Whitney's in der Schweiz

Wednesday night we headed back from Paris to Zurich so the Whitney's could get a feel for Switzerland!

On Thursday, Kate and I toured around downtown Zurich, shopped, ate lunch on the Lake , then drank beer on the river. She wanted to see all the places that I have been hanging out and what my life was like here in Switzerland. I even took her to the grocey store and she said "No wonder you almost ate horse!":) It was such a great day!

The boys were supposed to go sledding on Mt. Rigi, but something about the train and them getting there too late to really have fun, that they decided to ride bikes around Zurich all day. They were in all the same spots that we were, but unfortunately, since I don't have a cell phone - they couldn't reach us.:( But they had an awesome day too and I know Nathan enjoyed having someone to ride bikes with (that wasn't going to bitch about the hill back up from Zurich to Oerlikon:))!

That night we had surprise dinner rervations for us all at the Blindekuh (Blind Cow) Restaurant in Zurich. We didn't tell Kate and Tim where we were going until we were standing outside! I think it made the experience even that much cooler and possibly stopped some anxiety about us not being able to see anything we were eating! The Blindekuh is a restaurant where you sit in complete darkness (and I mean it is DARK - no light what so ever) and all the servers are blind (the kitchen staff can see though). The concept of the restaurant is to experience what it is like to be blind. I can't even describe the experience. My grandmother was blind, so the whole time I thought about her and how it was to function as a blind person every day. It was a very humbling experience. But we did really well - we even passed food to each other and poured our own wine glasses! Our waiter's name was Mauritz and he was great! Every time he came to our table he said "Um hello - it's Mauritz here" - since obviously we couldn't see him he had to announce himeself! He told us his story and that he wasn't born blind, but became blind at a young age almost over night. Wow - I can't even imagine. If you have a restaurant like this in your city (or one you are traveling to), I would really encourage you to go - we all LOVED IT!

Honey - not everyone is blind and I'm sure some of the other patrons can see you mounting the cow:)

Friday we woke up really early to head to Andermatt to ski the Swiss Alps. Knowing what I know now - this was a mistake:) I've decided that Andermatt is cursed! This is where we were supposed to go with Miriam on our second day of skiing and a HUGE blizzard came out of no where and covered Switzerland! Fortnately we were warned in advance and didn't go when Miriam was here - but this time we weren't so lucky! On the 2 hour train from Zurich it looked beautiful outside and was around 60 degrees. As soon as we hit Andermatt they closed the glacier runs and sent us another 30 minutes further on the train to Dieni (due to the upcoming weather).

When we arrived at our final destination it was raining - which means it was warm enough to be RAINING! Kate hadn't skiied since she was like 7, so raining wasn't ideal but was better than snowing because we could still see a pretty good distance in front of us. After the first run (where Kate did REALLY well by the way!) it started sleeting, and then snowing, and then blizzarding! Holy Crap! Nathan and I had taken the gondola to the top run to see what it was like up there and as soon as we got off the lift we couldn't see a thing! We basically had to ski from one orange marker to the next - not fun:( I was hoping Kate and Tim were having better luck but they even closed the "bunny hill" due to the weather! We all ended up meeting in the lodge for lunch then skiing down to return our stuff:( Totally sucked that our big Swiss Alp Skiing day ended like this, but hey - we had AMAZING weather the rest of the time so it was really hard to complain (at least that is what I'm trying to tell myself)! I don't think I've ever been that cold and wet in my life! Thank goodness it was ONLY a 3 hour ride home:)!

"I like the beach!"

"Um hello - Maurtiz here"
(Kate was having a hard time seeing down the last run and Tim kept coming up next to her saying this so she could "see" where he was:) )


3 hour train ride, 3 ski runs, then 3 hours back in a white out! Good times!!

We ended the night with Cheese Fondue (of course) and then took the Whitneys to the airport on Saturday morning:( We had so much fun but it seemed ridiculously short! Thanks for coming to hang out with us Time and Kate- we love you guys!

