Hike, work, cook, eat, ski, repeat.

Yesterday was another hike to the usual waterfall, Engstligen. Like I said, we don't have many hikes open in the winter due to the snow level, and this one's popular with the guests in any season anyway. I don't mind going there every other week. It's still a decent hike, and I get to spend four or five hours hiking through a Swiss valley as part of my job. Hardly anything to complain about. Also, the scenery is slightly different each time, depending on whether we have had fresh snowfall, a melt and freeze, or just sunshine lately. We had another snow barbeque, as well, this time for just a small group. We took a couple of Welsh women with us this time, as well as the six Brits from the igloo day. These first few pictures are all from the hike.

We've a volunteer family working with us for a week, which means we can foist all our least favorite tasks off on them for a while. We won't be mean, but it should be nice to get a bit of a break. They were supposed to be doing a deep cleaning of the mini chalet on the hill, but we have a British family booked in there for the week. The Brits are great fun, actually. The parents are witty and intelligent, and the kids are a hoot. The son's only eight, and he's an adorable ginger boy, full of questions and energy. The daughter is eleven and more pensive, and she's very quick to catch on.

The volunteer family will be working on two of our other small buildings instead of the mini chalet, then just helping out. The mom's a nurse, so she'll go through all our med kits and organize them. The daughter will just pitch in here and there, and the father's an engineer. He'll be fixing the little things around here until our maintainance guy comes back next month. On his list are a few floorboards, the guest dryer (which is some kind of condenser, rather than the usual type with lots of hot air), and, most importantly, the table-tennis table, which has a broken leg.

Finn and I stayed up late in the kitchen last night. She's going on a business trip to Geneva soon, then spending a week back home. She started here in my position and then got hired on for another year, so she needs to gather up her summer gear and say goodbye to her friends and all that. But she was thinking about Finland, so she decided to make us a treat.

Karjalanpiirakka, and yes, I can say it, are Christmas food. They're mash tucked into a thin circle of rye bread, almost like a little tortilla, and then crimped up into the center. I told Finn they reminded me of beetles, and Sydney came by while we were working and said they were witchity grubs. Finn let me cut the rye dough into little bits and then flatten them into pancakes. She rolled them out until they were nearly crepe-thin and about the size of my handspan, then carefully shaped the mashed potato into an oval in the center and performed the special crimp. We made at least seventy, and she got up early to bake them. They're quite tasty, probably because the final step is to brush them on both sides with butter when they come out of the oven. Finn says her family eats them like bread in the winter, serving them with every meal and smearing them with mustard and ham like open-face sandwiches.

Today may as well have been a holiday, it was so full of fun. I got up early to hit the slopes. They're closing the World Cup run on Chuenisbärgli, and we only have a couple more weeks on the pistes at Silleren, Hahnenmoos, Metch, and Lenk. I keep hoping they'll extend the season due to all the snow we're getting. It's glorious up there. Finn and SAussie didn't think it was glorious enough, probably due to the powder level, but there were sunbreaks today and I had a good time. I got tired around three, though, after six hours in the drifts, and it started whiting out on my run home. I ran into the Welsh women twice this afternoon, so I got to hear a bit about their country. I'd like to visit some day. After skiing, I parked my gear at the bottom of the lift and headed into town for an hour. Nobody steals anything here, so I could just leave my skis in the rack on the side of the parking lot and enjoy my fries and beer worry-free. Finn gave me a ride back up the hill, and we grabbed a quick dinner before heading back into town to meet up with SAussie.

The pool in town is part of a spa complex in the bottom of the main hotel. It's not very big, and it's clearly designed for plashing around rather than swimming laps, but it has some nice features. There are two shower-jets that will rain hard on your shoulders and neck if you stand under them, and the whole pool is kept rather warm. You can swim through a doorway into the outdoor portion, where you can recline on some curved metal tubes that are shaped into a rather horizontal couch. They emit bubbles every now and again. I felt like I was soaking in champagne while watching the sun set and the stars come out. There are also heated seats outside the pool and a rail running around one side of it, presumably for playing on. We stayed in for a couple of hours to get our twelve CHF worth, then jumped out and ducked into the little Kino, where "The Other Boleyn Girl" was playing. After a month of living and working at the chalet, it was nice to feel like we had a real social life in town.

Safe nights and wild days.

Work was not particularly exciting yesterday, so we went to SAussie's to hang out in the evening. SAussie, Finn, Sydney, and Canuk were tired from having given blood (yay, community service!) by the time I got there, so we just lounged. I had to work later than they did. Pity, as I was hoping to see what blood donation was like in Switzerland. We hiked home somewhat early, and I caught up with Brazil for a night in the bomb shelter. All new buildings in CH had to be equipped with a bomb shelter until quite recently, and ours is supposedly good for eighteen people for eighteen days and nights, at which point there's an escape hatch ready for a quick exit to the road.

These days, the shelter is full of archives and office supplies. Brazil and I brought two sleeping pads and a duvet each, plus sleeping bags and pillows. The floor was still noticeably concrete, but it was a pretty good night anyway. I brought also some cheesecake for a late night snack, and a flashlight/torch to scare away the spiders, since I was sleeping under the hatch. The light was instead used for reading until the wee small hours. It's quite dark in the bomb shelter with the overhead light out. I'm glad I didn't check on the spiders till the morning--when I did open the hatch for a peek, they were at least the size of Oreos, their bodies narrowed nickels in the middle. We padded off to breakfast in our pajamas, as required. We're working our way through the Staff Challenge, and you have to be able to prove to senior staff that you did the challenge items. The lone guest, a remarkable woman who was here earlier this month with her sister and nieces, also heard us in the night, so we should have an earwitness to call on if needed.

I spent this morning with six young women from England. I instructed them in the fine art of igloo building, then ended up putting much of it together. They didn't realize that it would take four hours to build one large enough for them all to fit inside, and they quickly tired of chopping wedge-shaped blocks. The snow wasn't of the proper sort either, or at least the top layer wasn't. We've been getting enough sun lately that there was a two-centimeter crust of crumbly ice on top of the snow, which was still a good 30 cm thick in places. I eventually gave up on their feeble blocks and just patched the thing together. It was never as nice as this igloo/bar/fondue restaurant, but it did hold all of them. It would have slept three, as well, had the afternoon sun not caved in the roof.


