what procrastination I know not of what you speak
But you know, while I'm here, how about some photos from Italy? I am being all organized this time and dividing into subjects, and desperately hoping Firefox doesn't crash as I compose this post because that would suck.
Warning: um, about 100 photos under the cuts. Some of them just to tell the story of where I was, most of them just because I like them. We all know I'm obsessed with this photography thing by now anyway.
General, mostly chronological, mostly landscapes, mostly snow
We begin with a flight, landing in Italy and its huge broad expanses of fields:
The bus ride to Val Gardena was about three hours long, and wow was it a luxurious bus; I've never sat in such soft bus seats in my life, and my god the leg room.
Most of the towns on the way through the Dolomites looked like this: located by a river, a few fields, church steeple, mountain/cliff backdrop, weirdly washed out colors, vaguely industrial setting (which you can't see in the photo). All of which are mostly foreign.
Winding up the mountains, and this is a huge icicle block (or, I'm sure there's an actual term describing what it is) set in the river of one of the upper towns in the site.
Fast forwarding a bit; this was the town we stayed at, same as last year:
This is the view of the mountains from my hotel window, in different kinds of weather:
That sliver of sun highlighting the mountaintops in the first photo was as much of the sunset we could see; the sun doesn't really set, visibly, in the mountains. (Suddenly I'm glad to be living in a relatively flat country...)
Me, myself and I:
This is me in my "underwear". My full skiing outfit included: bra, tank top, long sleeved shirt, thin fleece, coat, tights, pants, ski socks, ski shoes, fleece gloves, ski gloves, neck warmer, earwarmer-hat. In my pockets, I always carried: chapstick, tissues, ski pass, camera, sunglasses (which I tied over my glasses), money, spare batteries, maps, glasses wiping cloth, Flip camcorder (on occasion). It was seriously freezing those first few days (-10c in town, -20c up on the mountain). I'm used to skiing in hotter weather; last year I only wore the thin fleece beneath my coat, and sometimes even just a tank top, and no tights or second set of gloves. Global warming, I tell you.
Here are me and my tiny compatriots standing next to a frozen waterfall:
I am the one in the fantastically color-matched red-and-white coat and purple pants, both borrowed (the white kind of blends into the snow, but it's puffy and it's there). Later on in the week, I bought my own ski coat and pants for the first time ever, both on sale, both fitting (finally!), both black. Combined with my rented black skis, I may or may not have looked like a Death Eater on snow. (And may or may not have named my skis Bella and Cissy. I swear they had skulls.)
Many photos of snowy landscapes taken while skiing, yay:
(You can see we had good weather days and bad weather days)
Every day we had breakfast and dinner at the hotel, and lunch in one of the many restaurants that rest on mountaintops with, just, the view. So amazing.
The higher slopes are all snow all the time, but the lower slopes are less steep and narrowly wind through forests, shaded and beautiful.
(the day after it snowed, everything fresh covered...)
Little baby ducklings! SO CUTE. We fell in love with the kid in the rainbow suit omg. (Hi baby!Brendon in my imaginary AU!) (Okay no, baby!Brendon actually wears hot pink.)
This is where they were practicing. Tiny dots are people! It was a really pretty huge open valley.
Latte macchiato and hot wine, on a mountaintop rest stop. I drank more wine in the one week of vacation than I did in the entire past year (including Passover), I'm pretty sure. Which is not to say I actually drank a lot of wine -- probably two bottles all in all, but it's a lot for me! I would say it averaged on one midday cup of hot wine somewhere, and 1-2 glasses every day at dinner. SLOWLY I AM BUILDING UP A TOLERANCE.
A Dr. Seussian landscape.
We came across this slalom race course where you could measure your time for 50c. "Race you?" asketh my father. "I'll ski down with you, not race you," replied I. "I actually care for my life, and besides, judging by my Wii experience, I'm probably going to knock down all the flags." "Nonsense," said Dad, "there's no such thing as measuring time and not competing; humans are competitive."
