Skiing pics

This is where we waited for the bus to pick us up for 45 minutes.  Seriously, it's like the ski-bus has some sort of grudge and has to make it as inconvenient as possible to get on--not like they could synch up with the city bus schedule or something like that...

Check these guys out--they were ski parachuting!!

Look, I'm skiing!

Look! I'm skiing, with mountains!

Kricket the Hellion

Winter is Coming, and skiing.

Winter volunteers that is.

One has arrived already. She seems nice enough, she's from Canada.

I went skiing yesterday and fell off my skis. I nearly died, but didn't. Thank goodness. It was only about a centimeter drop, problem was the ground was coming at me so fast! The hills here are a bit steeper than they are in the States.

Jen and I went to Elsighorn (which is the boring round shaped mountain behind Bunderspitz). I made the mistake of being snotty about the ski area at first because there were no chairlifts or trees. They had lifts, of course, just pully bar ones though. Usually we only see those on the bunny hills in the State (or on the nursery slopes as they're called here). I said "Sure, I can do the intermediate slopes, I did those in the States"

Well, I couldn't. I had to move down to baby slopes. I was doing well until lunch, and then Jen decided that I should try the harder slopes. So we took another lift to the other side of the mountain, thereby eliminating the possibility of going down a baby slope. That's where I met the ground.

About that time, when I became scared and had to crawl down hills, the wind picked up. Not just a little wind, but gale bursts of hurricane force winds that you could HEAR coming down the mountain. When we heard the woosh all we could do was hunker down, close our eyes, and wait for it to pass. Since the conditions were miserable and I refused to ski properly anymore we left the mountain. A bit early, quite sad. But I'm going again on Thursday! Only baby runs though.

I'll post pictures as soon as Jen gives them to me.

Tonight we're having a danish christmas party!

Staff Day Out, Autumn Version

Staff Day out

We had another. This time, we didn't have to sit in the van for hours on end singing ridiculous songs while being driven to an unknown location (though we knew they were really just driving us around to kill time). Instead, we stayed around Adelboden.

We went curling! Seriously, it is a real sport. If you're watching it on tv, and you feel compelled to ridicule their ridiculous brooms and silly shoes. Don't! It's really really hard. I'll take good old fashioned shuffle board any day, because that doesn't require you to throw your body on the ice while sliding forward and aiming a 50 pound (8000 chf) rock across the floor at a target you can't see because you're only a foot off the ground. Not easy.

After shuffle board, we ate lunch. Let me tell you about Mixed Salads. They are simply the most delicious things ever. I think they're more European than uniquely Swiss in origin. What you do is: arrange coleslaw, carrots, sweet corn, and sometimes pickled beets around a bowl in quadrants. Then above that you put some lettuce, on the lettuce you put cucumbers, tomatoes, boiled eggs and some other vegetables (again in quadrants) and cover the whole thing in creamy dressing. Here's a picture of one that Laura made for me. Delicious. Try it at home. Ok, I had a mixed salad for lunch.

Then, we went tobogganing. I will not call it sledding. Sledding is fun and you go on a gentle hill and you sit in a plastic sled about an inch off the ground, if that. No, they don't do anything half-assed here in Switzerland. First, we sit about a foot off the ground on these wooden contraptions that have metal runners. I'm sure they were sharpened or something too--because that would just make it more dangerous and thus more fun! Jen drove us up a hill and dropped us off on the top of some sort of World Ski Cup black diamond run. "Good luck, I'll meet you at the bottom!" All the Europeans, who had seen these toboggans before hopped on and took off. It took me a while to get up the courage to push off (though, not as hard as jumping off the bridge).

I couldn't even make it to the bottom. I am the Worst Tobogganer ever. Ever! I kept getting off the groomed run and ending up in powder. I eventually gave up and walked the rest of the way down.

On my second run, I did a little better until somehow I lost the sled and tumbled end over end about seven times before coming to a stop. I gave up on "sledding" after that. I think my neck is a bit sore.

After that disaster, we were given a word search puzzle that was supposed to lead us to our next location. We figured it out just fine and learned that we needed to walk to Unter dem birg, or about 3 miles. Seriously? It was about 15 degrees (that's F) outside and getting dark. I guess that's a scout thing....hey! it's miserable out, lets do something ridiculous! So we walked, when we got there, Jen and Madge had made a fire for us and we ate soup and bread and then left. The stars were beautiful, my toes were on their way to frost bite. (seriously, they shouldn't have been so red and swollen when I got home).

What a great day.



[[NOTE: I actually do Not have a picture of that salad, turns out it's on Laura's computer. If she'll send it to me, I'll post it. ]]]

Basel Pictures

Basel, getting to the Tinguely Museum.

The Tinguely Museum.

London

It'll probably be Christmas by the time I finish with this, at the rate I've been going. I've been busy though, so the slow rate is only half-because of my laziness. For instance: Juliette Low left me without a moment to spare for a week, and then Laura was here getting ready to fly off the next. Now I'm afraid the volume of snow we have here will keep me fairly busy with my skis and ski-bock (more on that later)

For now, London.

Dear Brits,

I am sooooo sorry that I judged your whole country on my experience in London. Actually I didn't, you just get defensive--probably because lots of people think London = England. Sort of like lots of people may think that New York = USA, or something equally preposterous. In fact, I will actually with-hold my judgement of England As A Whole until I see where Adrian Mole lives and where the ponies are kept. Also, clotted cream fudge is a serious contender for Best Candy Ever.

