After 3 days on the road we arrived in Horní Bečva, one of the funniest towns in the world if you say the name in English. I was really hoping for a big “Welcome to Horní Bečva” sign, but as there wasn’t one, we had to settle for taking pictures in front of all the businesses that named themselves after the town. Unfortunatly we seemed to be the only ones who found the name funny, when renting skies the rental guy didn’t seem phased at all by the fact that we said we were staying in Horny Bitchfu.

We spent our time in Horní Bečva eating our brains out, skiing, and sledding. Our first day skiing was shrouded in clouds. Very dense clouds. The picture here isn’t darkened, it was just that dark and cloudy. Made for some slow and interesting skiing. It also made for some snowy skiing. We got dumped on, more than a foot of snow in the few days we were there.

London was brought to its knees yesterday by the most snow that it’s seen in 18 years. It was a fun and funny time. My flat mates and I rushed out at 1:30 in the morning and had a snowball fight and made a snowman. With no hills readily available we missed out on sledding.

After the night’s fun came the funny part, heading into work. All the bus services were suspended, and I’ve heard speculation that one of the reasons is some buses may not have had anti-freeze in their radiators. As you can see below though, the roads were terrible. Nothing was plowed, so snow, slush, and ice was the rule of the road.

But the most fun was seeing the town playing around in the snow. People were stopping everywhere to take pictures, people skated down sidewalks, and snowballs we always in the air. A group of us gathered in a nearby park for a snowball fight and people walking down the street joined in, instantly doubling the size of the melee. I reminded me of that first day of spring when it’s nice enough to sunbathe or kick a ball around. Everyone was a friend, if only so they didn’t feel guilty pelting you with snowballs.

I think I had more fun ringing in 2009 than I’ve had for just about any New Year that I can recall. The evening festivities started with a torch-lit descent of some 150 people, many of them skiing in unison with torches and flares which they then piled into the bonfire you see in the picture above. Along with the skiing, there was free hot wine and a drumming group.

It had been snowing lightly since sundown, but as midnight approached the snow picked up. 2009 was welcomed into existence with the return of the drumming group, people partying in the streets, and people breathing fire, as captured in this video, which sadly doesn’t include the look of wonder on my face:

After we’d partied ourselves out, and our ski weary legs wouldn’t let us dance any more, we wandered on home. Normally a couple of drunk kids walking 2 km home in sub-zero temps would draw some serious complaints, but with the foot of fresh snow, we were just loving it. Hope 2009 keeps it up at this pace. Happy New Year everyone!

I was sitting in my living room on a rainy Sunday in London bemoaning the weekend’s terrible weather and my resulting weekend indoors watching movies. One of my neighbors ran into the house the rain and upon hearing my reaction to the weather told me: life isn’t about weathering the storm, it’s about learning to sing in the rain.

That might be some of the best advice I’ve ever received, and you can rest assured that I’ll repeat it. It also happens to have been the perfect advice for this weekend as I walked around Amsterdam in the snow and wind with nothing even close to proper clothing. Toughing the cold paid off though. The city of canals was beautiful in the snow.

Photo: Amsterdam this Sunday during a break in the snow.