I said whatever, and we set off, and hey, my dad was right, because the minute the clock started suddenly it was very very important that I beat him, and hey, I was right too, because the third turn down I crashed like a motherfucker. But the clock was still running so I got up and tried skiing down as carefully and quickly as I could, not an easy feat to do simultaneously, especially not when my glasses were covered with snow.
When I reached the bottom (and cleared the snow from my glasses so I could see) I looked around and discovered that my dad and I arrived at the same time. When I asked my dad what took him so long, he looked at me, surprised. "What, you didn't see me crash?"
Soldiers training in the snow.
Altitude, 2700m; probably the highest we got. It was the last day, and the most beautiful slope we did all week:
It ended with a really long, annoying flat stretch, which required cross country like skating for like 10-15 minutes; eventually we reached a stop where it was possible to get a horse lift. Two long ropes were attached to a sled pulled by two horses, and you just grabbed hold of the ropes and let the horses pull you through the last five minutes of flat land. It suddenly gives new meaning to the idea of horsepower, seeing two horses carry about 40 people behind them:
Dragged by horses.
Random castle on the side of a slope. Have I mentioned I love Europe?
Apres ski: tour of the town
Photos taken while... yeah, walking around town.
The town's main hot spot, Luis Keller, aka the one with the fucking bunnies.
Church!
Elementary school...
shop!
Italian tomatoes? They look like huge red hubezas.
Bombardino! It's like the Discworld's Wow-Wow Sauce, but alcohol. Okay, no, no it's not, it's like a local brandy-and-eggnog-type liqueur that I never actually tasted and it's called Bombardino either after its inventor or because it's like a bomb, at least according to Wikipedia. Whatever it tastes like, I'm pretty sure Bombardino is the coolest name for a drink ever.
Cars parked on actual ice omg scary.
Our balcony, first morning after it snowed.
And then I did this to it.
And then my sister did this to it.
Me utterly utterly failing at capturing snowflakes. They were so tiny and pretty and special and unique! But I only had my small camera which is a million years old and suuuucks for close ups.
Both of these not from our town, but from Ortisei, a town we skied through; or more accurately, skied to, crossed on foot hoisting our skis for 25 minutes, and skied out the other side. It's a gorgeous town though, despite its inconvenient location.
Statues from around town
This one was located just by a snow-covered lantern. Hello, Narnia.
German folks, any idea what this sign means? (Despite technically being in Italy, I heard far, far more German/Austrian the entire week than I did Italian. I can't actually tell the difference between German and Austrian, sorry.)
Noah! I love this one.
Dude in the town square!
Dude in the hotel watching over our dinner table!
Enormous snow sculptures left over from the annual contest that takes place every December.
Skijoring
So one afternoon, we went out to watch this skijoring thing -- the competitors were all (or mostly) instructors from the local ski school, and it was just this really cool event of the likes I had never seen before, and the camera's sports mode is made of ♥.
Warming up...
...and a jockey cooling off with a smoke.
Also there were doggies!
Food, beverages, nom
So our favorite cafe there is the Mozart, which is right across from the hotel, and which sports the following dessert menu:
I know it's simple -- just fruits and ice cream and whipped cream and various syrups, on the most part -- but we just don't get those kinds of desserts in Israel. Cafes here all serve the exact same pre-made desserts everywhere, I can recite them by heart, they're boring and tiny and expensive. Sometimes they're even parve instead of dairy :( (although, I admit, in the places I eat, not so much.) So anyway, these kinds of sundaes are pretty amazing.
Anyway, it's a really sweet place, pun intended:
Okay, so -- the hotel dinner was pretty amazing.
It started with a salad and hors d'oeuvres bar, and I usually came back with a plate of salad and a plate of hors d'oeuvres that were, all in all, bigger than the dinner I usually have at home (which is basically salad, egg, bread). Many of their dishes incorporated shrimp, and I tried enough throughout the week to decide that I like shrimp. At least Italian ones. Peeled.
