Results for "The Daveo Photo Smile" Contest

Here are the pics, all gathered together. Sorry it took so long.
I was gonna post comments, but I don't think I have to. (I'm not quite sure why none of the blokes participated...)

Hopes for 2006

I re-read the mass-eMail from Leslie that she sent on New Year's Eve, and I just wanted to put a paragraph on my blog cos it really hit me...

So for 2006 this is what I wish for all of us: I wish us a year of encounters that make us feel vulnerable. I wish us moments where we feel absolutely down on our luck-- followed by times where we feel triumphant as we crawl out of the slime. I wish that we'd step away from our pride and be happy to just be humble-- accepting when we're wrong and feeling blessed when we're right. I wish for us to experience a conviction that we need change-- that the finger would be pointed at ourselves instead of judging others (we all do it at least once-in-a-while).

I too hope this for us all.

Chinese, Japanese, What are these?

Last night I was studying with my Japanese buddy Satoshi Kobayashi, and after getting him to prank Jimmy and Justin's room in Japanese, I decided that we should go and surprise the new Korean students by cooking them a huge bowl of my Chinese noodles with Mussels and spices in them. Pretty much the whole of Asia was represented in the room. It was awesome.
We totally put on a spontaneous live comedy sketch for almost an hour.
After bundling into this Korean guy's room and dragging him out to eat our noodles, we did a Gorilla verses Chimpanzee dance, threw random things around the room, and I force-fed noodles into the mouth of every person in the room! Including six Koreans! Now that's a feat.
The whole thing was hilarious and the Koreans were in stitches, which is an unusual sight, but thouroughly enjoyable. Satchmo and I had already planned to go back to studying after these shenanigans, so at the agreed time, both of us just got up and walked out in the middle of our act.
The Koreans have no idea what's going on in this place. It's great. A night to note.

Moody Bible Institute

I got in!!!

Pooing in the Pants. Please Pray.

As many of you know, tomorrow, I find out whether I get into Moody Bible Institute in Chicago or not.
Please pray that God's will is done, and also for me, that I will not freak out too much if I don't get in.
I really have my hopes up and I think about little else every day.
Thanks guys.

Oh, yeah, and post some comments on my art photos as well, punks!

Drawing on my face

Last night I was getting bogged down in studying and research for an essay, so I decided to cheer myself up by drawing on my face with Crayola markers. some people thought I was weird, but I didn't care. You know me.
So i went over to the girls' flat last night, which is where Regina lives. She's the Austrian girl I stayed with when I was there on the first night. She's pretty much awesome. I hung out with a Swedish girl who is fun, and then talked for over an hour with Regina, just about, stuff.
It was strangely refreshing just to talk like that. I miss it. I miss you guys.
Anyway, Regina's known as quite a sensible girl and I dared her to dress up really nice and come over to my room just before devotions this morning, to draw on each other's faces. She totally chickened out on me, so I went to devotions in a suit, which nobody does. I was quite out of place but I didn't mind. Then at the end of devos, they asked everyone to stay in the hall for a 360degrees pan photo for the new college website. I instantly got out my red marker and Regina drew two bright red cheeks on me. I was gonna draw on her face, but she chickened out again.
Anyway, I left the red cheeks on, but didn't realise the photographer would be taking another one of those 360 pan photos of my next class as an example of a typical classroom! It was so funny, cos I decided to sit at the back of the classroom, alone on the back row, in a full suit, shirt and tie, with rosy red cheeks, and a sad/angry face. The same happened in the cafeteria. Ha. Each time, I pulled the same face. Here it is. I'll let you know if I make it on the website. I'll probably be called into the principle's office tomorrow though.

Until next time, R.I.P. Austria

It's not so much being here, but rather, not being there.
I guess hideous amounts of Milka and salami along with my photographs, will have to do.

