Innsbruck/St.Anton -Finally finding a job

After our stint in Switzerland it was finally time to find a job in Austria. We both love skiing so it was decided early on that a job in the mountains was a must if we where going to work during our trip. Before we left we had a ski village called St.Anton Am Arlberg chosen as the place we wanted to work. We chose this village because when looking into what the best ski areas where in Europe it was almost always mentioned. This was also part of the reason for getting a working visa in Austria. Before leaving and while traveling we had been looking for and applying to jobs with no success, making the upcoming job hunt very important.St.Anton is about an hour east of the Swiss boarder and about an hour west of Innsbruck by train. It is located in a region called Tyrol. Basically it is in the heart of the Alps. Innsbruck was to be the closest city with cheap accommodation so we decided to stay there while looking for work in St.Anton. We rolled in to Innsbruck Sunday so that we could get a good start on the job hunt Monday.The last time we stayed in Innsbruck was the week after Oktoberfest and the hostel we stayed in was horrible, but it was the only one with online booking. We really did not want to stay in that hostel again so instead of booking ahead we arrived at the tourist information to see if they could help us out. They gave us some options of places to stay and even called one to check the availability for us. It was avaliable, so we walked to the bed & breakfast/hostel. It was actually in an area of town we did not even know existed. As it turned out it was a great location in the heart of the old city just one street over from the Golden Roof. Check in was in a bakery/coffee shop at the bottom of the place. The owner checked us in to a great room and we knew right away this would be a much better place to stay than the other hostel in town. That evening we went down to the Internet café and printed off a bunch of résumés and cover letters in preparation for our job search.The next day we took the hour train ride to St.Anton and followed up on a tip that a good spot to see job postings was at the internet café in town. As it turned out there where 27 pages worth of jobs available, with each page having about 5 jobs on it! Very positive information, at this point we knew we would for sure be able to get find some sort of employment. Another tip we where given at the café was that calling people was the key to “applying” for jobs, email as we had already realized does not get you anywhere. So we emailed some people on the list, but did not stay in town for that long. It was decided that night that we should look into getting a cell phone or handy as they call it in German. The next day getting a handy was task number one. So we checked out a few shops in Innsbruck and the phones and plans where actually quite affordable. Not nearly the hassle and cost like in Canada. So we bought a slightly used phone with a pay as you go plan for about 100 Euros. We where actually very surprised by the service plan. It costs 5 cents a minute to call Canada and 7 cents to call Austrian numbers.
With our new phone we started going trough the list of jobs and called a bunch of people. Some jobs where already taken, some required German, but in the end we arranged a few meetings with people the next day.
The next day at the meetings no one cared to see our resumes and it was all a fairly informal process. As it turned at one of the meetings we got offered a job. The problem was we where being offered one job, so basically we had to decided which one of us would take it. It sounded like a pretty good job making drinks and doing some other kitchen help from 5pm-12am 6 days a week at a local upscale restaurant. Accommodation and dinner would be included, so we both wanted the job. We told the man we would let him know which one of us would take the job and that we defiantly would take it. So we left the meeting and decided that the only way to choose which one of us would get the job is by a coin toss. Joel won the toss, so his job search was then done. Scott now needed to find one. So he made some more calls. While waiting at the train station a person Scott called was able to meet with him right then and he was right by the station so Scott went to go see the guy. This was for a kitchen help job as well, a little different than Joel’s job but roughly the same hours with accommodation and food included as well. Scott pretty much got offered the job on the spot and actually needed to start the upcoming Monday. So he took the job and realized his travel days where done until the end of the season. Needless to say we left St. Anton very happy, the job hunt and the biggest stress of the trip was finally done. To add to the excitement they where calling for one meter of snow over the next 3 days, a very good thing considering it was completely green and the season was to start in a weeks time.
Scott moved into his place on Sunday, November 23. Arl.Rock, a brand new recreation facility where he would be working was just being finished so he was needed first thing Monday morning to help out.

Waking up at 6am and walking through snow a foot high in running shoes made Scott quickly realize he was no longer on holidays. The shoveling for four hours without cloves, a hat or boots made him realize it is time to get a winter shipment from Canada.
Meanwhile Joel was in Innsbruck still in holiday mode. His job did not start until the 9th of December and he could not move into his place until then so he decided to do some more traveling. The rail pass we got was valid until December 10th so he decided to visit some of the places we either missed, or did not spend enough time in.