Nevertheless, we did finish the thing. The blocks disappear about halfway up, but we tried to just smooth out the rest of the construction. Toward the end, we had to go from three to two inside the igloo, then just hands poking out the shrinking hole in the roof. Those on the outside kept dumping more snow on our heads as we tried to close up the gap. Our hurried efforts toward the end left the roof a bit flatter than it should have been, but we did reinforce the inside with some extra snow. We also had to pat another layer onto the side facing the sun, as it looked to be thinning out a bit. The Brits held a tea-time discussion inside the igloo after we'd finished, then emerged triumphantly and headed out on a sleigh ride. I hung around to soak up a bit more glory. It's not every day you can build an igloo at the end of March.

Woodcarver.

I took the Irish girls on a hike to the woodcarvers' workshop yesterday. It was a good way to spend a work day, out in the snow and along the hillsides. They lagged a bit, but not as badly as before. The woodcarvers are fascinating to watch. They're a family, parents and son, and they've been the woodcarving family in Adelboden for decades. The father especially can carve so deftly it seems as though he was born with wood tools in his fingers. Kurt, the son, is always excited to see our chalet staff. I think he's a bit starved for repeat contact with anyone, though the family also runs a shop in town. They carve giant animals, bears and rabbits, as well as breadboards, music boxes, and toys. Kurt should be joining us for the afternoon in a few weeks to do some carving on site. He's a nice fellow, and I'm looking forward to his visit.

While at the woodcarving shop, we had a gentle snowball fight with the Irish girls. They're a sneaky lot. They bought too much chocolate cake at the family cafe next door, though, so they passed it down the table to where I was sharing a lemon cake with two other staff members. One of the other girls also gave me a chocolate bar at the end of the hike: a present, I think, for putting up with her sluggishness on the uphill portions. I dug the campfire circle out of the snow that evening, and the girls sang for us for an hour or so.

I'm getting a bit of a backlog of photos, so I'll end this with a few of them.

This is where I live. Yes, it's gorgeous.


The little houses on the left are another part of where I live, and the chalet on the right is the neighbors' and where I pass by on the start of a day's wander. Also gorgeous.


This is what the homes look like around here. They've lots of detailed woodcarvings on the balconies and trimmings, plus carved words above the windows for luck and blessings. There are often also little paintings, sometimes of flowers.



Here's one of the winter hikes. We only do a few right now, to a couple different waterfalls and to the woodcarver's, but more will open up when it thaws. I am really looking forward to ascending some of the peaks around here.


And, just because I know I haven't posted this sort of thing yet, here are some of the mountains. These peaks all have names like Tierhörnli, Bunderspitz, Tschingelochtighorn, Steghorn, Wildstrubel, Mittaghorn, Fitzer, Lohner, Luegli, Ammertenhorn, Metchstand, Elsighorn, Stand, and Chuenisbärgi. Tierhörnli is the one with the bald peak, I think. This panorama comes from the top of one of my favorite ski runs, so I don't know the mountains as well as the ones visible from my valley.

Powder.

Brilliant. I had indeed recovered by my first day off, but I was a bit wary of heading up to the ski runs for the day. I borrowed Sydney's board again and hiked over the hill to the neighbor's tow rope. It's not amazing, but it does go quite a ways up a steep hill. It's also free and within fifteen minutes of home. The neighbors, by the way, are either farmers, complete with barns and cow aroma, cheese makers, or owners of other small chalets for travelers. There's also a family with a little girl that lives tucked away into the hillside, and a fellow way back by Bonderfalle who rides his horse everywhere. This is the house with the little girl; I saw her out sledging after the family made a snowshoe trek in the morning.

It was just me on the hillside for five hours, carving fresh tracks through thirty cm of powder. We'd just gotten a deep snowfall, so I had a lot to sink into. I really got the hang of snowboarding again. By the afternoon, I had my turns, could land a small jump, was able to dodge around a few stumps, and could lean pretty far over while surfing across the lower, flatter part of the valley. Around three, a few boys came by to build jumps. I smirked when they fell off the tow rope, but I helped the youngest one get the hang of it. I admit that it was a bit rough going when I first arrived in the morning, but by then I'd cleared a smooth way up.

I was feeling well enough by evening to go out with SAussie, Canuk, and Finn. We sledged down to Oey, in the valley, then hiked up to SAussie's flat, in Dorf center. She's moving out this week, and we needed a party to celebrate that. We tried Swiss Tell, Finnish and Aussie beers, and German Weissbier from the flat fridge before heading out to the Alpenrose. There, we sampled the Cardinal, absinthe, and Flying Hirsches. It was smoky, but not as bad as last time. It was nice to hang out outside of work. They're a fun group when they're not too tired. Toward the end of the night, the townie who supplies us some of our food recognized us and drew us into his group of Italians and Portugese. They bought us these weird blue vodka shots. Apparently, vodka comes in blue and red in Switzerland. I'll have to find out more about it. I tried to speak half Spanish and half German to one of the Italian guys. We sort of communicated, with Canuk helping on the German side and me trying to clarify his Italian. The sledge ride home was a bit tipsy, but we made it in all right. I think I'll go sledging again today, perhaps all the way down Holiebeweg if they don't clear it. I think I'll also see if I can concoct an extra rich hot chocolate out of the fondue chocolate.

Ostersonntag.

We had fifty-five Irish pre-teens here for Easter, plus their sixteen adults. Most of them had never skied before, so had our work cut out for us. Actually, the work started before the ski days. We needed all hands in the kitchen to cook for the eighty or so total people here. I'd rather we just get food in town. The bakeries went all out for Oster, with lots of cakes, Easter pies, and chocolate rabbits.