On the particular night I brought down the camera, the staff were also waiting at the desert table to flambe some crepes, and slice up that pork sitting at the bottom right corner for the main dish.
The theme that night was local food, so in addition to the starting dishes, we also got this plate of local delicacies. I took a bite of each? They were... interesting...
Then came the second course, a choice between four, which were usually either soup or types of pasta, and tonight, gnocchi. As you can see, a tiny serving.
And then the third -- or is it fourth now? -- course, which was meat or fish. Tonight, veal with a side of polenta.
As you can see, the pork has by now been eaten.
And then a choice between desserts, which, while not excellent, were really really good.
Okay I'm actually too full right now to think more about food photos, so.
Folk procession
So this one evening there was a "folk procession" through town? I was the driving force behind us going out to see it because it was utterly geeky but whatever, everyone turned out happy we went and considering we spent every night either playing cards in the lobby or watching "A Very Potter Musical" in our room, I don't think anyone could actually judge me for being too geeky.
It was really hard taking photos in the dark and I'm still learning how to use the new camera in different lighting situations, especially at night, so some of the photos turned out kind of funky, but I like it -- that some of the photos look like they're carrying ghost carriages, etc. It was cool.
Some of the carriages were carrying musicians, and some just random folks in costume. They left to set up in the town square, where they formed a semicircle and just played for like an hour.
It was hilarious and sad, because the brass band playing was at least doing something, but the others in costumes weren't, they were just loitering there basically, freezing their asses off. It was like that episode of "Gilmore Girls" where the War of Independence reenactment actors stand around in the snow in the middle of winter in like their breeches, until Luke breaks down and comes down to offer them hot drinks from a thermos. In this case though, there was free hot wine and hot cider for all \o/
Also the little ski school kids made some kind of fire! It was a little Lord of the Flies-ish, but it made a pretty picture.
I do not have a pretty picture to wrap up with, but, you know. If you scrolled through this I'm pretty sure you've had enough anyway :-) I had an amazing time and I had fun taking photos and, five days later, I'm still a little sore and bruised but I can lift my arm above my shoulder line now! So, score. Thank you for reading :D
comments on Dreamwidth.
Warning: um, about 100 photos under the cuts. Some of them just to tell the story of where I was, most of them just because I like them. We all know I'm obsessed with this photography thing by now anyway.
General, mostly chronological, mostly landscapes, mostly snow
We begin with a flight, landing in Italy and its huge broad expanses of fields:
The bus ride to Val Gardena was about three hours long, and wow was it a luxurious bus; I've never sat in such soft bus seats in my life, and my god the leg room.
Most of the towns on the way through the Dolomites looked like this: located by a river, a few fields, church steeple, mountain/cliff backdrop, weirdly washed out colors, vaguely industrial setting (which you can't see in the photo). All of which are mostly foreign.
Winding up the mountains, and this is a huge icicle block (or, I'm sure there's an actual term describing what it is) set in the river of one of the upper towns in the site.
Fast forwarding a bit; this was the town we stayed at, same as last year:
This is the view of the mountains from my hotel window, in different kinds of weather:
That sliver of sun highlighting the mountaintops in the first photo was as much of the sunset we could see; the sun doesn't really set, visibly, in the mountains. (Suddenly I'm glad to be living in a relatively flat country...)
Me, myself and I:
This is me in my "underwear". My full skiing outfit included: bra, tank top, long sleeved shirt, thin fleece, coat, tights, pants, ski socks, ski shoes, fleece gloves, ski gloves, neck warmer, earwarmer-hat. In my pockets, I always carried: chapstick, tissues, ski pass, camera, sunglasses (which I tied over my glasses), money, spare batteries, maps, glasses wiping cloth, Flip camcorder (on occasion). It was seriously freezing those first few days (-10c in town, -20c up on the mountain). I'm used to skiing in hotter weather; last year I only wore the thin fleece beneath my coat, and sometimes even just a tank top, and no tights or second set of gloves. Global warming, I tell you.