So please as you read on: I am actually describing London, not England (though London is in England...).

Love,
KAT

The first mistake I made with London (much like the mistake I made in Paris) was booking cut-rate lodgings. London was worse. In fact, the name should have tipped me off first "The Dover Castle Hostel and Bar" which really means "Hey, we own this bar, and we're doing decent business, but you know what would rock? If we threw some bunk beds in the shit-house upstairs and let the drunkies sleep it off HERE for ten pounds". It was awful, there were rats and then there were our roommates.

When you're sharing a room in a hostel, common decency dictates that you try to be quiet after say 10:30 or 11 pm, because people might be sleeping. Even if people aren't sleeping, you should still be quiet because people might come in and Want to sleep. We were worried that because we were getting in so late, at 11:30, that we'd be those annoying horrible roommates that wake everyone up with the Suitcase Shuffle. I even had my flashlight handy when we walked in....to find....two people talking and watching a movie on a laptop with all the room lights burning.

We went downstairs to enjoy our complimentary drink at the Dover Bar. The bar was about the size of a living room, but with music loud enough to make an entire square block go deaf. We stayed about 20 minutes and decided to go back to our room.

We got all ready for bed, got all snuggly in our chain-link-fence for springs bunk bed with mattress made out of what must have been a few layers of newspaper. I guess drunkies can sleep on the ground, so by their standards these mattresses must have been heavenly.

By 12:15 I finally asked the people to Please turn off that movie and the lights, we want to sleep. They seemed surprised. Oh? Oh? well, we just want to finish it! It's nearly done. I bit my tongue, though I had lots of things already prepared to say to them. None are appropriate for this audience though, I'm afraid.

They got up and left the room with their beers. I knew they'd be back later, and drunk. I wasn't wrong. About 4am they came in and were speaking french quite loudly. Because I had been woken up for 3 and a half hours of sleep I didn't hold back with my language this time. They stopped talking then. Unfortunately, one of them decided to stay up watching another movie on her laptop 'till 6 am.

In the morning, when we discovered the shower didn't work At All, and the nest of bread crumbs made by the rat I marched down the stairs and told the desk guy that we would Not be staying another night. He apologized for the rats, but didn't seem to be awfully worried about it. In fact "Deal with irate guests who have seen the rats" must be one of the daily tasks for the morning person. He gave me some free Internet time to find a new hostel. And we did, and it was much better. You should stay there, it's called London's Journey Eye or something like that. It was nice.

We had our breakfast in the bar and learned of Obama's victory. That made us feel better.

Later that morning, we met up with Ruth, Rachel, Katie and Catherine. We attempted to see the changing of the guards at Buckingham palace. Not much to see honestly. Bunch of guys in fancy dress walking around like robots. There were ponies though, that was nice. The palace itself wasn't much to look at either. Kinda grey, kinda ugly. But, a must see I suppose.

After that, we headed off to the Tower of London. It's more than just a tower. Its a whole castle compound full of people in period dress. Really really awesome. Really Really expensive. Adult admission is 16.50, which if you speak American dollars is around $35. Luckily we had 2 for 1 tickets. We saw instruments of torture, crown jewels, large ravens, and 13th century royal apartments. Very cool.

From there we went and had some fish and chips at the English Applebee's. The beer was nothing to write home about, but it was cheap.

After that we saw Piccadilly Circus, which is Not a circus, unless you are driving through it. Actually, it's a traffic circle. We got back on the underground and rode to ... somewhere...hoping to see the fireworks--because it was fireworks night. But, we could only hear them. We gave up and stood by the river underneath the EYE and looked at Westminster Abby and the houses of Parliament. I learned that Big Ben is not the clock tower, it's just a bell inside the clock. I didn't see Big Ben, but I heard it.

We all said goodnight and Laura and I went back to our new hostel. I must say, all the traveling we did that day was on the underground. I think we must have spent at least 2 hours navigating through the tubes. It is a nice transport system--if a bit expensive (but what isn't in London?)--at 6 pounds for a day pass ($12).

The next day, Laura and I explored around the Parliament, since we couldn't figure out how to get inside and didn't want to play the "Can I get in here for free?" game and risk getting arrested. It took us ten minutes to cross the street. London is a busy and crowded town.

We saw the Westminster Abby. We saw the British National Museum--saw mummies, the Rosetta stone and some other large stone things.

We got on a plane and went to Prague.









The Marble Arch, and a doll.
The sovereign's entrance to the houses of Parliament
Westminster Abbey
Parliament
Some guy. You brits might recognize him.
The tower that Big Ben is in.

Jungfraujoch

We went to Jungfraujoch. It was expensive, it was cold, it was beautiful. Here's a photo-essay. It's a Do It Yourself Story day--you get to make it up yourself! Isn't that fun?
Half way up.
My face is cold!
Top of Europe, Baby!
I like to take pictures of people taking pictures.
Laura's face is cold."Ok, on three open your eyes!" It was VERY bright.
Let's see if I can go for a little hike...






Ice Palace fun.

Mmmmm, glacier!
Home again, home again.

You can also read Jena's post. She's at Switzerland or Bust. Bonus for visiting her blog: there's a picture of me with a whole orange in my mouth.