faire du luge

skiing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I went skiing today!!!! First time in over a decade!

Me and Diane.

Cutie.

Nerd.

OH heeeyyy everyone! Look at me go!

Pretty steep, I know.

hahaha

The grandpa said I belong in Vancouver!

médaille

This is clearly a really classy photo of Diane and her golden medal she received from her ski instructor. Bravo Diane, bravo.

swiss cheese

I chatted it up with the Cheese Man the second day of my arrival. Of course. I love cheese. Have I mentioned how nice Swiss people are? My goodness, they shower you with greetings, farewells and compliments. For example:

-Hello

-Hello, Good morning! Goodday! Are you enjoying the day?

-Yes, yes thank you

-Oh nice, what can I help you with?

-Oh, some cheese please.

.......(then we dicuss cheese)

-Thank you

-Oh thank you, have a wonderful afternoon, enjoy your cheese, enjoy the snow, enjoy the evening. Goodbye, see you again soon, bye bye. Take care now, okay bye bye.

Literally, no exaggeration. It's so great.

Also, they speak slower, so it's easy to understand them. The girls make fun of them for it, sort of like this:

France French: Bonjour, comment ca va?

Swiss French: Bonnnnnnjouuuur, cooommmment ca vaaaaa?

I love it.

Also, they say some numbers differently, which works in my favor, so that's brilliant.

There is the Cheese Man!

Bretaye

This is where I ate lunch with the family today:

This was our view:

Col de Bretaye is the last stop of the train.

Skiers:

I am currently making a stop-animation film! Stay tuned folks, it's going to magical, I promise.

Col de Soud

After we had lunch at this restaurant I hiked down the mountain. It should have taken 45 minutes but it took my almost an hour and a half because a) I'm not so skilled at walking in snow boots in the snow and b) I stopped to take photos every 5 seconds.

The skiers go through that underground tunnel:

The beginning of the hike:

The trail:

skiers! (that word looks so wrong to me)

This is a lovely little house thing. It's completely open, so it's like a shack. Well no, not a shack. It's a house that only has walls. Well actually, it only has three walls and a roof. In the spring/summer people picnic here.

This is the view from the hut thing:

There is another town off in the distance but I don't know which town it is.

Beautiful Villars:

Chalets are sprinkled everywhere:

This is my favorite part of the mountain range:

I don't think anyone was home which was good because I was basically in their 'front yard' for a good 10 minutes...

This is what a typical Swiss chalet looks like:

The town:

Snowy rooftops:

icicles!!!

Here are the traintracks:

The train is only 2-3 cars long:

This screams Christmas:

VIVE LA SUISSE!

I will.

moutain food

I met the family for lunch today, I had to take the ski train up the mountain and we had D E L I C I O U S food. Oh man, is it possible Swiss mountain food is better than French food? Hmmmm.....

This is rösti, it is grated potatoes with is either fried or baked, the closet equivalent would be like hash browns. But these are not hash browns, these are so much better that anything I have ever had.

This is fondue. mmmmm cheese (grommit!).

Look how serious Clemence is and look at Aude nom nom noming.

This is Arnaud the father.

This was our table/view.

GIVE ME A BREAK.

Switzerland is a postcard.

the village of Villars

Today the Flecchia family when skiing and I went into town to explore the surroundings. This is their chalet, we have the bottom floor and my window is behind that tree:

Here is the driveway/road looking down:

Here is the driveway/road looking up:

This is what Swiss snow looks like:

This is the Villars Kid Ski School:

These are a bunch of chalets:

More kiddies:

Their chalet is the one on the right:

This is the path I take down to the ski train or the center of village:

These are the ski train tracks:

This is the only boulangerie in town, but it is quite good:

This is the main road:

Another main road:

I will.

More views of the chalets:

town:

This is a Swiss version of a Previa:

This is the International School. Yes, I want to go to there.

Snowy trees!

This place looks so sleepy, in a good way.

More fantastic trees!

!!!!!

Look how much it has been snowing, that's a good 1.5-2 feet!

Lovely benches, I bet it is really nice to sit here in the Spring or Summer:

Further down the road:

Nice.

dead sunflowers:

cross roads:

I want to live here: