Well, like Lindsey mentioned in her last post, the past few weeks have been really busy. Surprisingly, even after only being here a month, it was still challenging to move again – even if it was only across town this time. The fact that we didn’t have a car or a quick mode of transportation only compounded that fact. Despite difficulties, we managed to pull together the move through a series of tram rides, car/van rentals, and train trips. Glad that’s all done with. We’re still on the lookout for some more furniture, but for the most part we’re all settled in! That includes a furnished guest room, so we are ready for everyone to come visit!
Ok, on to the more exciting stuff… The past month wasn’t just filled with moving apartments, we also made two weekend trips within Switzerland to go sledding and skiing.
First, on the weekend of January 11th Lindsey and I joined the Swiss couple I mentioned in my January 8th blog post for a trip to Jenaz to go sledding (located on the far eastern side of Switzerland, near Lichtenstein). This was no East Coast sledding mind you. When the Swiss say sledding, they usually mean taking a sled (the “old fashion” looking kind with metal runners) to the top of a snowy mountain, and then sledding down a steep, snow-covered road all the way to the bottom. In our case, this meant about a 45 minute long sled ride, where we easily reached speeds of around 25-35 mph.
The day started off with a early morning train ride leaving Zurich’s central train station, called Zurich Hauptbahnhof (or Zurich HB for short), where we took a train southeast to a small town just west of Jenaz. From there we took another, smaller, local train to Jenaz itself where we then took a bus up a long windy road to the top of the mountain where our sledding would begin.
Before starting our trip back down that same windy road, this time on sleds, we enjoyed yet another traditional Swiss meal of cheese fondue, bread and fruit. After lunch, we rented our sleds, received some brief instruction on how to steer and brake (basically just putting your feet down to do both), and before we knew it we were off down the mountain. Lindsey was the first to wipe out (no surprise there) approximately 15 seconds after starting. If you ask her, she’ll tell you it was because she was nervous, but since she pretty much ran straight into a snow bank during the first turn, I’m pretty sure it was because she hadn’t yet mastered the whole steering thing.
We continued down the mountain for what seemed like forever, both having our share of wipeouts and “near death” experiences. At one point I nearly ran head first into a truck coming up the mountain on the same road. Don’t tell Mom and Dad.
At last we made it to the bottom alive, yet cold and with a few more bruises than we had when we started. Thankfully one of our group members was thoughtful enough to bring along a few bottles of schnapps to warm everyone up after the ride.
I wish we had more pictures of the BEAUTIFUL scenery we passed while riding down the mountain, but I think we were both too preoccupied with not sledding right off the side of a cliff to take out the camera. We did, however, take a few pictures at the top of the mountain in the restaurant, and again once we had reached the bottom. As usual, you can take a look at the pics on our Shutterfly website: http://www.theswisskeys.shutterfly.com/ . We may even get around to uploading them to Facebook…
The following weekend, Lindsey and made a trek to the other, western, side of Switzerland for a weekend of skiing at Club Med in Villars. I’m sure many of you have heard that Lindsey and are on a bit of budget because of the move and the general high-prices in Zurich, so you may be wondering how we can afford a weekend at Club Med, ski passes, food, and ski rentals for Lindsey? Two Words: Uncle Coop.
If you haven’t heard already, “Uncle Coop” is my term of endearment for PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), the firm I’ve been working for over the past several years. As it turned out, the Consulting West group, which is the PwC Consulting team based out of Geneva, was having their ski weekend in Villars that weekend and they happened to have a few extra rooms available.
To digress a bit, throughout the process of applying, interviewing, and preparing for this secondment, I have been in contact with several PwC US ex-pats living here in Switzerland, and managed to develop some good friendships along the way. One of those contacts happens to be a Senior Manager working with the Consulting West group, and he offered up one of those extra rooms at Club Med to Lindsey and me! The PwC package included the room, two meals at the hotel, open bar and aperitif (French happy hour, more or less), ski rentals for Lindsey, and one day of ski passes. That meant all we ended up having to pay for was the train tickets, one day of skiing, and a lunch. I love a good deal. Thanks Uncle Coop!
Anyway, the skiing was fantastic, despite some really snowy weather that made visibility at the top of mountain a bit difficult. Even though I lived in Sun Valley, Idaho for nearly a year, I never really experienced true powder until that weekend in Villars. Loved it.
This was both Lindsey and my first trip skiing (in her case) and snowboarding (in mine) this season, so the first half day was a bit rough getting our bearings, but after a few hours of some rough runs, we were having a blast. Lindsey doesn’t have quite as much experience as I do, but even she was cruising down the blue and red slopes without much trouble. Oh, the slopes here have slightly different ratings than the slopes in the states. Here the rating system from easiest to most difficult is green, blue, red, then black; whereas in the states there are typically just green, blue and black slopes. From what I’ve read it is actually slightly different in most European countries.
We spent a majority of the first day by ourselves on the side of the mountain with mostly green, blue and red slopes, but on day two we ventured out with some of my PwC colleagues to the other side of the mountain where I tackled more red and black runs, and Lindsey got a bit more comfortable on the red slopes. We decided that we definitely need to plan another trip to the mountains over the next few weeks, although I don’t think that snow is going to melt anytime soon.
Other than the time spent on the mountains, we enjoyed what I can only call the “Club Med experience”. I mentioned how as part of our package at the resort we received free dinner and aperitif, but it was at bit more than expected. The dinner was a lot of fun. We sat with a table of PwC folks from the Geneva area, many of whom were ex-pats as well. It was great to hear the perspective of fellow Americans who had been living in Switzerland for anywhere from 3 to almost 15 years! The food was delicious, and since we were in the French part of the country, we got to experience a different sort of cuisine than we’ve experienced in Zurich. After dinner there was a “show” put on by the resort that I can only describe as wacky. There were costumes, line dancing, singing, and lots of flashing lights – oh, and did I mention it was interactive? It was even stranger that the "entertainers" were the same people that had been serving us throughout our stay (i.e. front desk clerks, ski rental staff, etc). Yeah, wacky. We actually took some video, which I’ll try to post online as well.
Well, that’s pretty much a summary of the two weekends I missed blogging on last month. Hopefully now that we’re settled into the new place, we’ll have more time to get back to the weekly postings about our adventures here in Switzerland. Next week I think I’m going to write a bit about what it’s been like working not only with the Swiss, but also with other European nationals as well. Just a reminder to stay in touch via Facebook, Skype, and thorough email/chat! Be sure to check out our pics on Shutterfly as well. Oh, and I’ve also started Tweeting (Twittering?) @JustinKey. Look me up!
More to come soon…
