Fire and Ice

March has come and gone, and I am glad to see it go. It's not a pleasant month in Ireland - wind, rain, and too many drunk people celebrating a Saint known for his temperance.

It has really passed by me in a fog as I've been living to work instead of working to live, which as we all know isn't why I came to Ireland in the first place, but I'm really focusing on my career right now.

To reward myself for working so much over the past two months, I decided to take a couple extra days at Easter and go somewhere. At first I was going to go to Budapest with a friend, but she didn't want to go at Easter because the prices are a bit higher than for other weekends. Though we have yet to set a date for that, I still wanted to do something at Easter. I have a four-day weekend that's just burning a hole in my calendar. I then decided that Istanbul would be nice. Something different, exotic, expanding my horizons beyond Europe proper, and warm weather. But I didn't get around to booking.

A few weeks ago, I got it into my head that I must go skiing. Not it would be nice to go skiing, but I MUST go skiing. I started to look at options and resorts, but it was hard going. Most web sites were touting ski packages that were expensive, and demanded a full week stay - from Saturday to Saturday. I finally found a flight & hotel option I liked on Expedia.co.uk, which by the way, has some great deals and ideas. The package was to fly into Geneva, and stay in Brides-les-Bains in France for £300 from Friday to Monday. Not bad. I checked a ski rental online, and I could rent skis, poles and boots for the whole weekend for EUR60. The only thing was the ski conditions. Brides-les-Bains doesn't have a high altitude, so it ranks low for spring skiing, and Easter is late this year. Not that I'm a good enough skier to care about ski conditions, and I am from Ontario - the icier the better, but it would be nice for there to be snow. Then I found out that you can link into the Three Valleys pass, a short gondola ride away. That pass includes Meribel and I believe Courcheval - resorts that are way out of my league, but if they're good enough for the Brits, then I can ski them too.

Before I had gotten around to booking, I was talking to a friend of mine. She was thinking of going to Iceland for Easter and wondered if I was interested at all. Am I? Iceland is SO COOL, I love going to places that are interesting, but that no one goes to - like Slovenia, or Prague in 1991 before the Brits and Irish found out that beer is the equivalent of a Euro. Even better, I would have a travel companion for a change.

It's set. Reykjavik here I come.