Their first day, we took the Irish on a hike to Engstligen. It took three hours, twice as long as it takes me to do it. I took the rear and threw snowballs at the laggards whenever they sat down. Really, you should be able to hike for three hours at age twelve, even if it's up in the Alps and on a very slight incline. We rewarded them for finally making it with a snow barbecue. We had to change the schedule around here to accomodate them all. After dinner, I roughhoused in the snow and then ordered them to build snow creatures. They're fun kids.

The next morning, we got up at six to get them all set for skiing. We marched them to town, then lined them up for ski fitting. This is Syndey and me hiking the last bit of the walk to town. It's a lot of uphill, so we had more kidherding to do. Finally, they all had skis and had walked three blocks to the park in their ski boots. We served a breakfast picnic and sent them off with their ski instructors.

We had intended to go ice skating to celebrate having accomplished all that by nine a.m., but they'd just closed the rink for the year. We had hot chocolate and cakes instead. I chose a mini Easter pie, complete with little eggs on top. I don't know what was inside, but it was delicious. Sydney and Sloan got some sort of pastry-custard cake, one vanilla and one strawberry. Brazil got a custard pie, also with strawberries, and Bowie got a more cake-like cake, I think. We swapped around to check the quality and that they all went well with cocoa. This is Brazil and me giving our smiles of approval. I'm also displaying my racoon tan of approval, it seems.

By that night, I had contracted an evil stomach virus from one of the kids. I went to bed early and missed the chocolate fondue. I was sick for half of Easter Sunday as well, which is a pity. I did get to watch the Salvation Army Band through the window. The Easter tradition around here is to get in uniform and have the SA Band stand by the flag, facing out into the valley. All of Adelboden hears them play at about eight in the morning, then we file inside and tuck into our Sunday Bread. I fell asleep on the couch instead. Canuk says she'll make me some another day. I also missed Easter mass, to which I had been looking forward. I will have to catch another, less fancy, Swiss-German mass while I'm here.

I have the next two days off, so won't see them for more skiing, a day trip to Bern, and a night hike. I plan on recovering for the rest of the afternoon so I can make the most of my free time. I'm already feeling much better. The kid who was sick enough to miss skiing yesterday is just fine today, so I figure it's a twenty-four hour thing.

Oh, Canada.

Canuk returned from her vacation last night. She's been traveling around Europe with her sister. I'm looking forward to the stories. SAussie says Canuk is my Canadian counterpart, that we're quite alike. It should be a fun few weeks while she's here.

I spent the day skiing with Finn, Canuk, and Bowie. Finn and Canuk had to work in the afternoon, but Bowie and I stayed till five. I'm able to ski for longer now, or do multiple days consecutively without getting too tired. We got to ski Luegli again today. The rollercoaster run, which was closed last time, was open and in decent shape. There are only six or so black runs around Silleren, so we get excited when they're open on our days off. They close them when it's too windy or snowy to keep them groomed.

By the afternoon, the area around Hannenmoos was icy higher up, so we spent some time in the skicross area again. It was in primo condition. I had loads of fun, despite being a bit sore from boarding six hours the day before, then skiing seven hours today. We made it to most of the Silleren area runs, all over the place, really, then skied home to Oey and hiked up just in time for dinner.

We tend to get up early to get the most skiing in possible, so we often get to make first tracks down the pistes.

Engstligen again.

I had yet another day off, so I went out on Sydney's Schneeboard today. There wasn't enough snow on the hillside to snowboard into Oey, so I hiked into town and took the bus out to Unter dem Birg. It was only about three Swiss Francs with my new half-fare card. This morning was sunny, but it started snowing a few hours into my snowboarding practice. We did get a few sun breaks in the afternoon, but it got harder to see. I broke the back foot toe binding strap at one point. Sydney's board is actually her sister's board, and the bindings are ancient. Sydney broke one last time we went out together. I kept boarding, since the repair shop on the slopes was closed.

All in all, I did fairly well for not having been on a snowboard in a decade. Sure, I sat down a lot and wiped out a few times, but I got the hang of turning. It helped when an instructor brought a group of kids at about my level to the run I was on for a while. There was also a group of Austrians just learning to snowboard, and another class with much more advanced teens. They were literally spinning in circles around the rest of us all down the hill, and flying off a large jump at the right side of the piste. I was next to the baby slope, so I got to watch a few proud Swiss parents train their three-year-olds not to be scared to fly down a snowy mountain while wearing ungainly boots and sticks strapped to your legs. A few were even ready for harnesses or holding onto poles by their parents' side. I don't know how the parents ski downhill with tiny children between their legs, clinging onto their knees. I'd be afraid I'd fall and squish my child. A few also ski with backpacks holding infants too young to learn to ski. I suppose we take our babies in bicycle bucket seats, so it's not that odd.

The ski area at Engstligen is a giant bowl up above the waterfall, so it offered this view of the valley I live in. The town down there is Boden, which means floor. Adelboden is up a bit higher, on the side of the mountain, and curving around the valley to the right. Once you take the gondola up from Unter dem Birg, there's the longest tow rope I've ever seen to take you from piste to piste. It was basically a bunch of hoses attached to the main rope, and it was hell for an inexperienced snowboarder. I must have fallen off at least four times. I wasn't the only one, thank goodness, but it was still embarrassing. I swear it was a kilometer long across the floor of the bowl. You can see it for yourself below. I went across the bowl to check on the repair shop, which was, as I've said, geschlossen (closed). After the long tow back, during which I only fell off once, I ducked into the igloo fondue bar, then snowboarded until my thighs and ankles complained.

When I got tired, I went snowtubing. Dutch had given me a card good for a few rides last night, when I said I'd be heading up to Engstligen today, so I got a free helmet and tube. It was fun to careen off the walls of the tubing track, much like those giant slides at the bigger water parks at home. I think it was just me and some six-year-olds, but I can't think why more adults weren't spinning crazily down the track.

I got to speak German a lot today, since almost nobody at Engstligen speaks English. (The exception being that the Engstligen gondola ticket seller, in contrast to all the other ones, e.g. at Tschenten and Oey, did.) They didn't speak much English at the repair shop I went to in Adelboden, either. I don't know what "to fix" is in German, but I could explain that my snowboard was broken and point hopefully at the strap. The repair guy got the idea, and I bought some wax so I could return Sydney's board in better shape than I got it. It was actually pretty rough in places on the bottom. Finn taught me how to wax my skis last week, so I should be set for the rest of the season.

