Skiing the Alps!

I can officially say, I have skied the Alps. And not to brag or anything, but I wasn’t completely awful! For those unaware, I started skiing at the tender age of 5, when my parents dropped me off in ski school, where I proceeded to cry through the entire lesson. My skiing career quickly progressed…I stopped crying, but unfortunately the skills remained about the same. So, still scarred from my first experience and after 8 years of giving it a go, I decided to try snowboarding (that and the outfits and men were a lot cuter). Unfortunately my skills proved no better than those of skiing. So again, after 10 years snowboarding (and too much money spent on rentals and lift tickets), I threw in the towel at age 23 noting it was more enjoyable and cost effective for me to spend the day at the spa and sit in the lodge than actually ski.

But since I am in Switzerland, and the only thing to do in the winter is to ski, I decided to emerge from my 4 year (or 12 year depending on how you count it) hiatus and give skiing another shot. I officially enrolled myself in the Zurich International Ski Team/School which consists of lessons every Sunday for a month. And much to my surprise, I am enjoying myself! Even with the early mornings, freezing cold, icy conditions and lack of cute men (they are all in the snowboarding classes), I feel refreshed and accomplished after a day on the mountain.

I am still not sure if it is the lifestyle, lack of oxygen at this altitude or the post slopes happy hours, but I am definitely enjoying the experience!

I’M BACK!!

Happy New Years!..and my apologies for not updating this website sooner. After three weeks at home and one week of jet lag, I have finally fully recovered from trip home. And what a whirlwind of a trip was it! I know, I know, the blog is about my time in Switzerland, but considering I was in the US for three weeks (or approximately 3/104 of the total rotation) I figured it warranted at least a quick entry… So here is the low down on my trip home:

Flight home, enchiladas, wedding dress shopping (not for me!), Elf Party, bouncer harassment, karaoke, shopping on Union, more wedding dress shopping, Niner football, mimosa brunches, family time, Christmas tree outing in the rain, Feliz Navidad in SF, City Tavern, Dana’s new house, Club Calpella, coffee with the ex, more shopping, more family, Dungeness crab, home made raviolis, Die Hard, Christmas! San Luis Obispo, the Pacific Ocean, more shopping, Tahoe, more karaoke, breakfast burritos and fajitas, New Years, DIBS!, more family, more shopping and finally home to Zurich.

Phew! Good to be back home.

Seasons Greetings!

I officially leave for home for the holidays tomorrow and will most likely not post anything until my return on January 3rd. Therefore I wanted to leave with a parting Christmas story, compliments of the Swiss tradition. This story was told to me by a few Swiss co-workers and friends

Now most people, despite religious backgrounds, know of Santa Claus, Saint Nick, or Samichlaus as he is fondly referred to in Switzerland. Most people do NOT know of Samichlaus’s “helper” Schmutzli. In Switerzland, Samichlaus comes for his visit on December 6th and hands out toys to those kids who had behaved all year-round. At the same time Schmutzli also comes to town, but for other reasons.

Schmutzli is a man dressed in black/brown robes, with a black face, who carries a switch and/or stick and a sack. He is a man who walks with a limp from childhood injuries. He is also a man who snatches naughty children in the middle of the night and takes them to the forest in his sack to be beaten or to be forced to make toys for the good children (the original child laborer). According some to Swiss, he was actually the murderer of three children, who Saint Nick brought back to life.

Needless to say, every Swiss person I talked to was TERRIFIED of Schmutzli growing up (which might explain why everyone here is so well behaved)! In case you don’t believe me, and reject this fable as an Ange story, see for yourself at Wikipedia…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schmutzli

Now Merry Christmas, Happy New Years and Behave, or Schmutzli will come and get you!!

Man I am OLD!

On Friday night I went to the KPMG TS Holiday Party and had an AWESOME time. The following Saturday was not so awesome and apparently I wasn’t the only one hurting. So, instead of going out that Saturday evening, we all headed over to the Marks’ house for fondue and college football (compliments of the Slingbox).

After the fondue was finished and football had wrapped up, we decided to play some cards. A few ideas were thrown out, but they were either too involved or too complicated. Anna mentioned a game that she vaguely remembered where the 2 was the highest card, you tired to get rid of all your cads and certain people can make up rules along the way. The game sounded very familiar and it took me about 5 minutes to remember the name…ASS HOLE. I am so ashamed to admit it, but the name of my favorite drinking game, my life line, my claim to fame in college had escaped me. But that is not where my disgrace ended. Oh no! I couldn’t remember all of the rules that I could so fondly recite under any circumstances or conditions just four years prior. So we did what any group of late-twenty-somethings would do…we googled the rules to ASS HOLE. Thank god for Wikipedia.

So embarrassing and such a disgrace to my college education. Mom, dad, I promise those five years weren’t completely wasted. Now please excuse me while I google all of the other games I can no longer remember.