Bern

We arrived in Bern, the capital of Switzerland to some great weather. 

The hostel we booked was in the heart of the old city which is a UNESCO world heritage site. 

The location was great and we easily found the hostel. That afternoon we settled into our room and met our Aussie roommates. After dinner we hung out at the hostel and then decided to go see if we could catch an English movie. Lucky for us there where a number of theaters close to the hostel playing movies in english. The new bond movie had just come out so we decided to catch that flick. However, after buying the tickets we realized the showing was at 23:oo and not 10. The 24-hour times threw us off so the showing was a little later than we had hoped. We both enjoyed the movie, even if it was the most expensive movie ticket we bought in our lives at 17 francs (about 17 CAD) each.The next day we got up and decided to check out the main Cathedral. The tower gave us a great view of the city. After climbing the tower we checked out the park beside the church. 

It overlooked the river and was a very relaxing spot to hang out. From the park we walked over to the famous bear pits. They where alright but it did not seem like the most humane spot to house a bear. 

That night we once again enjoyed some fine Swiss fondue and rosti for dinner.
The next day we checked out the Einstein Museum. There was an exhibit on the history of Bern on one level and the rest of the museum was dedicated to Einstein and his life in Switzerland. It was a very interesting museum in a pretty cool building. That night we hung out at the hostel and ended up playing UNO with some Aussies we met.
The next day it was onto Zurich where we easily made our connection to Innsbruck.

Interlaken, Switzerland

From Lyon we where to take a train to Geneva where we would make a connection through Bern and then we would eventually make it to Interlaken. This seemed straightforward when got on the train that said it was going to Geneva. However, when we arrived in Annemasse, France, the last stop for the train without ever making it to Geneva we where not quite sure where we went wrong. So we got off the train a little stressed but after looking at a map and talking to information we found out Annemasse is essentially a twin city with Geneva. All we had to do was take a 10 minute train to Geneva and then a 15 minute street car to the main train station.

So we took the short train ride to Geneva and then found the street car we needed to take to the train station. While there we decided to grab a slice of pizza. After paying 10 Swiss francs (about 10 CAD) for this slice we realized we where now in Switzerland and it is not going to be cheap. The train ride from Geneva and the connection in Bern went fine and we arrived in Interlaken at a decent time. It was cold, dark and rainy when we got there, but we found the inn we booked fairly easily. It was a typical Swiss inn that was about 400 years old.

That night we looked for some food, but as it turned out the only place open was a Mexican/Indian food spot so we settled for some samosas and nachos.

Interlaken is a place best know for its extreme sports. The problem is, we where there in between the summer and winter seasons and it was cloudy most of the time so we had to refrain from the skydiving, bungee jumping or canyoning. Instead we took a little easier pace. After having some great Rosti (a fried potato dish with cheese and sausage or bacon) we slowly walked down the main street where we found a knife shop. Until now we really had not purchased any souvenirs, so Joel decided to get a Swiss Army Knife and Scott got a cool wallet.

Later that afternoon we took a hike by one of the lakes. 

That night we had a great cheese fondue in the restaurant at the bottom of our inn and took it easy watching CNN in our room. The next day we took a scenic train ride through the alps to Luzern.

From there we took the hour train ride to Bern where we had our next stay booked.

Lyon, France

The first night in Lyon we took a small walk around but just relaxed for the most part after our full day of travel. When we woke up the next day it was cold and raining. We where not in Spain anymore. So we put on our warm clothes and went out to find some food. After walking around for a little and noticing that a lot of stuff was closed and the restaurants where very busy we realized it was November 11th and that the french must actually get a holiday on Remembrance Day. So we found a small place to eat lunch and once again realized we where no longer on the Iberian peninsula after looking at the prices. The food was really good though. After lunch we walked around town a little and then checked out the Notre Dame Cathedral Lyon. It was a little lack luster inside. From there we walked by the Rhône & Saône Rivers. It was actually nice to see a place that looked like Autum. After walking by the river we hiked up a hill to get a great view of the city. On the top of this hill there was another cathedral, Cathedral Saint-Jean, this one was much more impressive. From the cathedral we took a funicular back down to the city centre. That night everything was pretty much closed and it was still raining so we pretty much just stayed at the room and watched some french TV. The next day it would be on to Interlaken, Switzerland.