This picture is of Adelboden, the town I live the closest to.
You can see one of the churches and a few of the sporting goods stores. The town has a grocery store, post office, two banks, bus station, three ski lift/gondola entrances, a couple of parks, an outdoor ice skating/hockey rink, three indoor curling/Eisstockschiessen rinks, an indoor rock climbing facility, two ski rental/repair places, three churches, a school, an equestrian barn, a Kino (movie theater), six bars/pubs/clubs, seven hotels/inns, three bakeries, and a handful of cafes and restaurants. The main street has a few switchbacks to get up to and through town, but the Schulstraße climbs straight up the hill. It's a little walking path for the kids to get to school, but it's also used by a few horse riders, the postman, the rubbish collectors, and just about all the pedestrians. You'll find tourists huffing their way up very slowly, the elderly just as slow but without the huffing, most people hiking up steadily, and kids running pell-mell all over the place. In the winter, you can sledge down Schulstraße, but you have to watch for where it crosses the main road's switchbacks. This picture is along the main street of town. Almost everything is along one flat section of the street. There aren't many people around during the day, but at five at night, everyone comes down from the slopes and wanders the street before filling the restaurants, cafes, bars, and the Kiosk. Everyone just goes out in their ski boots and jackets, and the parents pull their toddlers around town on sledges. The baby carriages look a bit like old prams, only with little sleeping bags instead of a bin in which to tuck your infant. It's quite a sight to be sitting in a nice cafe with everyone's ski-booted legs stretched out around you.

I also took care of some school details in my time off, and I won a small scholarship for next fall. Hoorah! A good day all around, excepting what I'm sure will be a lovely bruise on my hip come tomorrow.

Getting our Irish up.

We have a batch of Irish girls here for about a week. They're fun kids, all excited for St. Patrick's day and skiing on real snow. They said it doesn't snow much near Dublin, where they're from, so they practiced on one of those slopes with plastic bristles. I've heard about it, and it sounds like skiing on triangular toothbrushes. They fared well in the snow, though they were shocked at how cold it gets up on the pistes. This batch of thirty is good practice for the seventy-odd Irish guests we'll get over Easter.

On St. Patrick's Day, I got up early to dye their milk, yogurt, and mayonaise green, then cut the Frühstückskäse (breakfast cheese) into shamrocks with a cookie cutter. A few were wary of the color of their hot chocolate, but they loved the cheese. I guess they don't dye the food in Ireland. I was surprised how into St. Patrick's Day they were, though. I'd thought it was more of an American tradition to actually celebrate it, but they went all out with Irish flags and facepaint.

I also took a batch of them on a night hike out to Bonderfälle (another set of waterfalls, these off the mountain behind the staff house). It had just dumped a lot of snow, so we didn't need torches or headlamps. We could see the path, what there was of it, by the glow of the moon reflecting off the snow. Bowie and I took only seven, since the remainder wanted to stay tucked away and warm, so we got just the intrepid hikers. We usually turn around after half an hour, but these kids wanted to see the falls. Only half of the path had been used at all, so we started off crossing the foothills through calf-deep snow. Their leader brought Snacks for when we actually made it to the Wasserfälle, which was good, because it was snowing so hard that it was whited out. Bowie rightly decided that it would be dangerous to follow the creek the last fifty meters, since the snow piled on the edges kept us from knowing where the true edge was. We'd be sure to lose an Irish girl in the stream. We couldn't even see the mountain, despite the fact that we were basically standing at the foot of its sheer cliff. Snacks, by the way, are Cadbury treats somewhat like mini Kit-Kat bars. Just the thing at the end of the uphill portion of the hike. The girls sang a bit on the way to the falls, but they were excited enough on the way back not to need to cheer themselves with music.

Three day!

I got my three-day break, so we of course got a break from the snow. It rained all day on Wednesday, HARD. I stayed in for the morning, hoping it would ease up. No dice. At least I got a bit more work done. Being a hale Oregonian, I set out for Engstligen Falls after lunch, rain be damned. It was a nice walk, about 1.5 hours each way. The rain didn't melt the snow much, but there was slush at a few junctures. My waterproof coat held up nicely, and my gloves and boots made it nearly the whole way. I didn't think about food, since I left after lunch, so my snack was only a liter of water and a Gu gel. The waterfall wasn't completely iced over anymore, so it looks like the ice climbing season is over. Oh well.

They've got these hiking signs all over the place, so it's difficult to get lost. No worries, I did manage it on the way back by crossing the creek too soon, but I found my way back to the Wanderweg quickly. The yellow signs (or just diamonds by the side of the road, in the less traveled areas) are for Wanderwegen, or hiking paths. The ones with white and red stripes at the tips are mountain crossings, not quite suitable for travel yet. I'll start hiking those when the snow melts. They've little snowman pictures to indicate the winter walking paths, and they've light blue signs scattered across the fields to show the crosscountry skiing runs. There are also pink ones for snowshoeing. You can see the gondola and bus stop markings on this junction sign. The one nearer to town shows three different ski lifts you can jump on. It's incredible. Despite the weather, I ran into a number of other hikers. I like the Swiss spirit of ownership of the outdoors. They respect the wilderness, but they also spend time in it. I think the one leads to the other, and vice versa.

I've got lots of pictures from the hike, and from my trip in general. I might get around to posting more online. Let me know if you're interested.

On Thursday, I skied all day, this time with Finn, SAussie, and Sydney, though Sydney was snowboarding. It was yet another glorious day. We went up to Luegli, my favorite mountain, and flew down the black runs. I'm definitely getting to be a better skier. I won't bore you with too many more pictures of sunshine and mountains (this is a blatant lie), but here're a couple from Thursday.
We skied from eight in the morning, when the lifts open, until two in the afternoon, when those on duty came out to cook us and the guests a snow barbecue. They brought lots of hot chocolate, so I was quite content while they grilled bratwurst. They made me a grilled veggie thingy afterwards. Stuffed, we continued skiing until they closed up at five. We went to the skicross areas for a while, so I got to practice on a few jumps. Naturally, I crash landed. It was still great fun.

