So I'd planned on starting this blog post by talking about how amazing the Lumineers concert was at Brixton Academy 2 weeks ago. (Because really....they are such an amazing band live!) But as much as I love them, even that concert paled in comparison to the Alps... so I'm not going to take up precious blog real estate. But, ironically I did notice they were playing the Lumineers at one of the ski lodges in France! Ha! Anyway, if you ever have a chance to go see them live, you must!!
So skiing in the Alps was my first trip out of the country since arriving in London!! I've been itching to go somewhere for a while now. I know I've only been here a few months, but since traveling was one of the huge reasons I wanted to move to Europe, I was starting to get a little ansty that I hadn't gone anywhere yet.
For a little bit of background on how this ski trip came about, it's worth explaining that my friend Richie who lives in NYC now is actually British. So when I moved here, he put me in touch with my current (very awesome) flatmate Paul. He also connected me with an old coworker of his Rachel, and we've become good friends. Rachel and I have been talking about a ski trip since I arrived in January, so when Richie said that he and his friends were interested, it all sort of fell into place. We were all trying to be a little more cost conscious (because some of these ski trips here are insanely elaborate and cost a fortune), so we headed to a less commercial, quieter village in the French Alps by the Grand Massif ski resort called Verchaix.
The night before we leave, I come home to Paul walking around our flat with his spandex ski pants and his goggles on. Clearly he's "trying out" his outfit. So what do I do? I decide to try out mine! I also wanted to prepare Paul for the awesomeness he was about to experience with my famed vintage ski outfit. (And I think he wanted to prepare me for a weekend of seeing him in spandex.)
I also maaaaay have saved my packing until the last minute, and as a result ended up packing after having drank more wine than I should've. This resulted in Exhibit A (a rudely branded "heavy bag"). I'm not quite sure what I was thinking when I packed to be honest. We ended up having to sit on it just to get it to close. And this was for a 5 day ski trip. Whatever.
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| Exhibit A |
We flew into Geneva, so I persuaded Paul to go earlier in the day with me so we could check out Geneva during the day before heading to France. Even flying into the city, I felt like the clouds were exceptionally beautiful (you've gathered that I'm a bit overly excited at this point.)
So we land in Switzerland, and I'm super pumped because it's my first new passport stamp in a while.
Anyway, I have to tell you that I was warned by several people that Switzerland is/was boring. I think this sounds ludicrous. I've always pictured it as the most amazing and beautiful place I could fathom, so this boring comment is completely dismissed by me. Paul is all focused on trying to go see some science institute (CERN) where they discovered matter that's smaller than an atom last year (the Higgs boson)...... and I overruled him. :) So we essentially have all afternoon to kill in Geneva. The weather was freezing, but sunny and gorgeous. The city of Geneva is right on the lake (aptly named Lake Geneva), so we drive into the city and immediately see the shimmering lake with sailboats docked at the harbor. It honestly kind of reminded me of Lake Tahoe a bit with the gorgeous lake against the snowy mountains. The lake narrows into a river that runs through the middle of Geneva, and all of the buildings along the water are architecturally stunning. Here are some of the photos...
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| Along Lake Geneva |
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| Along the canal - Paul refused to get in these photos with me |
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| So we start trying to drive along the side of the lake, and there are these beautifully manicured trees. The road only got so far before we end up driving around these random, ritzy neighborhoods with mansions backing up the lake. Naturally, I think this means we should get out of the car and start trying to climb over their fences to take pictures! |
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| Pretty sweet view huh? |
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This is one of those photos that made me want to just bring a sleeping bag and sleep right by the lake forever. 
Fast forward about 3 hours. We made our way back into town, stroll around the cute small neighborhoods and have some wine, and lunch, and more wine and coffee.
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| Walking around the "Old Town" neighborhood. It had cobblestone streets, really cute boutiques and restaurants. |
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| A famous clock made of flowers in the center of the shopping district. |
So later in the evening, we head to the airport, pick up the girls, bust out the GPS and start making our way into France toward the chalet. Now, fair warning: I have a TON of pictures from this trip. It was so beautiful! I'm not sure if you're all going to get bored out of your mind looking at them. If you do, I'm sorry. Just scroll faster past them. But since it's my blog and I'm technically the boss, I'm going to post as many as I want! ;)
The chalet we stayed in ended up working out fabulously well. It was super inexpensive, was in a great location, and we had a blast. The two downsides were:
- I slept on a rollaway twin bed all weekend. Sandwiched between two boys on twin beds on either side of me while they snored all night. I made up for it by coughing all night back at them. I'm sure our soundtrack was great.
- There was only one bathroom for 8 people, hahaha!
All in all though, despite the fact that Richie insisted on waking us all up at 7 am every day (which is NOT my idea of vacation or a good time), I give him props for waking us up with a mug of tea and croissants in hand. Hard to be too grumpy when you get hand-delivered tea. And Paul was a hit with Rachel and Heather (both of whom had never met him before). Paul tends to provide endless entertainment, so this is no surprise.
Hitting the Slopes
Day 1 - Saturday (going off piste)
Saturday was blue skies and sunny. Stunning. There wasn't much fresh powder on the slopes, which makes the slopes - er I mean pistes - a bit icier. This tends to make me a bit more nervous since I'm not the world's best skier, but it's so beautiful, who cares!?
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| This was our attempt at a photo of the 4 of us that are all connected through Richie. Didn't work out so well if you can't tell... (Richie is on the left, then Rachel, Paul and me) |
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Our first stop for mid-day drinks. Vin Chaud is the spiced wine they serve here. Let's just say it's a new favorite of mine. Nothing like drinks with a view!
