Ok, so it’s been about two months since my last blog post. Mia culpa. I’ll try to do better going forward…
Life has been going pretty smoothly over the past few weeks. As we’re finally starting to transition from the bitter cold of February and March, to the grey skies and wetness of April in Zurich, Lindsey and I are really starting to feel at home in our new city. We’ve established several good friendships, and are doing our best to stay active and outgoing despite the drab weather. Before we completely move on to the Springtime and some of the exciting visits and vacations we have coming up in the next several weeks and months, I’d like to give everyone a recap on the last month or so of Winter fun in Switzerland.
Since I don’t think I ever got around to posting about it previously, our second ski trip of the season (after our weekend in Villars back in January) was to an area called Braunwald. We traveled to Braunwald, which is in the east central part of Switzerland, the weekend of February 25th and stayed for just a day, but it was a delightful experience. Unlike a number of the ski resorts we’ve been to this year, the pistes at Braunwald were densely forested, steep, narrow, and in many places quite powdery.
Lindsey and I had invited several of our friends to join us, but since the trip was planned relatively last minute many of them could not make it. Not deterred, we took the early morning train out of Zurich HB, heading south along Lake Zurich, and then into the more mountainous part of east-central Switzerland. It started out as an unseasonably warm day, with the sun shining, perfect for a long day on the slopes.
Since we reached the mountain shortly after the lifts opened, Linds and I were the only ones on the slopes for what seemed like forever. However, shortly after we arrived I received a text from Amish, one of my colleagues at PwC, that he and another colleague of ours had decided last minute to take us up on our offer, and would be joining us at Braunwald that afternoon.
Once they arrived we met up for lunch on the mountain and then spent the rest of the afternoon on the slopes. Lindsey had her best day on skis all year, and actually did quite well on several of the more challenging runs. Despite a brief rainstorm that came through mid-day, it was a great day to be out skiing/snowboarding, and was made especially better when our friends were able to join us.
After Braunwald, Lindsey and I didn’t wait too long before our next ski and snowboarding adventure, which we planned for March 10th at Hoch Ybrig.
We learned of the mountain at Hoch Ybrig through the Snow n’ Rail packages that are offered though the SBB transportation webpage, where we were able to get a great deal on lift tickets along with the train tickets to get there. The mountain was not at all like what we experienced at Braunwald, instead, Hoch Ybrig was treeless and MUCH more crowded. The weather was sunny and a bit warm, so the slopes were slick in some places. While mostly disappointing, we still managed to enjoy our day by finding a few areas in between the pistes where there was abundant powder left over from earlier in the season.
For the last trip of the ski season, Lindsey got stuck staying at home because I headed to Davos with my team from PwC to enjoy a weekend of “team-building” activities, and fun on the mountain.
My financial services consulting team at PwC makes a habit of hosting quarterly outings where we can all get together to have some fun and interact on a non-work basis. During the first part of December, just before Lindsey and I moved to Zurich, the team hosted a ski trip, so by March it was time for another. The weekend officially started Friday night on March 23rd, so most of us left work around noon that day to catch a train down to Davos, Switzerland. In hindsight, the train ride down to Davos was one of my favorite parts of the trip. Since there aren’t any open (alcohol) container laws in Switzerland, it was an easy decision to stockpile beer and snacks for the two-hour ride. Needless to say the half-day of work and the plentiful beer put everyone in the right frame of mind. On top of that, by having a large enough group it is apparently possible to rent out a whole section in one of the train cars, so that’s just want we did!
When we arrived in Davos everyone checked into their rooms and rendezvoused at the bar for our next team activity. It had been arranged for us to participate in a GPS hunt throughout Davos that would eventually lead us to the gondola that would transport us up to the top of the mountain for dinner. If you’re never been on a GPS hunt before it works like this: Each team (or individual) is provided with a GPS device that has locations throughout the city pre-programed in it that will show up as waypoints on the GPS. By following those waypoints on the GPS, each team is taken on a walking tour around the city until all the waypoints are located. We split into teams of five or six people and spent the next hour and a half walking around Davos searching for our GPS waypoints, hoping to be the first team back so we could relax before dinner. It was good to get a stretch of the legs, but the GPS hunt was nothing exciting, so I’ll just skip to straight to dinner.
As I mentioned before, we took the gondola up to the lodge on the mountain to have dinner together. Dinner was interesting, to say the least. After enjoying some drinks on the deck that overlooked Davos and the whole valley, we retired inside for wine and fondue. At this point, I’m pretty tired of fondue, since its basically just bread and cheese - not anywhere close to a satisfying dinner. After dinner was over I was surprised when half of the team started singing a mixture of German and American pop songs, much like you would expected at a karaoke bar back in the US. After dinner we returned to the hotel to get ready for our final evening activity: the club. We went to Pöstli, which is apparently one of the hottest clubs in Switzerland, and certainly the most famous in Davos. Like most European clubs, things really don’t get started until after midnight, so the whole team rallied at the hotel and hit the club sometime between midnight and 1 AM. We had rented out a whole section on the second floor of the club and arranged for bottle service for the entire night. Needless to say things got crazy. Next time you see me, feel free to ask for details…
The next day many of us still managed to get up early to hit the mountain for some skiing/snowboarding. Mind you this was after staying out until around 5 AM, so I’m impressed with myself for even making it at all. I ended up sticking with a group of colleagues for most of the day, but we were all relatively good so we made it up and down the mountains more time than I could count. All in all I really enjoyed the slopes in Davos. The mountain was mostly bare, like it was at Hoch-Ybrig, but on a much larger scale. The slopes were wide and fast, and there was a sufficient amount of snow to really have a lot of fun.
The PwC event officially ended that afternoon; so many people on the team went home after their day on the mountain. I, and about 15 others, ended up staying that Saturday night so we could enjoy Davos nightlife one more time. After a team dinner at a local Italian restaurant we hit the clubs again, this time visiting several places before ending up back at Pöstli. Since I was still pretty worn out from the night before, I decided to make it any early evening and head back to the hotel around 3 AM.
The next day everyone went their separate ways, and I carpooled back with some of my friends from the office. The weekend was exhausting, but I had an amazing time.