My legs burned the next day, but I went out again anyway. Finn and I skied all morning, not including a hot chocolate break. I'm starting to get the names of all the peaks down, but not quite well enough to give it a shot here. Also, I need to take a 360 degree video to really give the best idea of what it looks like here. One of the pistes goes out along a ridge, so as you're skiing it looks like you're on a peninsula with valleys to each side and the front and mountains rising up just behind the valleys. Amazing.

At two, Finn and I caught the bus to Frutigen, the next town up the valley. I wasn't expecting it to be as bustling as it was, though it is the last train station in the area, and it's a major junction for a few of the river valleys around here. We fiddled around with the photo booth, then I got a half-fare card for cheap'n'easy travel in Switzerland. I wandered the town while she ran an errand, stoping by the park, walking along a stream, poking my head into a veloshop (snowboard-bike hybrid!), and getting sucked into two bakeries. We had a very Swiss lunch: her with Apfelsaft, the delicious sparkling apple juice they make around these parts, and a Swiss croissant, and me with Rivella, the peculiar whey-based soft drink, and smelly, soft, and tasty Appenzeller cheese. The soft drink tasted less sweet than I expected, which I was happy about. It didn't taste at all like a milk product, but it did have a not-unpleasant vitaminy aftertaste. The Swiss must like that flavor, as it's a part of a few of their foods. I also saw a fantastic playground, complete with an old train car, a zip line, a huge slide, a cave, and a great swingset.

Work hard, play harder.

The other American [whom I will call Sloan] and I were the only two junior staff members on duty today, so we had three meals to prepare. (Meeting new guests with her is always entertaining because they ask if we knew each other before coming to Switzerland. We have to explain that we live a good 4500 kilometers away from each other in the States.) We also made three beds in preparation for tomorrow's guests, and I worked in the shop for an hour. It snowed again all last night, thank goodness, but that meant a bit more shoveling to do. My arms weren't sore at all after all that ice chopping, just my hand muscles, but I could feel the sluggishness in my forearms when I lifted the shovel. We got a reprieve later in the day so that we could join a candidate on a snowshoe hike. We stopped at a hollow tree on the hike and climbed up the inside. I could hear the crack and rumble of what sounded like an avalanche down the valley as we crossed a snowy field.

We're understaffed at the moment, and the senior staff and HR people from the world headquarters are here to choose new senior staff members. Our center manager, the Dane, left a couple of days ago. They've got four candidates here, one Swiss, one British, one Irish-Austrian, and one American. The Swiss one came to have tea in the staff house last night. She's got the best experience, but she's not serious about the job. The American is at least sixty, out of shape, and could never hike or ski as much as is required, much less come running uphill in case of emergency. I like both of the others, but I'm especially partial to the Irish-Austrian. She seems like she'd make a strong leader. She can also speak both English and German, though so can the Swiss, of course. The Brit is quiet, so I don't know much about her. Perhaps she is like me and prefers to size things up before jumping in.

We're also out a cook ("kitchen coordinator") at the moment, which is why I've been helping in the kitchen so much lately. Sloan and the American candidate were also in there today. They can't use the metric system to save their lives, and the candidate is very hesitant. It's just food, for goodness sake, and the people coming to eat it have been out skiing/boarding/hiking/snowshoeing all day. They'll eat anything, I promise. But I had to show her how to do everything, including how to make instant mashed potatoes, and I had to convert a recipe from 30 to 20 people for her. Sheesh. Sloan accidentally put two liters of water in the beef stew she was cooking instead of one, then tried to fix it by adding extra gravy spice powder instead of flour. Cripes. I, on the other hand, fixed the dinner and made a fabulous date cake. Nobody's signed up to be the cook yet. Seriously, if anyone reading this is interested, it's a year-long position with paid airfare, room, and board, so you can basically save your whole salary. They'll take anyone of any age and you get two days off per week for partaking of all the wonderful outdoor activities Switzerland has to offer. Not bad. I would definitely think about being senior staff here if I weren't so set on going to school next year.

I'd actually try to get the program coordinator position. It's also open, or will be in May, when SAussie leaves. An ex-junior staff member and a North Carolinian are vying for the position. I don't yet know which one I hope will get it. SAussie has set the bar high.

Brazil made some kind of crispy chocolate cookie from her hometown, so I'm going to quit typing and sit down for night tea with most of the staff.

Day to day.

I haven't given the best picture of what it is I do, I suppose. I'm actually signed up to work odd jobs at a chalet. I help the guests out, give tours of the place, since it was built in 1932 and has some interesting quirks, and pitch in around the house. Sometimes this means I have to help with laundry, though that's easy because they have an industrial washer & dryer and there aren't that many guests anyway. Sometimes I get to cook dessert. I made a pan of bread & butter pudding today, for example. Whenever I can, I take the outdoor tasks. I sort the recycling, shovel snow, and clear the fire pit. Today, I chopped ice. We'd had a few cars not make it around the last hairpin of our winding mountain road, and more than a few slide back down the hill after trying. I chopped ice until I got a blister on my palm, then I chopped ice till the blister filled with blood, then I chopped ice till it burst in my glove, then I chopped ice for another hour. Afterward, I shoveled all that chopped ice off the edge of the road. I didn't mind a bit. It was good exercise, and anytime I wanted a break, I just leaned on the handle and looked out at the mountains. They're amazing. Here, this is the view from the staff house window just after daybreak.

For that matter, this is the staff house, where I live. I took that right before the last big snow. It looks more like the former picture around here these days.