Here are me and my tiny compatriots standing next to a frozen waterfall:
I am the one in the fantastically color-matched red-and-white coat and purple pants, both borrowed (the white kind of blends into the snow, but it's puffy and it's there). Later on in the week, I bought my own ski coat and pants for the first time ever, both on sale, both fitting (finally!), both black. Combined with my rented black skis, I may or may not have looked like a Death Eater on snow. (And may or may not have named my skis Bella and Cissy. I swear they had skulls.)
Many photos of snowy landscapes taken while skiing, yay:
(You can see we had good weather days and bad weather days)
Every day we had breakfast and dinner at the hotel, and lunch in one of the many restaurants that rest on mountaintops with, just, the view. So amazing.
The higher slopes are all snow all the time, but the lower slopes are less steep and narrowly wind through forests, shaded and beautiful.
(the day after it snowed, everything fresh covered...)
Little baby ducklings! SO CUTE. We fell in love with the kid in the rainbow suit omg. (Hi baby!Brendon in my imaginary AU!) (Okay no, baby!Brendon actually wears hot pink.)
This is where they were practicing. Tiny dots are people! It was a really pretty huge open valley.
Latte macchiato and hot wine, on a mountaintop rest stop. I drank more wine in the one week of vacation than I did in the entire past year (including Passover), I'm pretty sure. Which is not to say I actually drank a lot of wine -- probably two bottles all in all, but it's a lot for me! I would say it averaged on one midday cup of hot wine somewhere, and 1-2 glasses every day at dinner. SLOWLY I AM BUILDING UP A TOLERANCE.
A Dr. Seussian landscape.
We came across this slalom race course where you could measure your time for 50c. "Race you?" asketh my father. "I'll ski down with you, not race you," replied I. "I actually care for my life, and besides, judging by my Wii experience, I'm probably going to knock down all the flags." "Nonsense," said Dad, "there's no such thing as measuring time and not competing; humans are competitive."
I said whatever, and we set off, and hey, my dad was right, because the minute the clock started suddenly it was very very important that I beat him, and hey, I was right too, because the third turn down I crashed like a motherfucker. But the clock was still running so I got up and tried skiing down as carefully and quickly as I could, not an easy feat to do simultaneously, especially not when my glasses were covered with snow.
When I reached the bottom (and cleared the snow from my glasses so I could see) I looked around and discovered that my dad and I arrived at the same time. When I asked my dad what took him so long, he looked at me, surprised. "What, you didn't see me crash?"
Soldiers training in the snow.
Altitude, 2700m; probably the highest we got. It was the last day, and the most beautiful slope we did all week:
It ended with a really long, annoying flat stretch, which required cross country like skating for like 10-15 minutes; eventually we reached a stop where it was possible to get a horse lift. Two long ropes were attached to a sled pulled by two horses, and you just grabbed hold of the ropes and let the horses pull you through the last five minutes of flat land. It suddenly gives new meaning to the idea of horsepower, seeing two horses carry about 40 people behind them:
Dragged by horses.
Random castle on the side of a slope. Have I mentioned I love Europe?
Apres ski: tour of the town
Photos taken while... yeah, walking around town.
The town's main hot spot, Luis Keller, aka the one with the fucking bunnies.
Church!
Elementary school...
shop!
Italian tomatoes? They look like huge red hubezas.
Bombardino! It's like the Discworld's Wow-Wow Sauce, but alcohol. Okay, no, no it's not, it's like a local brandy-and-eggnog-type liqueur that I never actually tasted and it's called Bombardino either after its inventor or because it's like a bomb, at least according to Wikipedia. Whatever it tastes like, I'm pretty sure Bombardino is the coolest name for a drink ever.
Cars parked on actual ice omg scary.
Our balcony, first morning after it snowed.
And then I did this to it.
And then my sister did this to it.
Me utterly utterly failing at capturing snowflakes. They were so tiny and pretty and special and unique! But I only had my small camera which is a million years old and suuuucks for close ups.
