tram back to the hotel from Villars. While I was waiting for the bus I watched everybody off the train from Geneva board another train to Bex, leaving me all alone next to the empty bus stop. It was now not only dark but also misty. The bus finally turned up, like everything is Switzerland, exactly on time, and almost immediately turned up the most ridiculously narrow and windy mountain road full of hairpins. The steep drops were worse for the fact I couldn't see very far. In Villars the bus stopped at another deserted station. I finally found a map in the station and somebody to confirm it was only a short walk around the hill to Arveyes, and infact I shouldn't bother catching the tram.

The hotel turned out to be a five minute walk in the thick mist from Villars. So as usual I'd been freaking out about nothing. Got there and found to my joy the hotel was staffed by English people. I know I shouldn't have expected that, but right then all I wanted was some food and somewhere to sit down. After some explaining to the lady behind the counter that yes I was the 7^th person in the group that was booked into a 4 bed room I was shown downstairs to the wood panelled lounge where Eric and some familiar faces were sitting around with beers.

After a relaxed beer and the news that there were no kitchen facilities in the hotel Eric and I headed out to find some food in town. On the way out of the hotel we met some of the English people who had come via Bex and the tram. So yet again I should have trusted the Swiss efficiency and realised that I would get to where I was supposed to be going.

The Hotel. Note the tram line running past. It actually looks quite flash here.. which is odd.

It turned out the Hotel had only just opened. It had been built in 1914 but had been derelict for the last 10 years or so after the previous owner was jailed for siphoning money from the hotel chain. The people running the hotel for the new British owner were expected not only to accept guests and keep the hotel running but also restore the remaining 3/4 of the hotels rooms that weren't already repainted, re-wired and re-plumbed. They were desperate for help and offered some of the other people in our group work and accommodation. Since these guys would have to go back to UK for a few weeks to quit jobs and sort out their lives I volunteered to fill in and help out for two weeks. Of course the fact there was primo skiing and snow a couple of minutes away didn't help my decision at all.

Apparently it used to the 'bomb' hotel in Villars, with about 50 rooms, plus staff rooms. But a lot of this was in a pretty bad state. They had restored about 20 rooms, and fixed up some of the plumbing. But there is a hell of lot more to do. The hotel was mostly 1920s with wood lined lounges, massive tiled bathrooms and wooden floors everywhere. My ex-flatmate and furniture freak, Emma, would think she'd died and gone to heaven. There were rooms full to the ceiling of the most wicked old furniture, and some others full of the most retro stylee 70s stuff. All the baths were huge and every room has the most incredible views of the alps. Infact everyday I was blown by the views, I'd be working in some room and look out and see a different view of massive snow covered peaks of the Swiss Alps.

Sarah does Heidi impression looking out towards the French alps. Pretty typical of the views from the hotel (Without cold looking Kona riders ..). Another bad expression photo. Apparently I have a knack for startling people and getting photos they hate.

This was the layout of typical day during the next three weeks :

Okay some other days did involve me doing some work with Laurie, one of the managers of the hotel, to earn my keep. But even these were quite fun. Laurie and Annie, the semi-retired english couple who were managing the hotel were great fun to work for. Laurie was a martial arts instructor, plumber, Christian preacher, and very funny boss. I endured much mocking about my 'other job' with a suit instead of overalls, and of course took regular breaks for a cup of tea. Okay the work was somewhat gender stereo-typed with the 'boys' doing the building while the 'girls' cleaned the rooms. But I spent most of my time cleaning up the mess we made 'building' things and Sarah spent most of the time putting the hotel back together as fell apart.around her cleaning efforts.

Some pretty Swiss trees with snow on them. If I'd actually got a Chalet in there it would make a good biscuit tin picture.

Anyway heres an email I sent Crispy detailing the next couple of weeks, this is in reply to an SMS about a Friday night :