I generally get up between seven and half eight (eight-thirty, that is--I have to speak European around here) and head to the main chalet. Sometimes I help with breakfast, sometimes I just stuff myself on muesli and fresh yogurt or the bread that's delivered to us daily by the local baker with some Alpkäse. I help out in the morning, but we get lazy by lunchtime. The staff usually eats leftovers for lunch, and since the kitchen coordinator makes a full meal for dinner each night, we have plenty of options. Plus, there's always that bread and cheese for a sandwich. We don't work very hard in the afternoon, either, actually. I spent this afternoon in the office, hanging out with the senior staff and the chalet cat. We had tea and ChocOvo bars right after lunch, and since it's Sunday, we had official afternoon tea at three or four. We have official tea at least half the time, actually, whenever someone suggests it. We've two Aussies, so even though our Brit has left us, we still have lots of reminders for tea. Afternoon tea actually means hot chocolate and whatever leftover dessert we can scrounge up, since we have regular tea all the time. Today it was cake, lemon or chocolate chip. Sometimes it's chocolate mousse, raspberry crumble, or peach upsidedown cake. (We make a new dessert every night. Sometimes I get to cook it.) All the staff members sit around a rickety old table, sipping chocolate, chatting about our countries, making fun of each other, and planning out the afternoon and next few days. I get some real work in before dinner (see: ice chopping), then stuff myself again. I have been eating everything in sight lately. Just piling the food on. It's great.

We had raclette for dinner tonight. It's a Swiss-French dish wherein you cut a bunch of slices of cheese, then put them one by one in your little pan, just the size of your palm, to melt. You stick the cheese pan on one level of a griddle, then put bite-size pieces of food on the upper level. We had potatoes, peppers, broccoli, bread, and pineapple to choose from. When the cheese is bubbling, you put your food bites on your plate and use a little spatula to scoop your raclette cheese over your food. Put in a new cheese slice while it cools, and you can go on all night. Dinner's not this much fun every night, but it's always good and often Swiss or at least European in origin. After dinner this evening, I gave a tour.

That's probably the most boring my days get, and really, I had fun today. It's always great to just sit and talk to the guests, as they're usually from all over. We had a trio of young women earlier this week, one from Canada, one from England, and one from Japan. They were traveling together and game for discussions during and after dinner. So, usually, we've a local woodcarver to visit, a hike to guide, or a fondue and Swiss trivia night to put on. Brazil and I put together a great campfire for a group of Boy Scouts who visited the other night. They were an international group from Basel, and one of the leaders was also Brazilian originally. The other played rugby and told me all about where to hike in the Black Forest and which castles to see on my way there. I also learned some Boy Scout songs, mostly about pirates, beans, and heaven. Hmm. I'm leading a hike along the river in a few days. We'll go see the falls, have a snow barbecue, and then head up Engstligen for some snow tubing.

I'll leave you with the obligatory "Hey, I'm in Switzerland!" photo. I should have a better one soon, with snow and all. I keep forgetting to get pictures of myself. It's been a crazy past few days. The board of trustees (BOT) for the center was here, so we had to keep all fifteen of them happy as cows with bells. They asked for extra servings after the kitchen had cleared up dinner, had me fetch them some wine right as I was about to head to bed, and fussed about trying to impress each other. They held meetings during the day, so I had to help stock coffee and cookies in multiple rooms. I did have fun on their last evening. They hiked out to this gnarled old tree for appetizers and fun in the snow. I got to hike out with a giant cheese platter, too large in diameter for me to wrap my arms around. It was wood and an inch thick, so it was a bit of a job to get it out there. Sydney (the other Aussie) and I also carried three thermoses of Glühwein between us, which we set up on a toboggan beneath this gnarled tree. I threaded my way between all these old women with my arms outstretched, trying to get cheese to everyone on a narrow, snowy path. I'd already passed them the wine, so they were pleasant and fed me some cheese as well. There must have been at least fifteen varieties of cheese, nearly all delicious, plus some apricots, cashews, walnuts, hazelnuts, prunes, and a pear. When we finally finished the cheese plate, I helped the BOT strap on snowshoes and we took a walk. Anyone who didn't want to snowshoe could sledge back down. We made it back to the chalet just after the sun set, just in time for dinner. I think we kept the BOT in good spirits for the time they stayed.

Also of note: I can walk into town when I feel like it, and Finn and I went to the grocery store the other day. They have a good ten brands of Swiss chocolate, plus all the Easter displays are out right now. There are chocolate bunnies like I've never seen before. They also pre-dye their eggs, which I found hilarious.And then I found the cheese aisles. Ooh. The chocolate, by the way, has more than one of its own aisles as well. And the wine! Wine is wicked inexpensive in Switzerland, it turns out. I've been testing out the beers the last batch of staff left here, having a nightly installment of an international beer tasting, but I might have to switch to wine for a while. I got a Swiss fondant and a French pinot noir for starters. I'll crack them open in a few days, when I have another long break. The chocolate I bought for the rest of the junior staff is already half gone, so I'd better get in on that first.

Skiing.

Skiing was a bit rough on Wednesday. This is the kind of weather we had, and a decent picture of what Adelboden looks like. It didn't stop snowing all night, so they hadn't had the chance to groom all the runs. Those they had groomed still had powder piling up on them. I went up early with Finn, and she showed me her favorite runs. We had a pretty good day of it, though my quads got tired by about 15:00 from a combination of prior disuse and hacking through all that powder. We had the brilliant idea of tackling an ungroomed run earlier in the day--we made it about a kilometer before we gave up and climbed through chest-high snow to the access road. It was like a combination of cross-country skiing and snowshoeing with broken snowshoes, and we figured we couldn't make it the rest of the way without losing too much ski time. We took the higher lifts when they opened, but the wind was so strong at the top that I felt I was being scoured. Finn pointed her skis away from the run and I watched as the force of the snowstorm actually pushed her uphill. We headed down in a hurry and kept to the Silleren area for the rest of the day. This is one of the gondolas above the river on the way home.


We came back in the late afternoon, stuffed ourselves with tuna pie, and suited up again for night sledging. This time, we set out with Brazil, SAussie, and SAussie's boyfriend as well. When we'd dragged our toboggans up to the Tschenten lift (the lower lift into town closes at 18:00), we found the night sledging canceled due to the weather. We'll come back another time. They have a good 15 km of lit sledge trails, including one long, 7km run. Instead, we headed to one of the town's sledge areas and flew down by the light of our headlamps. Afterwards, we held a snowfight with lots of good tackling and dragging, program department versus administration. This, of course, caused a piercing need for heisse Schocolade. We go for hot chocolate at least once per day here, sometimes up to thrice.

