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The Ski season is now formally over. I’m back from Pas de La Casa, after a great snow week. When we’ve left, the resort was starting to close slopes. In a couple of weeks, everything should be green again. White slopes, only in eight months time

I’ll soon post the few photos I’ve taken.

Finally, I took the time to upload the photos. Over my measly cable connection uploading 50MB  takes forever. They’re all here.

And I’m back! One week of pure speed, with great snow. The only poor day was monday, with freezing temperatures (-17ºC !!!). The photo above is mine, from the race day. Nice posture, with minor errors in ski blade positioning (the knees should be more inset, and I drag the right foot behind in an attempt in style)

I’ll post pictures soon.

I finally managed to try out Turistrela, the only ski resort(?) in Portugal. Got up at 6h30, picked up Mariana and André — both barely awake when I stopped by their homes :-P, and headed towards the mountain range. Great day out! This is certainly an experience to repeat.

We weren’t expecting a lot of snow, and there wasn’t. No snow outside of the slopes. Three slopes open; one of them classified as blue, the other two as red. In my personal scale, the slopes would be radioactive green, and yellowish green. So easy the only challenge is in sliding backwards.

There weren’t as many people as I had been told. One of the lifts had waiting times of about five minutes, but the other two were virtually empty. Classical Portuguese behaviour, if you ask me. That, and protesting against people who supposedly don’t respect the waiting line.

Another interesting behaviour pattern is the enormous ammount of snowboarders. I’d risk a ratio of 1:1 between snowboarders and skiers, which is really uncommon. Usual ratios in the resorts I’ve visited so far are more like 1:5. I’ll have to try out snowboarding sometime, but I really don’t see the thrill in downhill snowboarding: less speed, no ability to take advantage of snowboarding tricks, less speed. Did I mention less speed?

Two major negative points:

1. The price: 25€ for the day forfait is absurd. This is a forfait to support three machines. 5km of slopes, to be generous. Put it into perspective: the Gran Valira forfait covers 500km of slopes, 110 runs with at least that many lifts, and costs 32.5€ .
2. The employees: We were rudely treated by more than one employee of Turistrela, namely at the restaurant. Portugal is very very far from being an elite destination for tourism. We need to develop the ability to welcome guests and treat them as such, not as consumers.

Anyway, I had a great time in great company. Expect crappy phone camera pictures as soon as I can yank them from André.

I notice now that I didn’t leave a vacation notice in the blog. Too late now I’ve been to Cuba — Havana/Varadero — for one week, and I’m back now. Photos will be online as soon as I find some photo stitching software to glue together my panoramic photos.

For today’s mounting anticipation enhancer, here’s El Floridita.

El Floridita is one of the most famous dance clubs, in the old part of Havana. Thanks to the great location of the Sevilla hotel, it should be within walking distance — if I remember the map, it’s about five blocks. The club is known for being the bar where Emilio Gonzalez, a cantinero, perfected the Daiquiri Floridita, supposedly the best such cocktail in the world. (He should have called the cocktail The Gonzo, it would have been even more famous ;-)(*).

The place dates back to the eighteen twenties, and has its share of History. The most prominent of habitués was Hernest Hemingway, instrumental in the worldwide success of the Daiquiri. When Cuba was regular holiday destination for the Hollywood famous, El Floritida was a regular hanging spot for such names as Gary Cooper, John Wayne or Errol Flynn.  In ‘53 Esquire ranked El Floridita in the 7th on the worldwide list of top ten bars.

On another, almost related note:

Bureaucratic gods are in good mood. Someone must have sacrificed a live goat or something, recently. I already have my national ID renewed, and applied for a passport renewal. Congratulations where they are due: Bureaucracies are usually seventh hell in Portugal. Crowded, rude, slow and incompetent. It was not my experience this time. The civil registry, responsible for the national ID card was extremely efficient. The civil government was even better, with excellent offices, nice employees and (gods allowing) will be efficient.

(*) Private joke.

Bureaucratic gods allowing, sensibly two weeks from now I’ll be visiting Cuba. One week of caribbean vacation in great company. I think I’ll start a blog countdown, featuring stuff of interest.

Today’s menu: The first stop in Cuban land, the Sevilla hotel:

 
Located in the old part of town, this hotel is over 120 years old. It was the first luxury hotel in Havana. Recently acquired by the Accor group (do they own every existing hotel?), it’s been rebuilt to accomodate current notions of luxury. Reviews all over the net praise the excellent staff, location and food. Hmm, high expectations