I apologize now for how ridiculously long this is. It covers a significant chunk of time & was written over a few different days! (Note, the random changes in time period)
Well, here I am. Switzerland, day number four. I finally feel totally adjusted to the time change, but apart from that I’ve developed a bit of a cold. Last night I slept over 10 hours, took Dayquil this morning (that drug is a blessing, I swear) and I’m feeling alright today but kind of drained. It’s so weird to me that my family is on the other side of the world, once again.
Leaving this time was so much easier than the first. There was some general anxiety and unnecessary eating the few days before takeoff, but when I left Mom, Dad, Lena, Jordan, and Max, there were no tears as there were the first time I traveled to the further side of the planet. My flight went smoothly from Seattle to New York, and then from New York to Zurich. The only problem was I arrived in Zurich at 7 am Friday, after leaving Seattle at 5 am Thursday. And the goal was to remain awake until a reasonable bedtime! Sooooo difficult….anyways I promptly purchased an $8 grande mocha at Starbucks in the Zurich airport, knowing full well that I won’t be drinking my delicious chocolate-y pick me up for a long time, not to mention I needed it to jump start the rest of my travel process. I ventured over to the train station, not entirely sure how to use my Eurail pass but then discovered it to be pretty easy. The guy working told me where to go and I boarded a train headed for Chur, where Brigitte was going to pick me up. When I finally sat down on the train with my iPod and breathed for five seconds, I discovered how beautiful Switzerland is during the winter. I was here two years ago in summer, and I was even amazed then. But this is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before! And that was only the beginning. I panicked a little when I couldn’t get a hold of Brigitte on her cell or at work, and then struggled to call my mom from my phone. I wasn’t sure if my cell wasn’t working or what, but finally Brigitte received my text, and we sorted out a meeting place. I know for a fact that I have spent an un-Godly amount of money already because the fees for using that phone outside of Spain are absurd. Oh well…that’s Europe I guess! I’ll just have to be extra frugal with my phone when I get back to España.
Brigitte met me at the train station in Chur, and we went grocery shopping then headed back to the house for lunch. Aita came home, and was surprised at finding me there! She thought I would be arriving in the evening. The three of us ate lunch (in most villages in Switzerland the kids come home to eat lunch for about two hours before heading back to finish their school day—Brigitte doesn’t like this so much because it basically requires at least one parent, usually the mother, to be home during the day which isn’t financially feasible for every family) and Brigitte headed back to work and Aita to school. I walked partway with Aita to school then turned off and did a scenic loop past their village, Zizers. The sun was shining, nobody was around, all I could hear was the crunching of snow beneath the boots of Brigitte’s that I’m wearing while I’m here. My friends here have no idea of the beauty in which they live. The scenery is like a fairytale, everything almost fake looking. Zizers is a small village nestled right in the Swiss Alps, mountains rising above it on both sides. Absolutely incredible. I was so exhausted from being awake for so long, that the walk took all my energy out of me, but it was so unbelievably gorgeous. I went back to the house and slept for 3 hours or so, and when I got up Aita had returned home from school. We talked for a few hours and pretty soon Gian Martin came back. When he came inside I heard him say hello before I saw him, and I asked Aita if it was Heinz (her dad) or her brother, and indeed it was Gian Martin! Ha I haven’t seen him in a year and a half and he has grown up so much and sounds so much older! Both of them actually. Aita is fifteen and her English is amazing from the last time I saw her (she couldn’t say anything!) and Gian is seventeen and is taller than me and I just can’t even believe how much he’s grown up since visiting Seattle in 2008.
I spent the rest of Friday afternoon chatting with them, trying so hard to stay awake. Aita made sort of a pizza thing for dinner and we watched Get Smart with Steve Carrell and Anne Hathaway, which I hadn’t seen before and it was pretty funny, but I haven’t a clue how it ended because I kept drifting off. I went to sleep at 10, before both Aita and Gian Martin, and slept until Saturday at 9! I obviously had to catch up a bit. J Saturday morning was low key and relaxed, and Brigitte explained that they like to sleep in on weekends and have slow, lazy days! I immediately love them for this, reminds me of weekends at home with mom. I explained to them that Dad and Grammy do not function in this manner and it drives me crazy! Haha….So we went into Chur for a few hours, Gian had stuff to figure out for his new job (lifeguarding at a pool in Chur) and Brigitte had to run some errands so Aita and I just shopped around Chur and got to know each other. She is such a sweet girl and really mature for her age, I have enjoyed spending time with her! And she’s much younger than my brother, so obviously I’m not used to hanging out with 15 year olds!
