Liam and John left the other day, a pair of very disappointed guests. Disappointed that they had to leave! Liam in particular was bemoaning how much he’d miss the scenery. We had a dusting of snow overnight and the trees this morning looked like they were caked in icing sugar. It’ll all be gone by lunchtime, though.

Next up on the visitor list is the lovely Leah, who must like it here as this will be her second visit! We’ve got some plans for while she’s here so hopefully some more interesting things to tell you about. I may also have a trio of Italians popping over from Torino later in April. Andrea, Allesandro and Sara are trying to sort out a weekend that’s convenient for them all to come over and play in the snow.

I last saw Andrea in August when he gave me an old map to find my way over the peaks of the Park Grand Paradiso as part of my 1000 Mile Walk. Alessandro put me up in Turin for a couple of nights as my feet recovered from the walk from Giuly’s parents’. Giuly herself won’t be able to make a return visit as she’s shoulder-deep in work. A shame as she really enjoyed her last visit.

Wow. That was a lot of links.

Well, workwise here I’m prety busy with a lot to do as the season comes to an end and resorts close. Here in Chamonix we have one more week of guests, and a handful of other resorts close in just over a week as well. I’ll be getting a fair bit of the IT equipment back for a clean down and reconfigure in preparation for storage and next season.

In amongst all that, I’ve got quite a few more tasks. Geek hat on:

• Set up emails for Austria, Switzerland and Italy
• Configure file upload/download accounts for all resorts
• Write documentation for next year’s training on the above
• Set up every resort PC for multiple users/email accounts
• Document all procedures and make them accessible as WordPress posts on the intranet
• Configure backup procedures on the Ubuntu server
• Setup automatic backups on local desktop machines
• Configure spare PCs as hot-swap backups
• Clear out all the rubbish we’ve not used this season and recycle / skip it
• Provide a full inventory of IT stock
• Move accounts data onto the server and secure it
• Write a fax notification routine for the server

And anything else that comes up. Oh, and airport transfers. At least this Sunday will be the last one with the full complement of guest transfers. Theoretically, this means less possibility of screw-ups.

The thing with theories, however, is that they are often disproved…

(Oh, and a quick “hello” to Gerry – thanks for the email and the kind comments!)

Just a quickie today. Liam and John kindly treated me to a curry at the Annapurna curry house at the tail end of the main street last night. We had to wait for a seat (any excuse to pop down to The Pub for a swift half) but it was worth it. Run and staffed by Indians, or perhaps Bangladeshis, means that the food is authentic and well-cooked. The one white member of staff was a young lad who spoke excellent English, but who didn’t know too much about the menu! Not a complaint as it was quite amusing.

John ordered a stuffed naan and when it arrived he happened to mention he realised we’d never asked what it was stuffed with. “Whatever we have kicking around in the kitchen” was the reply.

“Who ordered rice?” was the next one. Well, all three of us had. Different types. “This one’s… erm… white”, which narrowed it down a bit.

Again, not a complaint as it was pretty amusing. We all got what we ordered, the food was delicious (although I still rate the place I went to in Krakow as the best curry house ever) and the service quick. John was very impressed with the bottle of red he selected (and drank unaided), though I was marginally disappointed at them being out of Kingfisher. I guess I’ll just have to go back another time.

OK, that’s stretching it just a little. I met one Dane the other night and he was mad, perhaps almost enough to paint the entire country a bright shade of “bonkers”.

Liam’s visiting with a friend of his. They’re very kindly paying for most of my beer and food while they’re here on the basis that I’m saving them around €40 a night each on accommodation costs. Feeding me and getting me drunk is comparatively cheap, especially when I’m having one of those weeks where I’m tired and don’t have much of an appetite.

Well, on Wednesday night I met them for a beer and a pizza at the Irish Coffee place around the corner. Nice little restaurant as it turns out. After the meal, John headed back for an early night while Liam and I walked up to Chambre Neuf for a nightcap. Seriously. One pint. I had an 8am start at work the next day.

