Thursday, November 19, 2009

Air & Style




When I was working at Limmerick Bill's Irish Pub while living in Innsbruck, Austria, I was never able to attend Air & Style. Which for those of you who do not know is an annual winter Snow Boarding Festival and competition where snowboarders from around the world compete and live music is performed. The reason I was never able to go before was because I worked with a bunch of Snow Board enthusiasts who ate, breathed and lived snow boarding 24/7. They literally moved to Austria just to snow board and get drunk all the time, nothing else! So they naturally requested to have time off during the festival and were given the days off Air & Style took place, forcing me to work and miss all three festivals that took place while I lived in Europe. Shortly after the festival moved to Munich, but it didn't do as well as in Innsbruck and eventually moved back.




Which is why this past winter I made it a point to travel all the way to Europe, just to attend Air & Style for the first time. Despite it having been years after having lived and worked in Europe. The bands playing the winter year I went were Mando Diao and Deichkind, which I have actually both seen before at Roskilde and Frequency respectively. I almost didn't make it because I didn't actually have a ticket, mainly because a (former) friend of mine waited too long to get one for me and they subsequently sold out. In fact our friendship ended partially because of Air & Style. To make a long story short I gave my friend money to get a ticket for me and he waited a week to try and get it and it sold out during the time he procrastinated. He then proceeded to lie to me about when he actually tried to get me a ticket, but I was able to verify the actual date he attempted to get me a ticket and it was a week later than he said. Which really, really pissed me off. Luckily I was able to buy one off of someone just before the event and attend the show, which was really, really cool, but also really really cold!




Although the Vodka I brought with me did help me stay warm to a certain degree, which was nice. As was being surrounded by crisp, clean whiteness as far as the eye could see. For Austria really is beautiful during the winter, and I really do miss the actual seasons and especially being able to have a white Christmas! The event lasted for several hours and usually ends close to midnight or earlier if the weather gets really bad, though this time it was a normal sort of winter I guess? Hey, how the hell should I know having been born and raised in the constant sunshine of California all my life?






I even bumped into some old friends and co workers that I have not seen in awhile which was really nice. Especially since not everyone knew that I was going to be there that winter, as it had been years since I was last in Austria during the winter. Sometime around 2003 to be exact as I spent most of the winter of 2004 in Les Deux Alpes France, which let me tell you was absolutely horrible, but that is a Blog for another time my friends. If you are a fan of snowboarding or winter sports, I would strongly suggest that you attend if you can.

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