We spent Saturday afternoon relaxing and Brigitte made some soup for dinner, then we piled in the car with Heinz and picked up Gian Martin’s friend Dario and headed to the outdoor ice skating rink! Now this is the first time in my life that I’ve ice skated outside, and it’s quite the romantic activity if you were with the right person!! Gian and his friends (another one, Stefan joined us at the rink) were racing around kicking a hockey puck, while Aita tried to help me not fall! Ice skating is surely not my forte. I am not terribly bad, I only fell once, but I definitely am not very graceful! But when Gian and Aita held my hand I went quite fast! Which was really fun. It was sooo cold though, but they didn’t think so, just me, only being used to Mediterranean & Pacific Northwest weather. I loved ice skating and I hope we can go again this Friday! It’s something I don’t really ever get to do. Everyone here knows how to though, and pretty much all the boys play “ice hockey” which is what we just call hockey haha. Even Heinz was good at ice skating! He played hockey when he was young. And Gian Martin is such a good skater and I missed his hockey game last night but I want to hopefully watch one of his other games before I leave.
After ice skating we went to the bowling alley! So much fun, even though I sucked at bowling. We played two games and it was just nice to have some good quality fun with the kids and Heinz. And the night was not yet over, we then headed to this party, Maskenball, which roughly translates to a costume party. It was a celebration in Chur as a preview for Carnaval. It is so strange because the drinking age here is 16 to buy beer and wine, and 18 to buy hard liquor. I was Aita’s “adult” so that she could get into the party, because I’m over 18. So that was weird…being old enough to get children into places!! And I won’t lie, I bought her a Smirnoff! Well, I guess it was Gian’s money, but I purchased it with my adult legal capabilities. Haha! This was all very strange to me at first because the last times I’ve seen Aita & Gian they were nowhere close to a party age but now, in Switzerland at least, they certainly are! J Anyways the party basically consisted of 8 or 9 bands that get dressed up in crazy costumes for Carnaval and play popular music, but it’s all instrumental. My favorite band was the one whose entire setlist was ABBA songs!! Loved it of course! The whole band vibe of the place reminded me a lot of my basketball games in high school, warming up to the pep band beforehand. So naturally I loved it. We danced and chatted and had a few drinks, and overall it was just a really cool new experience and fun to see Aita & Gian with their friends in a sort of social activity that’s normal for them in Switzerland. But towards the end of the night I was so exhausted, still feeling the effects of jet lag, and when we got back home past one, I totally crashed into bed as I had a big day ahead of me.
Sunday: Snowboarding!! ….in the Alps! Never thought I would check that off my list of things to do, but sure enough, I have done it now! It was different than home though, usually if I was going up to Baker for the day I have to wake up at 6, be there at 9, stay the whole day, and in general I usually dread it until I am actually snowboarding and then I remember that I love it. This was nice because apparently they spend shorter days at the mountain, which was good for me because it was a new mountain and I was tired anyways. Heinz took us down to the train and we caught it around 9:45, where Stefan was already waiting for us. I have to admit I was nervous, because one, I’m a nervous person in general, and two, I was about to embark on a snowboarding adventure in a very different environment than what I was used to, with two boys who were presumably FAR better on skis than I was on my snowboard. The train took about an hour and a half, and when we arrived, I was on edge. I had never experienced a gondola before. So we put our skis and boards in these little contraptions outside the gondola, and climbed in, as it took us up to the altitude where the base of the ski resort was. Second trial of the day was the first new chairlifts I got to experience. Keep in mind that I say first. I have only been to Mt. Baker and Stevens Pass in Washington, and our chair lifts don’t have bars that come down in front to keep us from falling. Which, looking back, I think every chair lift should have this! Safety you know………….
