Munchen

En route to Munchen (Munich) via train, so I've found some time to write.

I left off after our first day of skiing/snowboarding. Lets just say it was better than the next. I had the brilliant idea to go to the slopes on the other side of Andermatt, so we dragged our gear across town via the town shuttle and found ourselves at the top of a little sledding hill that led to the chair lift. The snow was a tidbit icy. I'm timid when the snow is "fresh powder" but add a little sun to melt it into a slippery ice slope, and I'm like a a dog with my tail between my legs.

The benefit of day 2, was that I remembered the way you are supposed to actually get up from the ground to your board. I had been leaning forward to get up the first day and after literally having no strength left in my upper body, the second day I realized all I had to do was roll over and get up backwards. Snowboarding 101. At least I was beginning to look like I knew what I was doing, minus still wiping out every time getting off the ski lift. We had to take 2 lifts to get to the top of the mountain and I was a very big fan of the top part. No one was on this mountain except for a guy and his two 6 year olds who must have passed us at least 3 times. The bottom part of the mountain was 50% flat and I had to resort to sledding since I go so slow on my board that I kept getting stuck and then falling. The top half of the mountain, however, had relatively good snow and lots of steep turns. I'm so talented at snowboarding that I do better on the harder runs than the dinky ones. Liz took her one and only fall on the top of this mountain, while I took the team home with all of mine.

After a successful 1.5 runs (they were very long), I couldn't bear the thought of falling off another lift. Liz decided that since she had yet to break a bone or get an epidural hematoma, she too was done. And Emmanuelle would be actually getting some exercise the next 3 days she stayed on in Andermatt, skiing with her father (a black diamond kind of guy), so it was time for fondue.

We enjoyed ourselves some Swiss fondue and beer at a local pub and then headed home for raclette (more melted cheese, just in a different cooking apparatus.) Let's just say we have not skimped on the finer things in Switzerland.

Earlier in the day, we had met a guy skiing who had a parachute on (aka a skiing parachuter)and we learned he was a military mountaineering guy from Switzerland and that there is an annual international military mountaineering meeting in Andermatt that just so happened to be over that night. He invited us to the local pub that night, so we decided it might be fun to go mingle. It turns out there was a 10:1 ratio of international military mountaineers to us. Since Andermatt is not entirely on the international party circuit, and as soon as the words "almost doctor" came out, we were each being talked to by 3-4 muscular military men at once. Most of the men were married and in their late 30s/40s, we had our mace handy, and we kept talking about Emmanuelle's tall French father down the street, so we weren't too concerned. Of course, we also turned down their offers of lager and schnapps, for fear of becoming sex slaves with IVs in our arms supplying a continuous heroin drip. Regardless, it was a fun little experience to say that we have met men in the military from over 10 countries (France, Holland, Spain, America, Argentina, Sweden, Norway, etc.) Of course, none are quite as handsome as my American marine ;)

Elizabeth and I are now off to Munich to enjoy some beer, sausage, and kraut.

Here are some pictures from skiing and fondue eating! Elizabeth is modeling her $4 green jumper from goodwill that kept her quite cozy on the slopes.