Today was all I could have hoped for. I stayed home while four of the others took off on another early morning, but I caught up with them after breakfast. I'd promised Brazil I'd start teaching her to ski before I set out for the day. She had never seen snow before this week, so it was a tall order. She's never skated either. She's scared to go downhill. I did teach her a few ways to hike back uphill after she slips, plus two ways to stop. She got good at standing back up after crashing whilst on my watch, but she never quite mastered snapping her boots into the bindings. I kept having to reach down and brush snow off her boots, then manually latch them onto the skis. We'll try again in a few days.

After the lesson, I packed a lunch and headed to the lift. It's easy to get up to the mountain here. After a snow, we can just ski (or sledge, or skibock, et cetera) down the road to Oey, at the base of the valley. There's a lift in Oey that takes you either up to town or all the way up to Silleren, with a couple of stops at easier areas on the way. Silleren's got great skiing, so I stayed there for a while before heading higher up the mountains. This is from the top of one of my favorite runs. There's a good ski map of the local pistes we can use to plan ahead, plus they've got those boards with lights indicating open lifts all around the slopes and on Adelboden's main street.

At the end of the day, I met up with SAussie and Finn. We headed back to the Chalet to soak in the clawfoot tubs and get a bit of work done. I can't wait till my next day off. I might try to blend in with the locals--they sunbathe in full ski gear at the lifts and ski restaurants. I sat down for a moment by the little slalom, but it was tough to stay seated with all those runs in front of me.

Oh, and my accomplishment of the day was asking the lift ticket woman if my card was good at all the areas around here and how many points each type of ski lift cost, then buying the proper lift card for the rest of the season, all in German. I'm trying to get Finn and Dutch to speak to me in German so I can practice.

Town & snow.

We walked into town today after the last bit of training. It's about 45 minutes down & up, though I bet I could go a bit faster. Some of the other new staff aren't as ready for the mountains. We wandered the street (really, there's pretty much just one main street) and met up with the senior staff for hot chocolate. This was no Swiss Miss crap, let me tell you. Delicious.

Our sole African left today, and the Dane is leaving within the week. He's starting to get squirrely, teasing everyone and spending extra time around us, even though he's the center manager and has plenty to do. Everyone else is coming together well as a group. We had our new staff initiation right after the hot chocolate, and I think it will be a fun three months. We're already picking up each other's accents and vocabulary.

The Finn and I stayed out late skibocking this evening. The other new staff gave up on their toboggans, so we wound up sitting on the skibocks atop the hill, getting to know each other and staring at Adelboden town across the valley. The snow we'd been getting all day cleared a bit during the walk back from town, then again while we skibocked, so we got a great view.

I've got the next two days off, along with the Finn and one of the Aussies. We're going to the back side of the mountains to ski all day. They've got night sledging on Wednesdays and Saturdays, so we'll do that after a quick dinner, and then probably go out on the town before getting up again Thursday for some more skiing. I did take pictures today and yesterday, but it's past bedtime and I want to be refreshed for tomorrow. We got about 15 cm of fresh snow today, and if it keeps snowing all night, I'm going to need my wits about me to negotiate all the powder.

Training.

Not much to say today. I'm in training yesterday through tomorrow, so we're learning how to be proper staff. Yesterday was all procedural, but today we hiked through the snow into Boden and then out to the second-highest waterfall in Switzerland, Engstligen Falls. Our valley splits into three out here, and this turns into one of the rivers. If you take a gondola to the top of the falls, up to the Chuenisbargli and Lohner mountain range, you can go dog sledding. Maybe next time. We went on a second hike after lunch, up to a local woodcarving family and then over into Adelboden through Oey. This one was higher up, so we got a break from the ice & snow.

I felt good enough afterward to think about a jog (I'm not going; I'm typing this instead), but my fellow new staff members are taking naps. This bodes well, actually: I'm hoping I'll be the main ski and hike leader for our crew. I'm fit enough, anyway. We'll see how well I ski these mountains. We're supposed to get a bunch of fresh powder soon.

I get two days off after we wrap training up tomorrow. We'll end with a night on the town, so probably not a very early start the first day, but that's all right. I'm not in the best skiing shape yet, so my quads likely won't last all day anyway.

It looks like my schedule is 3-4 days on, 2-3 days off, for the most part. I have a longer spell of work (5 days) when a large (70 people) group comes in a few weeks, but I'm going to be leading skiing at that point, so I don't mind.

Next on my list, after skiing, tobogganing, sledging, and all manner of other snow sports, is trying more Swiss food. I've had chocolate fondue here, but no rösti, cheese fondue, or raclette yet.

Later on, once the snow melts, I'm going to do day(s) trips into Niesen, Kandersteg, Thun, Interlaken (for the chocolatier, Jungfrau, and Trummelbach), Bern, Luzern, Geneva, and Milan. Possibly also a ride along the Glacier Express railway, but I might also save that for my getaway. It's a quick trip from the end of it into the Italian-speaking portion of Switzerland, Lake Como, and then Venice and out to the rest of Europe.

Adelboden and my home base.

I scouted out my little chalet after I arrived last night. We've got two main buildings for hanging out and eating in, a campsite and two little chalets (one just one room and an attic, real Swiss family [Robinson?] style) for guests, plus the staff house. I'll post pictures when I can get out in the daylight and take some.

So far, only one other new spring staff member is here. She's from Brazil and quite jetlagged, even though her time difference is only four hours to my nine. The rest should arrive late tonight, and we start work on Sunday. They haven't actually moved the winter crew out of the staff house yet, but we got to move in to our rooms last night. I had been looking forward to getting settled after living out of my backpack for a few days. So, here's my room. My bed is to the left in the L-shaped room, with cabinets built in behind the door, in that slice of the wall you can see at the lower left edge. I love all the light wood here, though it's odd that absolutely everything is the same color and construction style.