OK I’m back, I took a break from yesterday’s writing. So now it’s Wednesday and I’m still in the snowy Alps, but unfortunately the weather has changed and now it’s windy and snowy and not so beautiful as before. Anyways, back to snowboarding. So I sit down on the chair lift and Gian says, “Pay attention…” and I didn’t know why he was saying that until the bar came down in front of us and my leg was smushed because I wasn’t sitting in the right spot. The boys were chuckling and I felt so stupid! I had to explain to them that I had never been on a lift like this before, I’m sure they thought I looked as if I had never even been on a mountain before. The first few runs went well with a few falls as usual, and once I started to get my bearings things went more smoothly. Something seemed strange though. Overall, I felt like something was different, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Then as I was sitting with the boys on a chair lift ride, the lightbulb came on in my head. “There aren’t any trees!!” I looked around me, relieved that I had identified the weird aspect of the mountain, and sure enough there wasn’t a tree in sight. Gian explained that with the high altitude there couldn’t be any trees, but it was still just so weird. Looking down on the slopes it was just vast fields of snow, and I loved the width of the runs, and how everything seemed gradual and nothing too steep. It was just all so different from Baker back home. Then, the last extreme challenge of the day was these entirely new looking chair lifts that I have never seen before in my life. Not even anything remotely close to it. Attached to the cables going up the mountain were not chairs, but little contraptions that I can only describe as looking like pick axes? And for skiers they were easy, all you had to do was sit on them slightly and the cable would essentially “slide” you up the mountain, with your skis on the ground. Naturally, things were different for snowboarders. Gian clearly did not understand that I had absolutely NO clue how to get on the thing, but it became clear when I repeatedly fell 3 or 4 times in a row. We kept letting people behind us in line pass (luckily there weren’t that many people, I was embarrassed enough! Haha) and finally the guy working the booth thing came out to help me. He said something to me in German which I obviously couldn’t understand, and I kept trying to sit on this chair pick axe thing. Finally though, they explained that while Gian’s side was to be sat on (the skier), I had to put my side BETWEEN MY LEGS so that my snowboard would be perpendicular to the mountain. The next “pick axe” arrived, Gian swiftly leaned back and I grabbed the bar and put it between my legs, and away we went! I had to hold onto Gian for moral and probably needed physical support, but I was excited and proud that I finally conquered the strange new chair lift! Now the only question was how to get off, which Gian said we would figure out at the top. Great. On the way up, which probably took 10-15 minutes, my left thigh and butt cheek just started burning like crazy, because I was in such an awkward position. I don’t care for these chair lifts, but apparently they are all over Europe! I was wondering if they’re anywhere in the US? I had never heard of or seen them, but I wonder. It was hilarious and interesting all the same! The first time up I totally fell disembarking from the “pulling lift” and the second time I made it off without hitting the ground! Yayy! Overall though the day was a ton of fun. The boys helped me a lot and were so nice and fun. Gian & Stefan were FLYING down the mountain, sometimes Gian would just you know, be cruising down on one ski of just go backwards a bit. I was stunned! I guess going snowboarding 3 times a year doesn’t make for cool skills like they have though. Stefan told me he usually goes 40 times a season. Dang. That’s a lot! But we left the ski resort around 3:40 and played a new card game (to me) called “Asshole” which was really fun and hilarious.
Sunday night we had dinner with the whole family, Brigitte had this grill in the middle of the table and we fried mushrooms, cheese, beef, bacon, and had pineapple and salad. It was so delicious! I remember having it when I was here Summer of 2007. I really am thankful that I have these friends here in Switzerland, and I am so glad I came here this winter before heading back to Granada. I am developing good friendships with Aita and Gian Martin, and I also love talking with Brigitte and Heinz. Heinz is such a good natured, kind man, who is very soft spoken but also very funny at times! And Brigitte is just a feisty woman if I’ve ever met one, she’s just different than other European women it seems. We spent the evening chatting, and then they had a visitor that they said was actually for me! It was their friends whose daughter, Silvana, is 21 and looking to study and maybe work in the US for 6 months. She was asking me about it and I wish I knew more details and specific places and programs she should look into, but for the most part I told her to avoid the middle of America and stay on the coasts! Haha. An unfair statement I suppose, considering I’ve never been to the middle of the US, but still. I added her on Facebook so now I am going to look into programs for her.
Monday I had a bit of an adventure on my own. I woke up early and went to Chur with Brigitte, then at 9 headed off on Bernina Express, a train that is celebrating it’s 100th year anniversary of scaling the Alps. If you ride the train completely, which I think you can only do during the summer, you go all the way from Chur to Italy. (I think, not positive.) But I just rode from Chur to a village in southern Switzerland, near the border of Italy, called Poschiavo. The weather was absolutely gorgeous, and the train had panoramic windows, and we climbed through the Alps, passing church steeples in small villages, hordes of cross country skiers, all the way up to the bare, treeless areas of the mountains, the sun bright and shining the entire way. It was absolutely beautiful. I took so many pictures but I’m not sure how any of them are going to turn out because of the glare on the train windows. But it was amazing nonetheless. I had my headphones in to block out the boisterous German family to my left, and it was really peaceful. I never get time completely to myself, and Monday was the perfect day of that. I was content and alone in my thoughts, and I just let my mind wander as we passed picturesque places. Nearly four hours later, I arrived in Poschiavo, and would have just under three hours there to explore. I quickly realized I could explore this village at a very slow walking pace in maybe 30 minutes tops! I didn’t mind though. A river ran through the village and similar to Zizers, the mountains rose high on each side of the village. The only strange thing was nothing was open! It seemed a lot like Spain, because the entire place was shut down and apart from the people like me who had come from the train, the village appeared to be empty. It was so quiet that at times it was a little creepy. I moseyed along, taking pictures and humming to myself, enjoying the fact that I was just hanging out in a small Swiss village instead of being at work in Marysville or in class at Western. This is the life! J I only saw two open restaurants, one of which was extremely expensive, and I wasn’t terribly hungry but I had walked around for an hour and a half and was starting to get cold, so I went to sit in an Italian restaurant near the train station. First experience dining alone. And I loved it. The restaurant was nearly empty, save for a mother and daughter who chatted with the one waitress, and an old man reading a newspaper towards the back. I ordered Spaghetti Bolognese, and read my book (Three Cups of Tea-amazing…everyone should read it!) in the warm, quiet restaurant. I finished off my lunch with some delicious vanilla gelato and then headed back to the train station.
