Super Swiss Skiing

On Wednesday morning, we woke up ready to go! Unfortunately, we still had to wait for my bag which amazingly showed up intact, just a day late. My friends were nice enough to lend me some clothes and face wash. Liz even had sulfate-free shampoo to prevent sulfate-ization of my chemically straightened hair bonds.

We ventured out around 11, after a breakfast of Swiss cheese (and yogurt) and were ready to take on the Swiss Alps. Of course, first we had to go rent ourselves some ski/snowboarding gear. But then, we were ready! We took the gondola to the middle of the mountain (which so happened to be right next door to her Dad's place) and Liz and I proceeded to become one with the snow.

I had a mild freak out before even getting up on my board. Emmanuelle is a lot more experienced that us (this is my third time snowboarding and Liz has skied once or twice, last time in 1995.)The truth is, Liz is a heck of a lot more coordinated than me, so I really wasn't worried about her. So as I proceeded to scream bloody murder while laying on my tush strapped into my board at the top of the mountain, having snowboarded nowhere, Emmanuelle coached me up and Liz set off down the slopes. See, I knew Liz would be a superstar!

20 minutes later, we made it the 500 feet down the first part of the "easy" slope, and that was where we saw Liz, laying in the snow with her skis skews all over the place and outside of the flags. Apparently Liz headed straight down the slope, screaming bloody murder, and then toppled over at the bottom, unable to stop. I had by this time, become comfortable with not just sitting on my tush with a snowboard strapped on, so Emmanuelle gave Liz a basics lesson to skiing while I slowly made by way down the slope. 45 minutes later, we made it all the way. Poor Emmamuelle had no idea what she was getting herself into!

The good news is that by the end of the day, we had gotten our run down to 7 minutes. The learning curve was steep (no pun intended.) Of course, I still was incapable of getting off the ski lift that brought us back to the start of the easy run (the only one here on Andermatt.) Emmanuelle would have to literally drag me off the lift and then I had a 60% chance of still falling over, but it's all about trying.

Liz and I managed to fall at least once per run (and usually I managed more than once.) I even managed to aid Emmanuelle in falling, as she couldn't miss out on the fun! At one point during the day, Emmanulle's ski pole got stuck in the ski lift as she was getting on (in large part because she was trying to go with me and I couldn't get on fast enough) and then it snapped in half and she flipped over.

Needless to say, today was full of lots of laughs. And $36 francs well spent on 3 helmets to protect our very expensive brains. Sorry no pictures, I somehow knew that bringing my iPad up to the mountain wouldn't be a good idea!