Back from Serbia

I'm sitting in Carlos Blanchard's appartment in Innsbruck now, listening to his rock n roll collection, he got some good music for sure and people who know him should learn a bit from that digital music collection of his. It's snowing outside and I'm stoked that yesterday is just that, yesterday. Even though today is Friday 13th, there's no way it can beat Thursday 12th. But let's start with Wednesday.

It was our last day riding in Serbia and we were supposed to put on a second pro show in the slopestyle. The cool thing though is that it started snowing like hell. It didn't take long before the whole slope was covered in a fluffy pow blanket. There was no way we could get enough speed for the kickers so we built a small stepdown on the knuckle of the big jump and had a powder session. I have never been to a more fun comp/event than that. People were going nuts over 3's, pow slashes and frontflips. We finished the day with a big party with two DJs that are famous, don't really know why they're famous though, if that's good DJ'ing I think there's good money to be made for anyone with a turntable. After a DJ named Goldie had done a pretty good job trying to rape my ears, Carlos and I decided we couldn't handle it anymore, so we went to bed, our ride to the airport was at 8 o'clock the next morning.
And here is where the cursed day of Thursday the 12th start.

- We got a slow start because the cars were frozen shut, we all had to climb in to the van through the drivers seat, not a big deal but just slightly annoying.

- We start driving, the riders in a van and our boardbags in a pick up truck. After 15 minutes the pick up crashes with another car in a left turn. The tracks in the snow shows that the other car was clearly over in the left lane and it should be easliy to get the papers done. While they call the cops and try to figure it all out we start driving for the airport because we got a flight to catch and we're slightly behind schedule (Carlos and my flight that is, the others had later flights).

- We drive for another hour, still no sight of the pick up with our board bags when suddenly our car starts slowing down and our driver starts to swear in Serbian and German. Our car was moving like a drunk on a pogo stick and we had no idea what was wrong. We called the car rental and they wouldn't be able to help us out in at least 1.5 hour. With that added time to our travel, there was no way Carlos and I would catch our flight. No big deal though, the rental car company would have to pick up the tab and we could get an evening in Belgrade and a flight the next morning, we were actually a bit stoked taht we were gonna see the Caiptol of Ex-Yugoslavia.

Here we are stuck somewhere in the Serbian Country side, Heinz Löhle and Clement the Pirate Filmer are stoked.

This is Carlos' reaction to the van breaking down somewhere in the Serbian countryside.

- After an hour the pick up truck comes with all our board bags, turns out they were stuck with the cops for over an hour. The cops tried to play some tricks on them since the other guys involved were locals, locals stick together you know. They were about to get royally screwed over when Marko, the arranger of the whole event just called his buddy who happens to be the chief of police in the area, suddenly the cops were a bit more willing to help the out-of-towners out. They even agreed to fill out the neccesairy forms to report the accident.

- Carlos and I jumped in to the pick up truck as we speed away trying to get to the airport in time. Not an easy mission when you have to go about 200 km's in 1 hour. Marko was even trying to see if it there was any way he could hold back the plane for some time, you just got to love his optimism.

This is Carlos expression when we suddenly see the broken down van pass us on the left in about 300 km/h. The car had magically started to work 10 minutes after we had left and they had been driving like crazy to catch up with us. We decide that the van is going to take us to the aiport faster than the pickup.

- We change cars again, Carlos and I now jump in to the van that can easily drive too fast for the for the snowy conditions.

Carlos get's tired from changing cars all the time. Jocki is tired from partying.

- There is no way in hell we're gonna make our flights now, but we can still make the other guy's flights.. If the Van hadn't broken down again. We were still about 1 hour away from the airport when the piece of shit rental car fucking died again. This time it didn't start after being shut of for 15 minutes.

This is what Carlos thinks of the car breaking down the second time.

- Luckily the car broke down right next to a gas station , so we were drinking some coffee and eating chips for a while when we got a call from the rental company telling us that they wouldn't be able to get us a new car right away, so we had to wait for another hour, now 3 of the other guys had officially lost their flights too.

Carlos get's the news about us having to wait another hour for the new car.

- The new car arrive, we get a call from Marko the arranger and he tells us that Carlos and I have a new flight, it's 5 hours later than our original flight and we should be able to make that flight easily. We're not going to see Belgrade after all but at least we have a flight.

Carlos had to change cars again and got sleepy, Clement also got sleepy.

- We drive to Belgrade without any problems, except that the two remaining riders lose their flights as we hit a traffic jam.

- We are stuck in traffic and our driver from the rental car company from hell isn't paying attention to the traffic, so we crash with the car in front of us... Luckily we were going slow, so nothing happened, just slowed us down another 10 minutes, it's now starting to look a bit dark for our re booked flight too.

This is what Carlos looks like after our second crash of the day.

- The traffic jam suddenly loosens up and we get to the airport in time. We try to check in, and this conversation takes place.

Rude airport dude: "We have a problem, you guys are late, you're fucked."
Us: "But we re-booked our flights, it's all taken care of"
Rude airport dude: "No"
Us: "I'm pretty sure it is, we called and took care of it a couple of hours ago, can't you just check again and help us out?"
Rude airport dude: "No, you guys don't have any tickets, it's not my problem"
Us: "Pretty sure you're wrong, could you please talk to Marko over there"
Marko The arranger to the Rude airport dude: "bla bla bla in Serbian"
Rude airport dude: "OK guys, here are your tickets"
Me to Carlos "What the fuck just happened?"
Carlos: "No idea"

And then we checked in without any trouble at all, didn't pay any overweight and we were personally escorted to the bulky luggage check-in by a nice lady.
I have no idea what Marko told that guy, but with a few seconds of magical Serbian talk and there wasn't a problem in sight.

Jocki Köfler and Clement managed to catch their flight after all due to a 2 hour delay, the skier dudes managed to get new tickets with out too much hassle and Heinz Löhle ended up on the same flight as us thanks to a lot of magic Serbian talk from Marko.

"Hey Carlos, what do you think the rest of the day will bring?"

What a fucking interesting trip, hope you bothered to read all of this.
Thanks everyone in Serbia, you guys rule.