The adventure of the day decided to be that my train would break down in the mountains about 10 minutes from Poschiavo. With a four hour train ride ahead, I was not thrilled. We were stuck for well over an hour, and all the Germans were quite cheery, but the New Zealander chick next to me wasn’t too happy, and I would’ve been fine if it hadn’t been for the fact that when the train is stopped, the doors to the WC (bathroom) don’t open, so I was in a very uncomfortable position for an hour and a half, needing to pee terribly. There was no announcement or anything telling us what had happened, but I roughly learned from word of mouth that the wheels on the train wouldn’t turn, similar to a car stuck in the snow. So we ditched the last train car, which made our car a lot more crowded, but allowed us to keep moving. I was in and out of sleep until arriving back in Chur around 8 pm. It was a relaxing, beautiful, but VERY long day. Heinz picked me up at the train station and we went to Scheirs, another village about a half hour away, to pick up Gian Martin from his ice hockey game. I had hoped to see the latter half of it, but due to my train issues, I missed it, so that was a bummer.
Yesterday Aita and I did absolutely nothing, she stayed home from school and it seems we’re both a bit under the weather. I have a cold and am not feeling too hot, but my Dayquil and Nyquil are helping me get by. Today will probably be a fairly lazy day as well, and tomorrow Brigitte and I are going to see the Matterhorn! Cool! OK. This blog is so long. I apologize. And it’s only going to get longer because I am not posting it until I get back to Spain, because it’s on my laptop where I don’t get internet. So…I will write more soon!
………….Brigitte’s and my trip to Zermatt was a lot of fun. We had another fairly lengthy train ride across to the southwest of Spain. Our train was delayed for awhile, and we sadly learned it was because another train had hit a woman who jumped in front of it committing suicide…it was really sad. L and because of the delay, we didn’t end up getting to Zermatt until after dark. So Brigitte and I only saw a dark, shadowed outline of the Matterhorn, and sadly I did not get a picture of it. We had a hostel to stay overnight and after chowing down at the restaurant beneath the hostel we went out for a drink. I felt bad that I was not a very exciting party companion as my cold had taken over at that point and by 10:30 pm my energy was far from existent. Early the next day we woke and, still unable to see the Matterhorn, hopped the train to do a bit of a roundabout through Switzerland. This is very possible considering the size of this small country! We stopped in Bern for lunch and a very wet, rainy walk. I’d like to go back when the weather is better! I was so exhausted and when we finally got “home” to Zizers I couldn’t have been happier. But the time with Brigitte was so nice, I just love talking to her! That night we ate DELICIOUS cheese fondue and I got to look at pictures from when Gian Martin & Aita were little—so fun!
Saturday was my final day in Switzerland, and we slept in and spent the day relaxing until two pm when we headed down into their village (Zizers) to watch the parade for Carnaval. I am so ashamed that I did not bring my camera with me. Gian thought it would be boring but it was such a new experience to me that I thought it was awesome! The parade was filled with bands and organizations all dressed in the craziest costumes to celebrate Carnaval. Afterwards we went back to the house for awhile, then ate dinner with the whole family. Following dinner, Heinz, Brigitte, Gian and I went ice skating, and I improved greatly from the previous time the week before! Gian and I played hockey! And by played hockey I mean I kind of stumbled around with a large stick in my hand, trying to ignore the fact that I can’t really ice skate to begin with. ;) It was a ton of fun though. I was sweating and smiling and even when Gian barreled me over (barreled is probably an exaggeration) I was cracking up and just having a blast. Later I went down to the village to party, sort of, with Aita and Gian, which was fun but mostly I was freezing and tired. We got home and I said my goodbyes to Aita and Brigitte so they wouldn’t have to wake up for me the next morning, and when I left at 6:45 am on Sunday I said goodbye to Gian. Heinz took me to the train station and bid me farewell. I can’t wait to go back to Switzerland, whenever that may be. I can’t express enough how thankful I am to have such great friends, to know such an awesome family halfway across the world that I now feel like I can almost claim as my own. I look forward to seeing the Meiler family again!! J And then off I went to Granada….which will be discussed in the next blog…. ;) be prepared! Ha!
Hope you enjoyed my stories from the land of winter!
MacKenzie
No comments:
Post a Comment