The big plan for the day was to head across the mountains towards Mont Blanc. While I'm super excited to see this massive mountain, I'm not going to lie. It took a long time to get there. And with lots of different ski levels, at one point I somehow lost the crew. In order to get back to where they were, I had to ski "off piste". LOVED it. Doesn't hurt that I think it sounds like a cool thing to do (ski off piste, that is). But I'm feeling pretty proud of myself at this point.
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| Rachel and I were slope buddies. Neither of us were quite as advanced as the others. And both of us bonded over the fact that it wouldn't be a ski trip without a good cry at least once. Mine hit me the first day when I realized that my ski boots were too small and my feet were swelling due to the excessive number of socks I had on so as not to get frostbite. :) We won't talk about the fact that I may or may not have taken a ski lift down the mountain because I was in the middle of this good cry. ;) That's not important! |
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| Group shot at Mont Blanc - Lulu and Bill, Richie, Chris, Rachel, Paul, me and Heather |
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| This is my best attempt at ski bunny. |
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Paul and Rachel taking a break on the way down the mountain before Rachel and I split off.
Day 2 - Sunday (accidental black runs)
Totally different day weather-wise. Super windy, really low visibility and half of the ski lifts were closed. Not going to pretend I was super bummed about this honestly. I was looking forward to a low-key day after the long day previously. This just gave me an excuse! :) So we hit a different mountain - Samoens - and even had a bit of time to play around a bit first.
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My first wipeout did come a short bit later though. I'm not really even sure how it happened, but next thing I know I'm sliding face first on my stomach down the slope with my skis still attached and flailing behind me. I'm fairly certain I was laughing hysterically at myself. Paul saw the whole thing and seems to think it was all pretty funny. Unfortunately there was no photo of that oneI headed down the mountain a little earlier than everyone else to just chill, grab a coffee and do some reading. All in all, a perfect low-key day to me.
Then we all headed into Samoens to check out the village. It. was. adorable. However I do have to say Europeans are crazy. It's like they don't get cold. Who wants to spend all day on a freezing mountain and then come down the mountain and sit outside to drink!??!? Richie and I kept getting into arguments about how high maintenance it apparently makes me that I get cold easily. Sigh...
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| Gondola heading down the mountain |
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| The town of Samoens |
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| The street musicians were great! |
I also have to say, it's pretty funny to me that we ended up at a bar called Aspen while skiing in France....
Day 3 - Monday. (moguls!)
We. got. dumped. on! It was awesome. Everyone woke up half in a panic because they were all worried the slopes would be closed again, and half loving the snow. We got almost a foot!
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| This was the view from my bed!!
I can honestly say I've never skied in a whiteout before. Definitely nothing like this. And have also never skied in a foot of fresh powder. I quickly realized a few things:
1) I'm not going to be going anywhere fast because every step I take I sink.
2) This is an insane workout.
3) I can't see anything. I have no idea where I'm going. So I'm 100% certain I skied off piste throughout the day again.
4) When skiing on a foot of fresh snow, it gradually turns into moguls. So yes, I also am claiming to have skied moguls today.
 
I also decided to take a ski lesson so I could try to learn some actual technique and had the cutest French ski instructor who actually is dating an American ski instructor that she met skiing in New Zealand! People here have all these crazy stories! Anyway, here are some photos of this crazy ski weather. It was so beautiful and quiet as you were on the slopes. I felt like I was in a movie. The way the snow covered the trees was stunning.
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| I think I was feeling exceptionally proud for conquering this one?? |
Ok, so another thing worth talking about aside from the skiing there is the FOOD!! Seriously, the French know how to eat!!! Not just in the restaurants... on the slopes! Their bars on the mountain have such better ambiance than any of the ones I've been to before - with fire places and such!
We stopped for crepes one day....
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| Heather literally feeding Paul some of her crepe
We had this insanely delicious quiche another day. (Actually that may have been the same day, haha)
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| Rachel literally inhaling the egg and cheese quiche we got one of the days |
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| This was my favorite: Croque Monsieur and an awesome salad |
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| Possibly the best drink with a view I've ever had! |
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This was a nightly activity for us. |
And then one night we went out for traditional French fondue and Raclette.
Oh.
My.
Gosh.
You have no idea until you experience this. First of all, I'm pretty sure I'm still growing a cheese baby. But wow, it was incredible.
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| This is the meet and salad plate that comes with the Raclette |
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| Raclette is a traditional french cheese that goes in this contraption that you plug into the wall. Then you basically heat the outsides of the cheese until it melts, and then scrape it into the bowl and eat it with all the sides. |
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| Group shot at dinner |
Doing shots is a bad idea.
Doing lots of shots in a short amount of time is an even worse idea.
Befriending the french-speaking bartender who proceeds to continue to make and buy you shots is the worst of all of them. Nothing comes of it but tears and headaches.
I guess this is what they call Apres Ski.
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| This is the trouble with letting your French-speaking bartender pick the shots |
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On our way out of town, we hit this insane French bakery. There's something about going into a small, countryside bakery where they don't speak a lick of English and ordering the most amazing pastries. It was incredible!
Before we headed home, we spent Tuesday in Lausanne, Switzerland which is on the other side of Lake Geneva. I was sort of intrigued by this town since I'd interviewed with Nestle and their offices are in Lausanne. Rachel is considering getting her MBA there, so she wanted to visit the school. I have to say, it was a pretty similar experience to Geneva, only maybe even a bit prettier. Gorgeous city. But not a whole lot to do. I'd like to go back sometime when it's warmer and see what kind of outdoor activities go on. I bet I'd like it a lot more then. But wow, look at these views.
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| We sat outside, drinking some wine, connecting to wifi for the first time in 4 days and just soaking in the views. |
Happy Monday! More to come this week on my amazing trip to Lithuania this past weekend!!
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