The following entries were tagged with “austria”. They are displayed with the most recent entries first. (1–2)

That Was Close

Posted in , , , , and on Tue, 22nd Apr 2008 at 19:12

It seems there was an avalanche in Sölden yesterday. That's the town where I was skiing/getting horribly sunburned on Thursday:

An avalanche buried an Austrian ski resort’s street under more than 12 feet of snow today.

Police, caught by surprise, were searching to see if anyone was trapped in the 100-yard stretch just outside the town of Soelden in the western Alpine province of Tyrol.

Mayor Ernst Schoepf said up to 13 feet of snow covered parts of the Venterstrasse – a key local roadway leading in and out of the area.

Ok, not so much of a "lucky escape" given that I was only there for less than two days and the avalanche happened three days later, but it's notable at least.

Innsbruck

Posted in , , and on Wed, 16th Apr 2008 at 14:42

As many of you know, I've been in Innsbruck in Austria since Monday, giddily drinking in the promises of new and improving Google technology.

Never in my life have I seen so many demos and previews of so many amazing products and so much cutting edge technology that I wasn't allowed to talk about. Over the last couple of days I've shifted from an eager, childlike curiosity about how everything is implemented, what technology its based on, where and how it runs—to a resigned sense that there's not a great deal of hope that I'm going to understand the answers to any of those questions. But boy do I want to use it!

This evening I leave Innsbruck for Soelden, where we'll be joined by all of the non-engineers for a day of skiing and partying. I've never skied before, but I'm generally a fan of going downhill so I think I'll enjoy it.