As Liam ordered the beer, a mad Danish guy turned from the bar with two very large drinks in his hands. He took one look at me and yelled “**** you!!!” with a manic look on his face. He forced one of the drinks on me (a G&T) and insisted I drink it. He was bigger than me. I didn’t argue.

I scarpered to the other side of the bar and waited for Liam. About ten minutes, half a pint and one (Dane-supplied) cocktail later he appeared. Carrying another cocktail. We managed to get about fifteen minutes of conversation in before the Mad Dane once again located us. This time armed with a whole bottle of vodka and a 1.5l bottle of Coke. He looked at his watch. “It is 11:00. You drink this in 25 minutes and I pay. All of it. And no cheating!”

A challenge… Which we beat, finishing it in 18 minutes, though Liam definitely had more than I did. Our reward? About 15 shots of toffee vodka, though the Mad Dane managed to drop three of them on the floor. “Pah, is only money!”. We weren’t as mad as him. We shared these with some people at a nearby table who’d been our audience for the previous half hour. All was merry and fine, friendships were being made and conversations held.

Then he came back with another bottle of vodka and more Coke. Good gravy.

After trying to pick Liam up, groping his bottom, almost falling over twice, losing to Liam at a “down the large glass of neat vodka” competition and shouting loudly for a while longer our mysterious benefactor departed. The bar got a lot quieter. We worked our way through a bit more of the vodka and filled the Coke bottle up with the rest as a take-home.

I got talking to one of the bar staff and asked if he minded telling me how much the Danish guy had spent. “Over 400 Euros”, I was told. On a company credit card. Something to do with ship leasing or boat hire or something. I only hope that he’d just signed a pretty impressive contract and we didn’t diddle him out of too much of his bonus. I did give him a €20 bill to try to offset things, and he tried to eat it… Maybe I should have kept it!

So to our mysterious mad drunken Danish booze supplier – thank you.

And I made it to work on time the next morning, before you ask. Amazingly, I was actually quite productive as well. Go figure. I don’t think Liam and John made it onto the slopes before 13:00 the next day though!

One thing I’ve noticed with my recent credit card bill is how much more expensive everything is getting here. I am employed by a UK company and paid (a very small amount each month) in Pounds into a UK bank account. The thing is, since I got here the exchange rate against the Euro has gone into something of a decline.

When I left the UK, I was getting roughly €1.45 to the Pound. Speaking to guests who flew out at the weekend, they struggled to get €1.22. This may not look like too much when you view the figures that way around, but reversing them gives you 1 Euro going from being 66p to 77p in the space of a few months. This essentially means that everything is 10% more expensive to me than it was when I arrived. That is a hell of a jump.

It’s something you have to bear in mind if you head to a foreign country, especially over the long term. Had I been working in the US about two years ago, and getting paid in the same fashion, I’d have been laughing as my pay would have been buying me more and more each month. Sadly, things have gone the other way. Sometimes it’s worthwhile paying up front for stuff. After all, anyone paying a deposit on a French holiday 8 months ago and then having to cover the balance recently would have paid 10% more (were they being billed in Euros) than if they’d coughed up all the money in the first place.

Currency conversion is a minefield, and one I didn’t really pay much attention to when I started travelling. I do remember one friend telling me a story very much the other way around. Many years ago, he was holidaying in – if I recall correctly – Indonesia. Their currency collapses very literally overnight. He and his friend went to bed backpackers with a few hundred pounds in a moderately cheap country. They woke up millionaires.

Their major problem was finding anywhere that had enough hard cash to change their traveller’s cheques. They ended up giving enormous tips to the waiting staff and taxi drivers as there simply wasn’t enough small change anywhere.

I’m just glad this currency slip has occurred mainly after New Year. My bar tab was ridiculous and it would have hurt even more at the current exchange rate!