Skiing Flumserberg and the Zurich Zoo!

Last weekend our friend Miriam flew in on Thursday night from Hamburg to hang out for the weekend!

Friday morning we headed to Flumserberg for a girl's ski day -Nathan had to work to pay for my trip - thanks honey:). We checked the weather forecast in the morning and it looked to be a beautiful day on the slopes! Sunshine and almost 30 degree F weather - my ideal skiing conditions! And Flumserberg is only about an hour from Zurich on the train so it is a really good day trip.

Well.... the weather forecasters in Switzerland are as good as the ones in Raleigh. And by that I mean they suck.:) It was snowing, -15 degrees Celsius, 30 kmph winds, and our visibility on the slopes was about 20 feet. Good times:) Especially since Miriam hadn't skiied since 2002! However, with that being said - we had an amazing day! Miriam did great and only took out one family:)!

Because it was snowing so hard (as you can see in this picture) we decided to eat lunch...

This was our view at lunch - nice sunny skies! So we decided to head back up the gondola...

This is what it looked like once we got up the gondola (less than 15 minutes later)! Where did the blue skies go? Totally my luck!
I had to post this (but I don't feel bad b/c Miriam made it her FB profile pic:)) She almost took out a dad and his daughter but at least she warned them by screaming to get out of the way!

Beautiful view of the Wallensee from the slopes!

Friday night we checked the weather forecast for Saturday and it was bad news. We had wanted to go to Andermatt but the weather forecast said -20 degrees C and up to 45 kmph winds! Yikes! I wanted to ski and all but that didn't sound like fun so we decided to skip it. And yes we checked other slopes but all of Switzerland had this freakish winter storm:( When we woke up on Saturday everything was white and the snow kept falling and falling and falling. By 1 pm we were stir crazy so we decided to go out and do something close to home - hike the Uetliberg. I wrote about that in my post here.

Sunday was freezing, but no more snow (thank goodness). Unfortunately we couldn't ski ,because Miriam's flight home was around 6 pm so we decided to go to the Zurich Zoo! It was SO awesome! I can't believe we waited this long to go! I mean HELLO - of course Zurich's Zoo would be awesome - everything here is PERFECT! I saw my first ant eater - not what I expected it to look like (not that I'm sure what I expected it to look like), the rainforest exhibit was amazing, the Penguin Parade through the zoo was soooo cute, and the animals living in natural like conditions made my happy. We liked it so much we kept delaying our departure and had to rush home so Miriam wouldn't miss her flight! If you plan to go - give yourself at least 4 hours - we wish we would have had more time!

Penguin Parade! The furry brown ones in the back of the line are the babies!

Great weekend with Miriam! Now when are we heading to Hamburg? hmmmmm
Picture albums for Flumserberg and the Zoo!

Ski Weekend in Gstaad

The whole month of February is basically Ski Month in Europe (the kids have vacation from school) - so if you want to rent a cute little Ski Chalet in Switzerland we found out you better do it at least a year in advance! Unfortunately, we didn't even know we were going to be living in Switzerland a year ago, so that was a bit of a challenge when we started looking for a place our ski weekend last weekend. We really wanted to go to Zermatt, but after inquiring about a place and finding out it was $65,000 for the week we decided to explore other options:). I say we, but actually our friends Sarah and Zann did all the work (thanks guys!).

They eventually found a cute place in Château-d'Oex about a 20 minute train ride outside Gstaad. The only problem was it was a 4 person condo and we had 6 people. We were desperate though as they had been searching for weeks, so we decided we would bring along sleeping bags and "figure it out" when we got there. (I did feel like a college kid trying to fit too many people at a spring break place but hey - keeps us young - right?) Anyway, when Zann first found the place he asked the owner if it could fit 6, when she said no Zann said okay - we will only have 4 then.:) I'm guessing she found this a little suspicious because Zann spent the next two weeks convincing her it was only 4 including an email the night before we got there! The owner actually lived in England though, so we thought we were safe!

