ben n brady

Hi everyone

hope you all had a fantastic christmas and new years and havent missed  me to much.  You may notice a change in this email I am now using  capital letters at the start of sentences.  Thats just for you dad!  You may also notice my spelling is shocking and Im missing apostrophes  but that is due to the keys on this keyboard being all mixed up and I  cant find a couple of buttons!

Now to get on with our travels.. After our fantastic few days in  prague we were ready to move on and headed down to dresden; south of  berlin, for a night to see another friend of bens from his time in  brasil.  Margit is very cool and after a tour of the city, which is  very like a miny berlin.  A lot of the buildings here were also  destroyed in WWII but have been built back to look original. Ah yes we  headed with her to a house warming party.  Was a rather bizzare  experience to say the least.  Fun though, we ate tasty soup and  laughed when everyone else did as we dont speak german and they little  english.. Come to think of it they were probably laughing at us..haha

The next midday we caught the train onto Austria, though nearly didnt  make it as a mix up with the stations caused us to be 6 mins late.   Thankfully the train was 9 mins late. Our friend Christop who we met  at a backpackers in melbourne earlier this year picked us up from the  train at kitzbuhel in Austria.  We stayed with his family for a week  and had the most amazing time!  Snowboarded for 4 days.. a variety of  slopes to choose from only 10 mins from the house.  Chris has to work  a fair bit though there was a handy free bus that picked ben and I up  each day.  His dad came out one day too, a very talented skier! and he  has a great laugh!  We were staying in a little village where everyone  gets into the New Years spirit so went to new years warm up parties  for 2 nights before the actual eve night.  These parties are held in  the town square and have music; one night a dj the other a live band.   Everyone here drinks hot wine too to keep warm though Im not a fan so  stuck to radlers which are pre mixed here and very popular with the  young ppl.  Ben and I got frozen feet though.  Our shoes not matching  up with the sturdy ones they have.  Heading to the ski slopes new  years eve for fireworks then had a fantastic dinner with some of  Kristops friends and then hit up the town for more drinks!! lots of  fun! had 20 of show a few days before we left which covered the town  and evertyhing looked so different!

have to finish quick cos time up here.. left austria, decdied to be  adventures and hire a car and drive across switzerland... and for the  record ben and i are still talking after that!! hahaha It went rather  smoothly though its hard to get too lost with the country being so  small, though our map wasnt too detailed!  Stayed in the pitchuresue  town of interlaken where we go spectacular views of mountains from our  bedroom window and saw the sun set over mountains and lakes.   Snowboarded for a day at the schlithorn; famous in some james bond  film has a revolving restuarant at the top.. drove from there to  montreux and dropped off the car

9 hrs later on the train arrived at Briancon in the french alpes.  Had  a week snowboarding at a resort there with free brekkie and dinner,  the chairlift 100m from accomodation so pretty much no respnsibilties  for the week except having fun.. snow was getting a little sparse and  a few runs shut on the last day so we left at a good time..

After hearing some good stories decidedt o try our luck at hitching to  the nextplace.  Was a great success!! 2 champs from the hostel drove  us for an hr to a place they were boarding at.  From here waited long  enough for ben to have a pee befroe the smammest car on the road  stopped and tookn us another hour.. then got a lift the   res of the  way with one of the " directors of a snowboarding company Apo who was  heading to the mountins for a new launch.. so we travelled and he  dropped us off at our hostel in Annecy in a mercedes!! hah nice one  and not bad considering we both have back packs and 1.8m snowboard  bags each.

Have now been here for a few days while we wait for the snow to  arrive.  Beuatiful town set on a lake with lots of canals running  throught the city. Eating lots of bread, and cheese and its... might  get into the wine tonight!

Going to attempt to hitch hike out of here on saturday to Avoriaz,  another ski resort for a week with another of bens mates...

hope your all good..take care, see you in 1 month today.. mum have a  bbq ready please and inform the sun to be shining on the beach.. yeah  aimee your email made me jealous!.. though we have been getting lots  of sun here too!

Love Brady XXXXXXXXXXXXXX