Yeah that night turned out to be quite interesting.. got very trashy over a lush dinner, with no less than 5 boarder babes.. ... Excellent. Well except that three of them were Australian, one Californian and the last one was Eric's new girlfriend, a pom, who had only spent 2 afternoons snow boarding with me.. so i don't know if she classifies as a boarder (.. but she is a goodsort). Went out in the snow (5 inches fresh during the day) to some bar with full-moon style drumming and Hoegaarden on tap.. then onto 'Disco El Gringos'.. which is as dire as it sounds, they had a pole dancer (clothed.. sort of) and 'rave' platforms, but they did play some wicked choons. That was Friday.. spent the next two days boarding. Wicked fun, tried some powder.. which was well fun but pretty difficult. Eric arrived from the UK on Saturday morn.. Managed lots of T-bars and platter lifts.. which over there have a kink to go around your leg and make things marginally more comfy then the straight NZ style ones. Sunday after a massive days boarding with Eric, Sarah (erics wa) and Tracie (Californian snow boarding babe (Guru boarder++)) we headed out to Charlie's bar. This is an Aussie theme pub.. well they have XXXX ads everywhere and Crocodile warning signs up .. Managed to bludge free passes to Gringos which is downstairs and got totally mangled.. You'll be pleased to know Crispy that i got up and did some pole dancing too.

Next morning we awoke with a killer headache and the realisation that after 3 hours sleep we were running late, and probably going to miss our flight back to the UK. We packed up in a record time of about 3 minutes, and were outside running through the snow to the tram stop. Just as we arrived at the stop a bus pulled up opposite and we were offered a ride to Bex.. Which although fortunate timing, was a bit of a pity as the tram would have been more fun. (The has a third centre rail, with cogged teeth to help pull it up the very steep hills). Made the train to Geneva, and arrived at the airport with 25 minutes until the flight time. We ran through the airport, but when we found the check in desk they rang the pilot and he decided we probably had too much luggage to carry on, all the checked baggage had all gone on board by then. We were imformed we'd have to wait for the next flight. This turned out to be lucky really. Eric had come back for the weekend, to board, hang out with Sarah and myself, and travel back with me to the UK. Before he left two weeks earlier he'd booked my flight back to be the same flight, Monday 11:50 am. Except he'd forgotten how many days there were in February and actually booked me the flight on Sunday, not Monday! So even if we had been on time I still would have not had a seat.

I had to fork out £90 ($300 NZD!) to book another flight. Still we had an afternoon spare until out flight, so we wandered around the Geneva Motor show. This was quite simply huge. Five enormous halls full of every car maker trying to look flasher than the next. Every decent manufacturer had a cafe, some with DJs, lots of women in short skirts and guys in suits wandering around telling you about the cars, or just looking buff next to them! and plenty shiny new cars and displays of bizarre concept cars. Saw the new Mini, a turd brown Lamborghini Contach, a whole raft of Porches and other supercars.

Some cups in the Mini Cafe at the Geneva Motor show. There were lots of cars there, honest.

Anyway a very interesting couple of weeks really. The hotel was busted by the Swiss police while I was there. The useless owner hadn't got the correct papers, and opened anyway, despite not paying the nightly local guest tax hotels have to pay. He'd been asked to shut, but just ignored all the mail, and stayed open anyway. Worse still is that he's only been there a couple of times and lives in the UK! So the hotel is run by some other English people, who have to deal with all trouble he gets into with the authorities (the least of which is the hotel cars outstanding parking tickets! courtesy of the owners last visit)

Sarah who had travelled from the UK with us but had also got a job was carted off by the Swiss police and fined 150SF for working without a Visa. I was working when the police turned up, in overalls trying to unblock a drain. The drains were all cemented into the walls and you had to take to the wall with a sledgehammer to get to them. So there I was carrying a bucket of plaster and rubble outside. I was walking down the main stairs and just caught sight of the elbow of the police uniform and a holstered gun standing around in reception. I quickly slipped down the staff stairs into the kitchen, (thus avoiding going through reception), leapt out of my overalls, found a cup of tea and a book and jumped onto the couch in the lounge.

When they came around looking, escorting Sarah, whom they had met in reception, they asked to see my passport and tickets, and asked me how long I'd been there. They pretty quickly worked out I'd been working for my board and food. I think the plaster in my hair might have been the give away. But they were very friendly and we think were probably only out to fine one person, so they could charge the owner. In fact they apologised to Sarah for having to fine her and suggested she recoup the fine from the owner, knowing what an unreliable employer he was by 'finding the money somewhere around the hotel'!. The Swiss realise that migrant workers will do all the jobs the Swiss can't be arsed doing, and be paid less than the minimum wage, of about 25 Swiss Francs/hour, (£12) for doing it. So they aren't really in a hurry to get rid of them. Something like 30% of workers are immigrants in Switzerland.

Okay its seems like the usual closing thing to do is list some things I've learnt, so here it is: Some things I learnt on my holiday :