Pan forward to our arrival in Château-d'Oex. (Just so it will make it easier to understand - the place we were staying was a converted hotel into individual condo units. There was a grounds keeper (for lack of a better word), Mia, who lived across the street from the building and checked in every guest.) We were supposed to meet Mia when we got there so she could show us around the place, etc. Since she knew it was only supposed to be 4 - Nathan and Sarah were to stay back at the train station until we called them. However, the process was taking FOREVER and then she decided to stay in her office located right next to the front door to "do some work". It was 9 o'clock on a Friday night - I think she knew we were up to something:) Eventually, Sarah and Nathan were freezing and sick of waiting outside so they decided to try their luck and BAM - right into Mia'a arms! "Are you checking in" "Oh no, we are just visiting friends in room 42." "We don't have a room 42. Who are you meeting?" "Zann Hawkins" "Hmmm, okay" And that was the beginning of a renegade weekend! We spent the rest of the time trying to go downstairs and leave at different times so she wouldn't see us all together!

But the view from our place made all the shenanigans worth it that next morning. This is what we woke up to - so beautiful!

Hello Chateau d'Oex!

The owner of the condo had actually sent us some pretty awesome information on where to rent skis, different places to ski, where to go, etc. And although there was a ski lift right in Château-d'Oex, after reviewing all the slopes, we decided to train to Schönried to ski "Sector 1" which had the largest number of connected slopes.

Gstaad was so beautiful and it was great to be back on the slopes for the first time in more than 2 years! We had a lot of fun skiing "off piste" - off the groomed trail - especially Nathan. There was a few times I didn't think he was going to get back to us:)!

Chillaxin' at lunch

My question is - how the hell did he get over there?

There is nothing flattering about ski clothes so try to focus on the mountains in the back:)

The second day we decided to head up to the Glacier 3000! A completely different skiing experience. It was just blue skies and white snow for what seemed miles. The slopes were wide and smooth -amazing!

After skiing all the slopes at the top, Nathan, Zann, Jeff and I decided to take the black diamond to Reusch. Sarah and her sister decided to take the gondola down - I'm not sure which was a better choice:) It was an amazing run though! We started at the top of the Glacier and skiied all the way back onto the mountain and through the trees - one of the most breathtaking scences I have ever witnessed. I wish I could have taken a picture of the winter wonderland of snow and ice covered trees, but it was at a relatively flat place and I didn't want to lose my momentum!:)

Self portrait right before we took the plunge straight down! The end of the slope is all the way in the distance!

We did it! Yeah!!!

The only bummer part was when on the fourth very steep downhill slope I completely bit it! HARD! Thank god I was wearing a helmet! And although all four of us took a spill at one point or another during our ride down, I was so pissed at myself for this fall because I have NO IDEA how it happened! I was completely taken off guard:( Jeff was skiing right behind me and said he couldn't figure out what happened either! I was fine but I kept asking if my face was bleeding. I kept tasting blood and my face felt wet, but the guys assured me my face was fine. By the time we got to Reusch I looked like a chipmunk on the right side of my face and I finally looked INSIDE my mouth and that was where all the blood was!:( I guess I should have been happy that I still had all my teeth! My favorite "strap a set on" motto might not be such a good idea after age 30:)

The Glacier 3000 will never be the same!

I took this to try to see what I did to my face - the outside didn't look that bad and it hadn't really started swelling - yet!

Monday morning (after getting caught by Mia and Zann getting lectured - good times!) we headed to Gruyère to visit the cheese making facility of La Maison du Gruyère. Yummmmm! We now know more about the making of gruyere cheese than I think we wanted to:) We also visited the cute little town before heading home!

It wasn't so easy to get back to Zurich from their (who knows why) and with all of our stuff it made for an exhausting ride home, but an AMAZING weekend in Gstaad! I highly recommend it if you are in Switzerland!

Now we are off to the Zurich Carnival in Oerlikon - more on that tommorrow!
~Mandy