Lagos to Lyon

After a nice relaxing stay in Lagos it was time to start making the long trek towards Austria. Originally we had hoped to go down to Morocco for a few days once we where done in Portugal, but after looking into it we realized it was going to cost more in time and money to get down there than we had originally expected. So we decided to leave that trip for another time.

The 5 hour bus to Seville was easy enough. We where unable to find an Internet spot to book a hostel for that night so we decided to go back the the hostel we had stayed in the last time we where in Seville and luckily they had 2 beds available for us. The next day consisted of taking a high speed train from Seville to Barcelona with a stopover in Madrid. We where actually lucky to catch the train we did. (Buying (reserving in our case) train tickets in Spain takes much longer than any other country we had been in thus far. After taking a number you can sometimes wait for up to an hour to get to the counter. It was so bad in Valencia that we just left the station and got the reservation on the day we left.) That day we managed to just get our ticket with about 10 minutes to go through the metal detectors and board the train. From there it was smooth sailing at 300+ km/h across the Spanish countryside.

Upon coming up from the metro station in Barcelona we saw what we thought where protesters on the street right in front of our hostel. However, we managed to just make it into the hostel before the group of what turned out to be people jumping through fireworks and making a bunch of noise filled up the street. We booked two nights in Barcelona, so the next day was spent doing laundry and putting in some much needed internet time. That evening Scott went out to finally report his passport lost (only about 6 weeks and 4 countries later than when he lost it). As it turned out the subway he was on just happened to breakdown, making what should have been a 5 minute trip take over an hour. That night it was early to bed because the plan was to take the 8 am train with 3 connections to Lyon.

The next mourning came and the alarm that we bought in the airport in Toronto managed to fail us for the first and arguably most important time. Of course the real hassle was that we woke up just 20 minutes after the alarm was supposed to wake us, making it not quite possible to catch the train we wanted. After once again waiting in the que at the train station we managed to get information on a train that would get us to Lyon just a few hours later and where assured we would not need any reservations for any legs we would be taking. So we got on the first train and got off at a small station on the Spanish border in France where we were told we could catch a train that would get us to our next connection point. Of course being the smart seasoned travelers we are, we decided to confirm with the ticket agent at this station that we could get on the train we needed to with out a reservation. Through her half french half english she informed us that the train we needed was full and we would have to talk to the conductor to see if we could get on. Not good news. So we put our heads together, got out our train schedule and figured out another connection that would get us to Lyon. We showed the agent what we came up with and she eventually found us an alternative and we booked the seats. So the train finally came and we managed to make in to Lyon problem free from then on. The hotel was easy to find and after realizing how nice the city appeared to be we booked another night there as well.

Lagos

For our second stop in Portugal, we decided to head down to a beach city called Lagos located on the Southern coast on the Atlantic (actually about 20 km from where they thought the world ended). We stayed at a super hostel called the rising cock which came highly recommended to us, and no doubt lived up to the hype. We had our own Portuguese "momma" for our four night stay there, who would insist on making up fresh crepes and lemon tea every day for breakfast! Her constant reminder of the benefits of lemon tea for a hang over, even on the days we didn't have one sure did make me a believer.

Our first full day in Lagos we went for a walk through the city, headed down to the beach, and just checked the place out. It wasn't high season there so it was fairly quite, but none the less still a fantastic town. After that we took care of some administrative things, mainly further planning of the next leg of the trip and made some phone calls home.

The next day was mostly spent once again at the beach, however this time we found a much better spot, surrounded by cliffs and in around many different grottos. This was the main attraction of the town, as the beaches were really quite impressive as you can see for in the pictures. That evening while watching the sunset we even had a friend join us. We named her Randy. She was a cool dog, but no matter how hard to loose her she kept following us. Below is Scott and Randy.