I went out with all the other staff members last night. We walked into town after a sort of flame-lit hazing. The Brazilian, whom I will henceforth refer to as Brazil, went to bed instead. The walk into town is about two miles from our little outpost, one down to the river and one back up the other side. It's pretty steep, but nothing I couldn't handle. We all got the standard and claimed the big corner table just as another group left. It was a great group. We have staff members from Brazil, England, Finland, Holland, Canada, Denmark, America, Germany, Switzerland, Australia, and Nigeria. We were joined by one of the Canadian's (Ontario) sister, two more twenty-somethings staying as guests (from Toronto, like the other Canadian), and a couple of staff members from another chalet from England and Ireland. The Finn, Brit, Nigerian, both Aussies, Dane, Dutch, and Swiss will all be around for at least a little while. It's been great living with such an international bunch already.

If you order a beer in town, you automatically get a large Cardinal. The other obvious option is a small one (but why would you get that?), though rumor has it they will actually serve you other beers if you ask for them by name. Other choices include some kind of weird tea drink with a German name and a Flying Hirsch (which is called a Jägerbomb in America). They do it with a mini bottle of Jägermeister instead of a shot of it, which means you have to have better aim. I stopped after the Cardinal, though, since I was still rather tired from traveling, and the Nigerian and I walked back around midnight. The others ventured on to a couple of clubs, eventually making it back to the chalet around four. Despite my early bedtime, I slept till noon, missing both breakfast and lunch. I didn't feel as tired today, so I must have needed the extra sleep.

The part of the day I was awake for was okay, just sort of hanging about and getting used to everyone. I helped out in the kitchen for a while because I didn't feel like hiking on my own before learning the area. We made a great curry and then some excellent fondue. I spent much of the evening chatting with a few women from England. They've been all over Europe, so they gave me some tips for my upcoming travels. Nigeria and I talked for a while about medical education, since she's also starting medical school in the fall, and Brazil and I started planning out our first trip.

I've got a couple days off right after training ends. I might just ski, but Brazil wants to get going on our travels. We'll see. It's been unseasonably warm the last two days, but we're due for a bunch of snow and then some cold sunshine soon. I'm psyched to get up higher on the mountain.

Such great heights.

My bike ride around Zürich was cut short by a quick rain shower. I ducked into a cafe and had an Ovomaltine, NOT to be confused with the Asian/American immitation, Ovaltine. It was actually pretty good, more vitaminy and malty than I anticipated. It was tough to order that instead of a drinking chocolate, but luckily, you get a bit of Swiss chocolate with every hot drink you order around here, so I didn't miss out too much. Also on my list of drinks to try is Rivella, a soft drink made in part from whey. I know, weird. It supposedly doesn't taste like milk at all. It comes in regular, diet, and green tea, which looked like mint on the bottle but probably isn't. I wasn't brave enough in the store last time. Plus, I don't like American soft drinks, so I didn't think I'd like this.

Speaking of shopping, you're required to weigh out all your fruit and veg, then affix the price labels the scale prints out before you get to the register. Good to know for next time. Also in the Migros, one of two ubiquitous Swiss grocery chains, I found some odd bread. They had normal loaves, plus those odd "toast" varieties with no heels they have in England, plus various sorts of French bread, and then also these odd, dark rolls. Naturally, I picked up the food I didn't recognize. The rolls were very dark brown, but they had those slices across the top and I could see that the inside was white. I smelled them, and the scent was familiar and yet unidentifiable. After purchase, I figured it out: pretzel bread! Of course. They're delicious, and they remind me that I need to go get even fresher pretzels once I hit Bavaria.

I also visited the candy shop before leaving Zürich. They have more types of gummi and marshmallow treats than I thought possible to create, just walls of the stuff. Any extra space has licorice candies of varying shapes. The chocolate? All American brands, except those Kinder eggs with stuff inside. Weird. I was so put off by the lack of Swiss chocolate that I didn't even try a few marshmallows.

I forgot to say that I also tried the wine the other day. The local white, Fendant, is delicious and dry enough to suit me. I'll have to taste a few more varietals soon. In between alcohol and soft drink tastings, I've enjoyed the fountains. I'm a sucker for water fountains, so I stop at every single one to admire the carvings and suck up some cold, clear water. It keeps me from being too homesick for Portland and its Benson Bubblers, I suppose. I also had an encounter with a German-speaking ATM (unusual, they almost all have German, Italian, French, English, and Spanish). I'm getting better at German, so I was able to get my 100 Swiss Francs. It gave me a 100 SF bill, but it was simple to swap it for some smaller bills and coins. Swiss Francs come in 100, 50, 20, and 10 SF bills, as well as in 5, 2, and 1 SF coins, and in .50, .20, .10, and .05 rappen coins. I've got the conversion down, and the coins and bills are all nicely sized and colored for easy identification (AHEM, America).

In all, I like this city. I really appreciated the walkable riverfront. Should have gone to school here; check out the university (and an even more impressive tech school to the right). These are accessable via funicular.

I've probably given the impression that Switzerland (CH in abbreviation, for Confoederatio [Confederation] Helvetica, its true name) is all food. Not so. I finally made it onto the renowned Swiss train system. I had heard about their puntuality, but the ticketseller even corrected me when I asked for the 12:30 train. It's actually the 12:32 train. Stupid American. Sure enough, we left at exactly 12:32, and all my connections (first over to Bern, the capital city, then down to Spiez, near the central lakes, further south to Frutigen on a regional train, then finally out to Adelboden, the town in which I'll be living for the next three months) were just as precise. I had between five and twelve minutes between connections, so that was easy, and they were either the next track over on the same platform, or, in the case of the Spiez-Frutigen one, on the same track. Just disembark, wait a few minutes, and get on the next train. As the trip progressed, I went from city to gorgeous countryside to city, then back to farmland, then to little chalets up on the hillside, then finally to a mountain town. I wanted to hop off and explore the rural towns a bit, and I could have, since the Swiss train tickets are good for any train going to the destination you paid for all day, but I wanted to show up when I said I would. The final transfer was to a bus, which hauled me, about thirteen others, and a whole lot of ski gear up the mountain to Adelboden. It was a bit foggy, but I could still see jagged peaks all around.