sliding off my chair...lift

i called my parents yesterday to thank them for being so damn cool to teach me the ins and outs of downhill skiing when i was a kid. how cheap and easy it would have been for them to teach us to "hike" or "watch tv." instead they threw in loads of time and coin, and now i am capable of not killing myself on most alpine runs. this came in handy last week as we found ourselves high in the Italian alps near a lovely ski resort called Madesimo.

we drove up 12 km of switchbacks, parked the car on an icy lot, went into a tunnel, and took a funicular (a train that goes straight up the side, or in this case inside, of a mountain) and found ourselves at the bottom of a chairlift! up, up, up, to a cable car, up, up, up. and we skiied all day long.

after lunch i said something in spantaliangish to a nice looking italian man like, "molto mille bueno montanas pretty, eh?"

"yeah, it's really beautiful."

doh...he speak-a the englaysh. i'm retarded.

we got to chatting about skiing and he said we must, must, must, must make the 1 hour drive over to Engadin, St. Moritz in Switzerland to rub shoulders with the richest people on Earth and ski some of the best terrain in the world.

thank you mr. italian man. thank you.

our day at St. Moritz was the best skiing i have ever done in my life. granted, i sucked and found myself sliding headfirst down the side of the alps at one point, but even upside down the view was spectacular. it was sunny with perfect snow. there are thousands of acres of runs. trophy wives sporting fur-lined collars and gucci glasses swooshed by us at every turn, probably heading down to meet their sugar daddies at the "reservations only" lodges to share some Cristal and steak for lunch. the parking lot was crammed with land rovers and mercedes. every once in awhile we would hear the sound of a helicopter shuttling some billionaire backcountry skier off deeper into the mountains.

it was surreal. a beautiful day with the beautiful people.

we skied into the ski-up bar and dan went to grab us a round of drinks. as we sat in the sun, enjoying the views and marveling our good fortune, trying to blend in, i said, "look at us, we're enjoying a real pint of beer, in a real glass, in real Switzerland, at one of the best ski resorts, with the richest vacationers on earth."

erin aptly pointed out, "yeah, but we're the only people who brought our sandwiches stuffed in our coats."

touche.

back over the border for us. but what a great sojourn it was to the other side.

einhorn and finkle, finkle and einhorn

after studying spanish for four years in high school, i am pretty comfortable traveling to western europe. i can barely get by in spain, i can read the menu in italy, and if you say bonjour to a french person he or she will be 30 percent more polite. but, polish! that was a laugh! try saying this in polish: wroclaw. (vrohtz-wahv). riiiiiiight. dutch. nope. and then german, no way.

in switzerland the national languages are german, french, and italian. i thought i had a good chance of things going my way. not where we went. it was all crazy german words that i'd never heard of. the voice on the train would announce the next stop: "nachste stade zurich." one of the stops was "Blllaaaargh," at least that is how they pronounced "Baar." luckily phil, cissy's BF, took german in high school, so we had some balance on our team.
we abfahrted england on monday afternoon and flew to zurich. the next morning, we took the ever-so-efficient swiss railway to the charming town of luzern (or lucerne if you speak french, which they didn't). it was freezing and cloudy, but with buckets of melted cheese and swiss beer and wine, we were prepared for a disappointing trip, weather-wise, but good company to balance it out.

we toured the charming city center, ate fondue aboard a boat, slept in a jail, and learned that einhorn literally means one horn. one of the best things about cissy is she's a dictionary of random song lyrics and movie quotes, so when i busted out with the einhorn and finkle, she was totally on top of it. it was aaaawwweesome. (sorry 'bout your car). it's like having someone who can speak my language, only more fluently. (what the deuce?). hahaha! ok, back to the weather...
the druid gods of stonehenge and the swiss gods of chocolate must have had a conference and decided that we were A-Ok. on wednesday morning we got our first glimpse of a swiss alp. a real alpine peak. we furiously (side by side) took photos through the windows of our train from luzern to interlaken as the clouds passed around the peak of what we think was Pilatus. and it just kept getting better.

valleys, lakes, alps, chalets. it was the land of christmas cards and gingerbread villages. we showed up in the famous alpine resort of interlaken and after lunch, took a train, a gondola, and another train to our town of murren high up on the cliffs of an alp where we slept in a mountain view room at 5,000 ft. it was the off season, so there was, literally, one hotel (ours), one restaurant (yummy), and one taverna (convenient) open for business. we were four of about 10 tourists in town. a winter wonderland all to ourselves.

on thanksgiving day we ate a great continental breakfast and took the TRAIN to the "Top of Europe" station at Jungfraujoch. a train station at 11,333 ft. above sea level. and there was barely a cloud in the sky. that's what i call tappin' the rockies.

as i looked over the alps toward germany, the sun glittering off the snow, with the -10 degree wind blowing in my face, i thought, "damn. i am freezing. if it weren't so cold up here, i could reflect sentimentally about all the reasons i am thankful this thanksgiving day as i look upon this glacier."

but i didn't. i ran inside when my camera threatened to freeze. ate a hearty sack lunch. took more photos. drank more Lager Hell (light beer). and headed back down the mountain. it was amazing. really amazing. we then toured the Lauterbrunnen Christmas market where they were giving away free mulled wine -- now there's a true reason to be thankful -- and spent another night in murren.
more touring the next day to see some cows in a traditional swiss town, and back to zurich for cheese shovels, beers, and some sweet accordion music. it was a fantastic thanksgiving week and i'm so glad that cissy and phil could join dan and i on our turkey day trip.

ciao, bonsoir, and auf wiedershen.