We decided for our last full day in Lagos it was time to be a little more adventurous and rent some scooters to go and check out the surrounding towns. This however did not go off with out a hitch. As we were making trails down the highway (which our scooters were maybe a little to slow to be on, they only had a 50cc engine) we ran into a police check for various traffic violations. Of course Scotts scooter didn't have a working front light which was illegal, so we were sent back to the rental shop, thankfully with no ticket. Of course it was closed for siesta, so we decided to keep going, only to almost run into the same cops in a different location. Thankfully this time we pulled over and parked the scooters without the cops seeing us. So we just chilled out until the cops left their spot allowing us to go through the day with no ticket. All in all it was a fantastic day of checking out the surrounding coastline, as we were able to get out and go places we normally wouldnt have been able to on public tansit.Lagos was a very relaxing stop in our trip, definatly a favourite place.

Lisbon

After spending a good amount of time in Spain, touring through four cities rather extensively, the next stop was Lisbon, Portugal. So we jumped on a bus for the first time with our new found Aussie friends and made our way over. Once we arrived we managed to get nice and lost in the search for our hostel. Of course, us four guys decided we knew how to get to the hostel better than the two girls we were with. So we split into two groups. As it tuned out, the problem was Joel had a map that turned out to be wrong. Needless to say we should have stuck with the girls as they not only had the right directions, but also a corrrect map.

Our first day in Lisbon was a fairly quite day, we went and checked out an old cathedral, along with heading up the "steel elevator" for a birds eye view of the city. The cathedral was interesting, as it had been left in ruins from the famous earthquake in 1761, which rocked Lisbon and essentially flattened the city, making it quite different from the countless other cathedrals. It was interesting to see the damage, just left for every one to see the magnitude of the earthquake and the destruction it caused.

That night we had some Portugese BBQ, which was essentially a pig shaped clay bowl filled with alcohol on fire, with smoked sausage roasting on the top. Turned out to be quite good actually. The two Aussie guys we where traveling with where flying out to Rome the next day so that night we sent them off in style. The night started with a good group drinking game or two and ended at nothing but one of the "finest" establishments Lisbon had to offer.

The next day we had a bit of a late start, so we went out and found some lunch and came back to the hostel for a well deserved movie or two, a nice luxury we were missing. Later that night we eventually went out and met up with the remaining Aussie girls along with some Brazilians and headed back out for another night on the town. What can we say here really, Portugal has a great night life and is quite cheap.

Our third day in Lisbon was a little more active, we decided to head out of the old part of the town we were staying in and check out some of the other attractions the city had to offer. After walking around for a while down on the coast we headed to an aquarium, which turned out to be quite an impressive display of marine life. They had displays from Oceans all over the world, with the highlight being the massive central tank housing thousands of differnt kinds of fish. Joel's personal favorite was the penguins. Each penguin actually has its own name and a special diet. After this we went and caught a movie in the theaters, W. Really not a very good movie, neither of us can recommend it. That was it for Lisbon, the next morning it was up to catch a train south to Lagos!

Seville - The city you will get lost in

After a good stay in Madrid it was on to Seville to see what the city had to offer. We arrived by train and took the bus to the hostel where we just happen to meet a guy that was currently staying there. This made the hostel very easy to find considering we just had to follow him. That evening we went out for a walk as we normally do when we arrive in a city to get our barrings and check out the place. As it turned out we ended up in a shopping district with not too much to see. Luckly we were not to far from our hostel so we made it back for some delicious stir fry that was being made up at the hostel. That night we where in the kitchen and we passed these guys (Aussies of course) that looked rather familiar and then it clicked in my head about the same time as they realized where we knew each other from. We stayed in the same hostel in Valencia and had a short conversation there. As it turned out they where some alright guys, so we hung out at the hostel bar with them for the night where we also met some more Aussies.