Both of these not from our town, but from Ortisei, a town we skied through; or more accurately, skied to, crossed on foot hoisting our skis for 25 minutes, and skied out the other side. It's a gorgeous town though, despite its inconvenient location.
Statues from around town
This one was located just by a snow-covered lantern. Hello, Narnia.
German folks, any idea what this sign means? (Despite technically being in Italy, I heard far, far more German/Austrian the entire week than I did Italian. I can't actually tell the difference between German and Austrian, sorry.)
Noah! I love this one.
Dude in the town square!
Dude in the hotel watching over our dinner table!
Enormous snow sculptures left over from the annual contest that takes place every December.
Skijoring
So one afternoon, we went out to watch this skijoring thing -- the competitors were all (or mostly) instructors from the local ski school, and it was just this really cool event of the likes I had never seen before, and the camera's sports mode is made of ♥.
Warming up...
...and a jockey cooling off with a smoke.
Also there were doggies!
Food, beverages, nom
So our favorite cafe there is the Mozart, which is right across from the hotel, and which sports the following dessert menu:
I know it's simple -- just fruits and ice cream and whipped cream and various syrups, on the most part -- but we just don't get those kinds of desserts in Israel. Cafes here all serve the exact same pre-made desserts everywhere, I can recite them by heart, they're boring and tiny and expensive. Sometimes they're even parve instead of dairy :( (although, I admit, in the places I eat, not so much.) So anyway, these kinds of sundaes are pretty amazing.
Anyway, it's a really sweet place, pun intended:
Okay, so -- the hotel dinner was pretty amazing.
It started with a salad and hors d'oeuvres bar, and I usually came back with a plate of salad and a plate of hors d'oeuvres that were, all in all, bigger than the dinner I usually have at home (which is basically salad, egg, bread). Many of their dishes incorporated shrimp, and I tried enough throughout the week to decide that I like shrimp. At least Italian ones. Peeled.
On the particular night I brought down the camera, the staff were also waiting at the desert table to flambe some crepes, and slice up that pork sitting at the bottom right corner for the main dish.
The theme that night was local food, so in addition to the starting dishes, we also got this plate of local delicacies. I took a bite of each? They were... interesting...
Then came the second course, a choice between four, which were usually either soup or types of pasta, and tonight, gnocchi. As you can see, a tiny serving.
And then the third -- or is it fourth now? -- course, which was meat or fish. Tonight, veal with a side of polenta.
As you can see, the pork has by now been eaten.
And then a choice between desserts, which, while not excellent, were really really good.
Okay I'm actually too full right now to think more about food photos, so.
Folk procession
So this one evening there was a "folk procession" through town? I was the driving force behind us going out to see it because it was utterly geeky but whatever, everyone turned out happy we went and considering we spent every night either playing cards in the lobby or watching "A Very Potter Musical" in our room, I don't think anyone could actually judge me for being too geeky.
It was really hard taking photos in the dark and I'm still learning how to use the new camera in different lighting situations, especially at night, so some of the photos turned out kind of funky, but I like it -- that some of the photos look like they're carrying ghost carriages, etc. It was cool.
Some of the carriages were carrying musicians, and some just random folks in costume. They left to set up in the town square, where they formed a semicircle and just played for like an hour.
It was hilarious and sad, because the brass band playing was at least doing something, but the others in costumes weren't, they were just loitering there basically, freezing their asses off. It was like that episode of "Gilmore Girls" where the War of Independence reenactment actors stand around in the snow in the middle of winter in like their breeches, until Luke breaks down and comes down to offer them hot drinks from a thermos. In this case though, there was free hot wine and hot cider for all \o/
Also the little ski school kids made some kind of fire! It was a little Lord of the Flies-ish, but it made a pretty picture.
I do not have a pretty picture to wrap up with, but, you know. If you scrolled through this I'm pretty sure you've had enough anyway :-) I had an amazing time and I had fun taking photos and, five days later, I'm still a little sore and bruised but I can lift my arm above my shoulder line now! So, score. Thank you for reading :D
comments on Dreamwidth.