The Best Last Day

Evening of the 7th Jan…
I’m sitting here in Salzburg airport (as many of you have done) and I’m waiting for my delayed flight back to London Stansted. This afternoon, I had a wonderful time with Sophie and her boyfriend Tobi. I honestly would have been satisfied just to meet up and spend an hour or two with them on a park bench somewhere, waiting until my plane to arrive. That would have been cool.
However, they took me to a quaint but posh coffee shop in downtown Salzburg where we ordered coffees, shared a couple of slices of amazing Austrian cakes and also a Cuban cigar, for celebratory purposes of course. Awesome. It was so good to share the company of a good friend.
And I know you are all waiting to here about Tobi. Well, here’s the schpeel… He is perfect for her. Seriously. They just match up great. You can tell by the picture, he’s good-looking, he’s also polite, funny and an all-round nice guy. He also looked out for me, and it’s always a good sign when the guy looks out for a girl’s friends, I think you’d agree.
After talking for a couple of hours in that coffee shop, we went out to a beer hall where the Augustine monks used to drink. It really was quite the experience, picking up a beer mug as you walked in, paid, and got it filled up with beer straight from the barrel. Then you enter one of several beer halls full of people just sitting, talking and drinking their beer. Fabulous.
To top it all off, we went to the Red Bull flight hangar, where the owner and founder of Red Bull keeps his private collection of planes and vehicles and the likes, such as a huge Hummer. It was so upper class, and the sort of place that in England you couldn’t get close to unless you were a millionaire. It was classily lit, elegantly polished, and there was sophisticated mood piano music being played, which we only later noticed was live, with a pianist playing on a deserted landing, aided by the incredible acoustics of this aeronautical building. Truly breathtaking. I only wish I’d had more time to enjoy it.
So here I am writing another summary of this trip. I’d honestly have to say this was the best trip of my life. I can’t think of a word to describe it, so here’s a new one.
Outstandish.

Daveo's Last Night in Town

Early afternoon of the 7th Jan…
Last night after lazing around for most of the day, Dawn, her friend, and I went back for a movie sleepover night at Christian’s. Before we went back to his though, we picked up one of Christian’s friends so they could go surfing in the snow. They both took surfboards and bombed it down the side of a ski-jump (the same one we went to with our family, Beej). Christian pretty much rocked. And it was really fun to watch too. Dawn, her friend and I took snow-decks and tried our hand at going down fresh powder slopes. It was pretty hard, since the snow wasn’t packed, but Dawn was surprisingly good at it.
Afterwards, the four of us went back to Christian’s to chill. I had my first Stiegl (since I didn’t drink last time) and it wasn’t bad, and then we cracked open a bottle of Spanish wine which Dawn had brought from her apartment. It pretty much tasted like ass, but we drank it anyway. We mellowed out, listened to music and played Texas Hold ‘em. The movie didn’t happen.
We got back to Dawn’s early this morning and slept for a little bit, before I said my goodbyes and made my way to the train station.
I’m sitting on the train from Schladming to Salzburg to meet Sophie and her boyfriend for a few hours before flying home to England.
On the whole, this trip has been pretty sweet. Even looking out of the window right now, shows me the glory of God and the wonderment of his creation. I think it was yesterday that the verse for the day at the top of this page was Romans 1:20 which says

From the time the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky and all that God made. They can clearly see his invisible qualities – his external power and divine nature. So they have no excuse whatsoever for not knowing God.

And I whole-heartedly agree.

Tauernhof in the Snow

The Planai with snow...And for the lads...
The Funcourt, where we played footie all the time.

Surfboard and Snow

Night of the 5th Jan…
So tonight, Christian, myself, and three kitchen girls from Germany went back to Ramsau up to the ski-jump with a surfboard and all five of us sat on it and bombed the hill. It was seriously unbelievable. It was so hard to walk up this ski jump, as it was so steep, but it was totally worth it. The theory was, that with the weight of five people the surfboard would speed down the hill a whole lot faster. And the theory was right. It was so freaking fast, and our all our faces were frozen solid when we hit the bottom of the hill over 100 metres later. We rode that hill twice, and it was so fun!
Then, we went back to Christian’s house and snow-decked some more. That was awesome. I was actually getting pretty good at it, I thought. There were a few other fresh-snow hills that we tried to ride, but the powder was like over 2 feet thick, and so we just sunk in. Tonight was such an awesome night. One I’ll never forget.

Pictures from this morning's hike

Late afternoon of the 4th Jan…
So this morning was absolutely amazing. The hike down from Ramsau to Schladming took about 2 hours including stoppages. The views were incredibly amazing and truly breathtaking. There were only a few times where I had to basically swim through snow that was up to my chest, but it was totally worth it. I actually fell down a hill, but it was all thick powdery snow so I didn’t get hurt. I absolutely loved it. Here are some pics of the hike today, but I will post some on my photo blog soon as well.Since I stayed at Christian’s, I haven’t seen Dawn all day as she is nannying. Tonight, Christian said something about riding down the ski-jump on a surf board. I’m not entirely sure what he means, but I’m sure I’ll find out soon.