The next day we got up, and after a stop at the local Starbucks we set out for The Cathedral of Seville, also known as Catedral de Santa María de la Sede. It seemed straightforward enough to find so we walked in the direction we thought the cathedral was in. After walking for a while we decided to stop and check the map. The problem was we had no idea where we were. So we walked a little further to a square that we figured would be easy enough to find on the map, but still had no luck. We finally figured out where we were when we found the museum we where beside on the map. As it turned out we went the wrong way but figured out on the map where we needed to go. The cathedral was big, but not as big as you would expect from the worlds largest gothic cathedral.Notable features included Christopher Columbus´ remains, a 3 story tall wall with intricate gold carvings, a hand carved organ and a tower you could walk up to get a great view of the city.
While in the cathedral we happen to run into the girls we met on the pub crawl in Madrid. We knew they where in the city but felt it was fairly random we happen to be at the same place at the same time. After we left the cathedral we started to walk toward the hostel but ended up getting so lost we had to take the bus back. That night the hostel led a night out for tapas and Flamenco dancing. Flamenco dance is a highly-expressive, Spanish dance form. The flamenco is a solo dance characterized by hand clapping, percussive footwork, and intricate hand, arm and body movements. (about.com had a good description). The dancing was quite the show and we had a pretty good time with the people from the hostel. While at the dancing we once again happened to run into the two Aussie girls from Madrid. Another random occurrence considering the location of little hole in the wall joint we where at. So we ended up drinking sangria and hanging out with them until the bar closed down.
The next day we went to the bus station and booked our ticket to Lisbon. As it worked out we would be on the same bus as the Aussie guys we met at the hostel and the girls we kept running into. After the bus station we walked down the River Guadalquivir passed the old city walls to the Alcázar of Seville. The Alcazar is a royal palace originally built as a Moorish fort. It appeared to be an impressive structure. Upon arriving we found out they would not give us a student discount so we decided not to go in the palace. Instead we took the short walk over to the Plaza de España. The Plaza is a huge half-circle with buildings continually running around the edge accessible over the moat by numerous beautiful bridges. A very cool sight with lost of colourful murals. That night we managed to find a pub crawl that the six of us going to Lisbon went on. And to follow the theme for Seville we managed to once again take much longer to get back to the hostel then it should have taken. The next day we all boarded the bus and took the six hour ride to Lisbon.

Madrid

We booked our hostel for Madrid somewhat in haste and on the train ride we realized that it was very central. As it turned out it was only about a 3 to 5 minute walk from kilometer 0 at Puerta del Sol, which is considered to be the centre of Spain and the times square of Madrid.

We were actually lucky to find our hostel because there was no sign on the building and all we had was the name and address. After checking in and being shown around, by fluke it appeared we got a pretty good hostel. It was really more of a group apartment. The smallest hostel we stayed at so far, there was a TV with movies playing all the time and computers you could use for free. All located on one small level, there was maybe only 20 people staying at the place which made it very easy to meet everyone.
We decided the first thing we should do Friday is go and pickup Scott's permanent passport from the embassy. This turned out to be fairly painless. Although, we where lucky. They where actually supposed to be closed, but the girl there was nice enough to help us anyways. Because this took so little time we ended up being right on time for the 3 pm walking tour.

Probably not the best walking tour we have been on, but it was still good. Highlights of the tour included seeing the Royal Palace of Madrid, a walk by the oldest running restaurant in the world and the stop at a tapas bar where we got to pick from a large selection of small sandwhiches.

That night we went on another pub crawl. This was probably the second best pub crawl we have been on, (after Berlin) but not by that much of a margin. As it turned out there where a few people that had been on our walking tour that were also on the pub crawl, some of which where some girls from Austrailia. (This is a notable fact because as it happened we ended up pseudo traveling with them for the next week.) Once again we got to the last bar on the crawl after 3am. However, (unlike in Valencia) when we left the club we where actually half a block away from our hostel. Definatly a good night.
On Sunday by fluke we found out that there where bull fights still gong on. This was somewhat of a surprise because we where told by our walking tour guide that they where done for the season (however, she was from San Diego and it was only the 5th tour she had led so she was bound to get something wrong). Before the bullfights we had time to visit the Museo del Prado and check out some famous pieces of art by Diego Velázquez, Francisco Goya and El Greco among others.

After the museum we got to the bullfights with lots of time to spare. (We realized later that night the reason for this was we had forgotten to change our watches for daylights savings, but better to be early than late.) The bullfights are quite the specticle. Basically it is an elaborate way to slaughter a bull, and some go down quicker than others. I would get into details, but for those of you who are as squeemish as the many tourists that left after a bull needed countless stabbings to the brian to be finished off, I will not elaborate anymore. We enjoyed it for the most part and made sure to get our whole 7€ worth by staying for all 6 bulls.

