alpine adventure

This weekend, I'm pretty sure I died and went to heaven. I've always been one for winter, snow, and all things cold, but this weekend took my love to a whole new level. My host family has a 'petit chalet' in Leysin, a town in the Alps about an hour outside of Geneva that's apparently pretty well known for skiing (and apparently has a world-renowned hotel school?). Despite my jealousy in that DC is getting pounded with tons of snow right now, I can't be too sad as the snow was up to my waist in Leysin, not to mention I was higher than some planes fly surrounded by picturesque ski cabins and evergreens.

Saturday morning came with a breakfast of pain au chocolate (chocolate croissants) and a magic potion called Multifruit-a vitamin supplement drink that tastes like a mixture of Fanta and orange juice but better. Inexplicable. They told me that I was going to get to try skiing, but I'm pretty sure I would have been quite the burden having never been before (it's amazing how early they start here, I swear there were 3 year olds on the lifts...). We went on a super long walk with Igor across the snow covered field and back up through the village, and thank god for my freakishly small feet because my leather boots just wouldn't have cut it for this. You could definitely tell that I could probably count on my fingers the number of times I've actually seen snow. I borrowed the 12 year old son's snow boots (which were still too big) and off we went. The snow was as tall as the dog in most places, but everything was absolutely magnificent. Leysin is the exact thing I thought of when I imagined a ski village, and I'm pretty sure I seemed happier than a kid in a candy store-I had a constant urge to make a snow angel, but I refrained.

That night presented hot dog soup, round 2. And it was a grand success. But that was probably due, in part, to my host mom offering me (and only me) a knife and fork before eating. After dinner, we went off (with Igor, of course) to the ice skating rink to do what I thought would be some very uncomfortable skating in a pair of rental skates (weird). Much to my amusement, I heard the hum of GO CARTS when we walked into the rink and my eyes were opened to the world of ice karting...go carts combined with ice rinks has to be the greatest invention of all time. And to top it all off, we finished the evening with hot chocolate in an IGLOO fondue house. Although I felt pretty sorry for the old ladies who worked there-they looked miserable, but then again, who'd want to say that their job was to run around hoping not to slip serving things to people in a hut made of ice that smells like cheese.

This afternoon, Francois, a son from my host mother's first marriage, came over with his wife and twin 4 year-olds for lunch. They were the cutest kid's I've ever seen and it didn't help that they spoke, whined, and laughed, all in French. After a huge lunch of ham, pasta, salad, bread, bread, and bread, we set off (twins on sleds in tow) for the tobogganing courses (Igor leading the way). I wasn't too sure what to expect, since my host mom explained it to me as bobsledding but I was pretty sure that's not what we'd be doing. But when we got there it was the winter equivalent of a water park. Intertubes and slides, but imagine ice and snow rather than water and sun. The slides corresponded to the levels of difficulty with skiing, with blue being for losers and black being the scariest. When I finally convinced my host sister to come to the black slides with me, I tried (but evidently failed) to ask the guy working what the difference between the two seemingly identical tracks was. He rambled off something in very rapid French and just smiled, but when I looked at Helene for enlightenment, she just laughed and told me he could tell I wasn't French. After toboganning for a while, we (Igor included) took the 'telecabines,' i.e. cable cars, to the base of the mountain where there was a revolving restaurant with amazing views of the village below and the slopes/ski lifts. The mountains are a magical landscape. One minute it will be bright and sunny with clear views of everything, and the next minute you can't see your hand in front of you. When we got to the top of the lift, it was -7 degrees C with whipping winds and 0 visibility, but when we left it was perfect. I really want to learn how to ski-simply to add to my repertoire/obsession with winter sports. I've been told they will teach me next month...