Skiing in Switzerland=DO IT NOW!!!!!!!!!

Wow skiing in the Alps was that fantastic!!! I woke up at 5:45 to give myself plenty of time to figure out the details. I had decided I wanted to ski in Grindelwald, a town about 40 minutes away by train – cheaper lift tickets and a recommendation from the friendly tour guide in Solothurn (see last post). After assuring that I could rent skis in Grindelwald, I got a train, and when I got there went to the first ski rental place I saw – turns out they were having a 20% off sale which I didn’t even notice until my bill came. I was going to ski in jeans (fool) until the guy convinced me to rent pants as well for only 13 francs. Best purchase of the day! With the 20% off discount, my total came to 61 francs (same in dollars), which I found VERY reasonable. I bought my lift ticket at the train station (is everything subsidised here?) for 59 francs, and borrowed some gloves too. I asked the receptionist where I could get cheap gloves (I lost one of mine). She said nowhere, but let me borrow a pair from her magical glove bin. People are nice! So, I got in line for the train – some parts of the park used train to get back up instead of lift, and it was the way from the town to the “base camp” of the resort, Kleine Scheidegg (which I found amusing to say all day). I was seriously about to explode of excitement. I was almost ready to ski in the Swiss Alps!!!!! I got my first views of the BEAUTIFUL mountains – in every other city it had been cloudy, so the first time I saw the Alps was skiing.

When we got to base camp, I found the easiest route to start on, and went. On the slopes at 9:15 – awesome. It was easy to get readjusted to the mechanics – all that was different was the language, and the lift system (had to card in to each lift through an awkward turnstile),

and the route system (runs or “pistes” not given clever names like in Colorado, but loose numbering systems), and the difficulty level (blue=easy, red=medium, black=hard, but really there was no difference between any of them, at all). Trying to find routes down where I wouldn’t have to take a train (slow) back up was kind of difficult. In the end, I discovered the secret to success: familiarizing myself with the lift names, and putting the map down and going by what lift signs said. They were more accurate than the numbers anyway. I was really going strong in the morning, staying away from anything too difficult (the last thing I wanted to happen was a ski accident in a foreign country). Some of the lifts were strange – a few had pull down bubbles to protect from wind and/or snow (one of them orange), one had a conveyer belt to help you board the lift chairs (did not help at all), and one of the lifts was a plastic hook that you grab on to and it pulls you up the mountain on your skis (a very long and TERRIFYING lift).

Another sad difference I noticed was that Europeans don’t talk to strangers on the lifts – I love doing that in Colorado. I only talked to one couple the whole day – a couple from Bern (I properly complimented their city) who grew up in Grindelwald, and had been to visit relatives before in Cedar Rapids and Monicello, Iowa. Perfect! (see, it’s those friendly Iowa folk). I only had one major fall all day – going too fast and an unforseen bump came up, and I bit it and lost a ski and a pole. No injuries except a sore left thumb (probably jammed, so what else is new?). Starting to slow down, so I took a little break around 1, and skiied down to the longest cable gondola in Europe, where I enjoyed the beef jerky and Swiss chocolates I had packed for myself on the way up. Nice to air out my boots, because they were rubbing on my calves. When I came back from break I was really rocking, and just having a ball! Who cares if nobody speaks English, I’m skiing!!!! As 4:00 approached, I knew the lifts were closing. So, I positioned myself to take the highest lift in the park at 3:58 (maybe the last one on the lift). I wanted to get my day’s worth of skiing! I truly enjoyed my 30 minute run all the way down to a smaller train station 2 stops from Grindelwald, where I returned my equipment and took a train back to Interlaken to see Heidi again (see last post). Bought cheap groceries and watched CNN Britain as I ate in Heidi’s Hostel’s sketchy kitchen. So sore, and so hungry, but had SO MUCH FUN. All together, the total for the day came to about 130 francs. Worth EVERY PENNY. What a wonderful day!