Zurich

Old Town Zurich

Munster Church

naked man and an eagle.. standard 

Apparently the Swiss think that the non-Swiss peeps are ruining their country..

Me and Kenny on the way to the mountains 

Chur old town

The bathrooms at the "box" bar in Chur

meg!

Cheese fondu

Me &Brian at Lenzerheide

Last weekend I went to Zurich, Switzerland to visit a few people that I went to high school with.  I have been wanting to go skiing in the alps, so it worked out perfect that I happen to know 2 people living right near there, and who love to ski.  On Thursday after school I headed out fully equipped with my super american backpacking pack.  It only takes 2 hours to get from here to Zurich, which was perfect timing to watch the 2 new episodes of Lost that came out the night before :)  Our train had a stop in Basel, so while crowds of people were coming onto the train.. someone came and sat down right next to me, practically sitting on me, and threw my stuff onto my lap.  I of course was very annoyed and was trying to enjoy my t.v. show addiction.  Well I looked over to give them a nasty look, and it was my friend Kenny, who was one of the people I was going to visit!  He works in Basel, and on his way home he somehow found me on the train.  So we headed to Zurich, and went and met up with Megan and her boyfriend, the other people I was visiting.  The first night we just did some catching up ( I probably haven't seen these people in about 4 years.)  

On Friday all of them had to work, so I went out and did some exploring in Zurich on my own.  For some reason, every time I have been to Switzerland, it has been pouring rain.  Well of course the curse continued on this day too.  I saw the Swiss Museum, the lake, some churches, and since it was raining, I had a perfect excuse to do some shopping too.  Zurich is a really beautiful city, and everywhere in Switzerland is always so clean and nice!  It also seems very americanized there, for the first time in months I saw a ton of SUV's driving around, which is very un-euro of them.  But I guess the Swiss don't want to be "euro" anyways.  

On Saturday we went to an american-style breakfast place, and I got some greasy eggs and bacon for the first time in euroland!  People here do NOT eat that for breakfast.  I am sure it is only americans that go to this place.  I also was told that Zurich has a Hooter's, which I was very jealous of.  Not for the sake of seeing women wearing skanky clothes, just for the sake of missing greasy American food.  After hearing about the big wind storm in the mountains on saturday, and figuring out that all of the ski lifts were closed at the ski resorts, we had to postpone our skiing for Sunday.  We decided to go up to the mountains anyways so we could get an early start on Sunday.  The town where we got a hotel was called Lenzerheide.  On the train there we had to switch to a bus in a town called Chur, so we walked around the old town there for while too and had some beverages.   In Lenzerheide we went out, had some delicious cheese fondu, and got to bed early.  

Sunday morning we got up and headed for the slopes!  I was a little nervous to ski, after my last traumatizing experience here.  All of my bruises weren't even healed yet and I was going back for more.  However, this time things went much better!  There was nice fresh powder and I rented really nice skis.  I didn't even fall once!  It was so beautiful up there that I don't think I would have cared if I broke a leg anyways.  The only bad experience was yet another with these butt-pull things.  The swiss butt pull is designed for 2 people to ride together.  So the first time up, my friend was with me, coaching me, and everything went okay.  The second time, he decided to let me go by myself.  Huge mistake.  I tried 3 times and couldn't do it.  Finally, I gave up, and started pulling the thing with my arms.  After about 2 minutes I thought my arms were literally going to fall off, and I still wasn't even halfway up the mountain.  I couldn't drop it, because I was in the middle of the forest.  So I just had to suck it up.  It was probably the most awkward sight ever, me trying to pull this thing and somehow hold onto my poles too.  I made it to the top though, even though I definitely lost my poles somewhere along the way.  Luckily some nice lady picked them up on her way and brought them to me.  The rest of the day we tried to steer towards the chair lifts and gondolas.   So overall it was a great weekend, it was really good to see some familiar faces, and I also am very happy that I have regained my confidence as a decent skier!

La Bresse

This past Friday I went on a night skiing trip with my students and some of the teachers from school.  Wow, what an experience!  I have been skiing for a pretty long time, and I am really not a bad skier.  I am to the point where I never fall and feel really comfortable with it.  Well, that all changed on Friday.  First of all I had to rent skis, boots and poles since I decided not to lug all my ski equipment over here with me.  I decided to go for the cheaper rentals, mistake #1.  When we got to the resort, called La Bresse, I went up the mountain first with the 2 ski instructors from school.  Mistake #2.  Of course they take us on the biggest, steepest slope there.  So ok, I'm fine, I'm confident, I can do this, right?  Well we start heading down the mountain, the ski instructors are around me doing like intricate jumps and skiing backwards.  Then there's me, trying to get used to these new skis and boots, and trying to stay calm about the fact that the entire hill was straight up ice. So after about 1 minute, I have my first wipe out.  We are talking both skis off, poles flying, wipe out.  No big deal, get up and start going again.  I start going and boom.. wipe out #2.  This continued at least 6 times on that first hill.  So once I get to the bottom, I realized that my boot had come unhooked during the first fall, which was the cause of the other 5 falls.  Ok so no big deal, one of the instructors helped me fix the problem and we went back up for another run.  Once I got used to my skis things started to go better!  Of course these guys come to this resort like once a week, so they decided to take me on the pitch black non existent trails going through the trees!  I seriously thought I was going to die.  But since I am here to tell the story, looking back it was pretty fun.  Now, next challenge, the "tire fesse."  This means a "butt pull."  Sounds easy, right?  You have to sit your butt on this little round thing and it pulls you up the hill.  Ok this would be easy for someone who has done this forever, but for me it was a different story.  I wiped out at least 3 times trying to get on this thing.  French people think I am crazy.  Anyways, by the end of the night I had finally accustomed myself to this new French skiing experience, and it ended up being really fun!  I also learned some new french vocabulary, which is how to say "bruises."  I have so many of them I can barely sit down.