192.168.0.1, sweet 192.168.0.1

Home at last. Bruised, blistered and sore and my room didn't miraculously clean it's self while I was away (much to my disappointment).

I brought a few Tmavy Zlaty Bazants home... I would have drunk them on the way if they weren't buried so deep in my bag.

I'm not really looking forward to going back to work tomorrow and somehow I don't think I can use "Jetlag" as an excuse.

Bratislava

We're just about to head home. We spent the night in Bratislava and I was hoping that we would be spending the day here as well so that I could get in some sightseeing... It looks like a charming old city but our flight is at 10 and we have to head out in the next hour.

I am looking forward to spending some quality time with my PC when I get back home though! Should be home by dinner.

Hotel Fis

So I finally found an Internet cafe... well, I say internet cafe but its really just two machines in the hotel lobby and it feels like they're using dialup.

We're spending the night at Hotel Fis at Strbske Pleso. We couldn't get the cottage for the duration of our stay. So we're spending tonight in relative luxury. Tomorrow we're back off to Bratislava for our last night and before heading home on Tuesday.

New words that I've learnt over the last few days:

Nazdraviev - Cheers
Djakuyem - Thank You.

No one has taught me the spelling though.

The food and beer is really good here, not to mention cheap. I've been paying around 50p for a beer.

Sleep

(submitted by phone so please forgive the lack of formatting etc. I will probably sort it out when I get home).

I finally got to sleep 48 hours into my holiday. That's the longest that I've stayed awake without the aid of drugs (alcohol not included) in ages.

Donovan had a few problems getting through immigration (mostly because the guy Checking didn't understand English).



We were on our way again an hour later and just made our train which left at around 12am. Didn't get much sleep on the four and a half hour train trip from Bratislava to Poprad but did manage to get a sk600 fine before I even made it into the terminal. Apparently you are not allowed to smoke on the platform (of course there was no signage where I got off the train and judging from the amount of cigarette butts in the bin, it's a nice little money earner for the cops).

So anyway we were in Poprad at five in the morning and could only check in at the place we were renting at eight so we did an hour's worth of shopping at Tesco before having some breakfast and heading off to our cottage.

The place is really nice, tucked away in the trees and has everything that you need (except internet access, which is probably a good thing). We stayed just long enough to have a coffee before heading off to find the slopes and I spent some time falling on my face and arse alternately. Eventually I gave up and admired the view until the others got tired of eating snow. Well, the girls were not having any problems skiing to tell the truth. I did learn a few new words though. "prepach" (sic) which I think means "I'm terribly sorry for crashing into you" and I seem to be using it a lot.

This morning we got a bit of a late start and went to a beginner slope as opposed to the mediate slope we were on yesterday. Turning gave of the most hassle and my first few runs were problematic but things got better once I discovered that it helps if you bend your knees.

Not sure where we're off to tomorrow but I think I might need to practice the art of stopping rather than the more or less controlled crash that I've been using up to now.

Strbske Pleso

I'm off to go sit in the snow for a week (and perhaps manage a little snowboarding while I'm at it).

I'm quite excited about it. It will be my first attempt at snowboarding and my first time in Slovakia.

Hmmm... that reminds me... I haven't worked out how to order beer in Slovakianish. Time for a little Googling.

NTL trials 100Mb broadband

Tempting... very tempting.

Read more at The Register

Bulldog: We'll win 24Mbps broadband race

Bulldog claims it is doing a better job than its competitors at bringing the high speed broadband service ADSL2+ to market.

Right, I'm not falling for that one again.

What they don't say is that you'll only get 24MB if you are 500m from the exchange, 18MB < 1Km, 10MB < 2km. Anything over that and you're better off with an 8MB service.

Read more at news.zdnet.co.uk/commun...

Embassies burn in cartoon protest

Syrians have set fire to the Norwegian and Danish embassies in Damascus to protest at the publication of newspaper cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

I take it it's not the fact that the cartoons depicted god in a negative and violent light that caused the offence and rather that god was depicted at all.

Read more at news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/mid...