Valencia

We arrived at the beautiful train station in Valencia with directions about a page long on how to find the hostel. As it turned out it was not to hard to find. We where staying at a hostel right in the old city. After settling in and meeting out Icelandic roommate Scott and I went and found a great 3 course meal including cerveza for only 10 Euro. That night we got some good (but cheap) bottles of Spanish wine and hung out at the hostel where we socialized with our roommate from a country that is going through some unique economic times. We thought our dollar was weak against the Euro, his currency recently dropped 40% against the Euro.

On Friday, we once again took a free walking tour with a guide that was very informative. Valencia is a city of great history. It was neat finding out things about this city which we really new very little about before we arrived. On the tour we were shown a large and historical market. That afternoon we went to this big market and bought all the ingredients to make a great stir fry.

Later in the afternoon we hopped on a bus and checked out the beach with some people from our hostel. The beach was huge and had some sand. Although there where people going in the water, we thought it was a little cool to swim. After walking down to the harbour from the beach, we also discovered the buildings the Americas Cup teams use. There was also a small museum on the Americas Cup, which occured in Valencia last year.
That night we went on the pub crawl. At the end of the night we left the club not know quite where we had ended up. We knew we where in the old town but where not quite sure which way our hostel was. So to choose the way to go Scott stood in the middle of an intersection and randomly chose a street. As it turned out we stumbled upon the main square and street, only by this time it was completely deserted. A strange feeling from the way it was during the day. From here we knew where to go. All in all it was a great night.

Shown above is the main street in the middle of the day.

The next day it was raining so we took it easy for the most part. That evening after the rain stopped we took a stroll through a huge park. This park was unique in that it was created from a dried up river that cut right through the middle of city. The next day we hopped on the train to Madrid.

Barcelona Spain!

After further consideration the decision was to made to take the train ride over to Spain where the next logical stop was Barcelona. We arrived and we immediately felt the heat. It was early October and we had to turn on the air conditioning in our room. The hostel had some great facilities and we even had some girls from Vancouver as roommates.

We started our first full day in Barcelona by taking a walk down La Rambla. La Rambla is basically a 1.2 kilometer long tree lined pedestrian mall in the Barri Gòtic or Gothic Quarter. It connects Plaça Catalunya in the center with the Christopher Columbus monument at Port Vell. For the most part it was full of street theatre, cafés and market stalls. After walking La Rambla we ventured into the Barri Gòtic which was basically the old town that had narrow alleys filled with mostly shops, bars and restaurants.

As we entered the main square we noted some loud noises and quite the police presence. The square was filled with what we believed to be firemen protesting about something. This protest mostly consisted of smoke bombs, fire works and loud gunpowder cannons going off. As well there where banners and what not. Not quite like the protests at home. Although the police where in full riot gear with lots of backup we figured the potential for a police firefighter riot was fairly low, so we left the square and found a nice place where we had our first taste of piallar.

Piallar is a rice dish filled with seasoning and various meats. That night we hung out at the hostel where we met some more Canadians that where in Europe riding their BMX bikes.
When we woke up the next day it was pouring rain so we put in some needed internet time and did some laundry. That night we had planned to go on a pub crawl with the Canadians we met the night before and their German roommate. As it turned out we arrived at the meeting point to late, so we went to an Irish pub that we had seen the day before instead. The night was still young after the pub so we decided to find a club. As it turned out we stumbled upon a rather large club that was playing some good music. We ended up leaving there around 430. Remember this is Spain.
The next day we visited Sagrada Família. This building is basically a huge temple designed by Gaudi. Claimed to be the most visited construction site in the world, even in its current sate it is very impressive. So far on the trip we have visited a fair number of cathedrals but this one takes the cake. It has numerous spires with a facade covered in intricate carvings of various religious images.
Later that day we visited a large park with a huge zoo that ended up closing soon after we arrived, so we decided to just enjoy the warm weather by a large fountain.

From the park we checked out the harbour.
That evening we went to a bar where we actually found some American Football being played on t.v.