Playing in the powdery white stuff

On Saturday, Roy and I decided to take a trip to Verbier to have a play in snow. Even though it snowed in our little town during the week, it didn't snow enough for us to play in it so we had to go higher to find the real stuff. We caught a train to Martigny then hopped on the Saint-Bernard Express which took us to a little town called La Châble where we jumped on a PostBus which took us on a winding trip up to the ski town of Verbier. 

We had contemplated going skiing but since Roy and I are very inexperienced when it comes to skiing (I have never been skiing and Roy has only been skiing once in Australia) we decided to just wander around the town and watch the avid skiers and boarders do their thing. The snow here was so powdery we couldn't even compact it enough to make snowballs to throw at each other.

I got to make my first snow angel!

A Winter Wonderland!

Christmas is just around the corner!

With the holiday season fast approaching, Switzerland is being transformed into something that kids dream about when they think of Christmas. Having only had stinking hot Christmas' in Australia, the images we see in the shops and on the TV are all of a white, wintery Christmas so it's only natural that even Australian kids think of snow at Christmas.

Towns and cities in Switzerland are covered with decorations, snow and possess a certain Christmasy feeling when you walk through the main streets. Last night Roy and I went to Montreux with some friends to see the Christmas markets and it had everything that a child longing for a white Christmas could conjure up in their imagination. There were small market stalls selling handmade trinkets, Christmas lights galore and bountiful pots of Vin Chaud which we took advantage of and went back for more. To add to the warm fuzzy feeling of our first white Christmas, it started snowing as we walked up and down the market stalls. Even though it is super exciting to think that we will be having our first white Christmas this year, so far it just doesn't feel like Christmas. I have grown so used to wearing shorts and a t-shirt, drinking cold beer, eating mangoes and spending time with the family. At least this year we will be having Christmas with friends from Australia which makes it a little easier to spend a Christmas without family.

First snow

I've pretty much been waiting for this day ever since Roy officially got offered the job in Switzerland. This morning when Roy woke up, he rushed back into our room and opened the blinds and told me to look out of the window. I was rather sleepy but the thought of snow got me out of bed quick smart! Right in front of my eyes was a generous layer or fresh, white, powdery snow and it was still snowing, adding to the layer.

Every other morning I watch Roy get ready for work as I sit in my pyjamas and eat breakfast at a leisurely pace but this morning was different. I was keen to don the snow gear and head out to play in the white stuff. I had played in some snow a few weeks ago but that wasn't fresh and powdery like the stuff I held in my gloved hands this morning. It was beautiful! It makes our already cute town of Saint-Maurice even cuter!

Hello winter! I'm glad you have arrived!

Winter is coming

Living abroad is exciting but just stepping outside the front door fills your brain with things you have to do. You go out thinking about whether you need to buy milk or the possibility that your neighbours might bale you up and start asking questions which you won't know how to answer because you don't know enough of the language to respond. Your brain never really has a chance to just soak in your surroundings unless it's Sunday when the shops are shut (so you can't worry about the milk) or the streets are empty so theres no chance that someone will try and talk to you, thus leaving your brain to think in it's mother-tongue and admire the things that your surroundings have to offer.

A lot of these things contribute to the fact that I have been really slack with taking photos. Most of the time when I walk out the door my brain is occupied with "do I have my keys?" "am I going to be warm enough in this coat?" "what do I need to buy for dinner?" "do we have enough milk?" "is it the time of day where we say Bonjour or Bonsoir?". So I officially missed the boat on beautifully coloured images of Autumn leaves and the fantastic gradient of reds, yellows and greens on the nearby mountains as the season dwindled away to it's chilly, white successor.

Autumn was spectacularly beautiful! It's a huge novelty for me since there is pretty much only two seasons in Brisbane... stinking hot summers and moderately cold winters and nothing much in between. I thoroughly enjoy the view we have outside our kitchen window of the rolling hills (sometimes with a herd of cows grazing atop) and the quaint (I use that term in a positive sense) village of Lavey. As the days go on, the view outside the window of red and green trees is turning into misty, snowy white mountains (which excites me to no end). I am always keeping an eye on the level of snow as it makes it's way down the side of the mountains, edging closer and closer to the valley floor. In the last few weeks we have had a few trips to places that had snow but nothing excites me more than the thought of looking out of my kitchen window and seeing snow falling from the clouds onto the ground outside of our apartment.

Visitors

Something we always look forward to when living abroad is visitors. Even though we enjoy trying to integrate into places we live by making friends with Roy's work friends and such, it's still exciting to have visitors from Australia (even though they didn't come straight from Australia). The past two weeks Roy and I have being playing host to friends from Australia. Our first visitor was Ben who is Roy's old uni and poker buddy who has been travelling around the world for the last 8 or so months. He's been to too many countries for me to name so check out his great blog to read about his exciting adventures.

Ben arrived rather late on a Saturday night (late because of very annoying train strikes in France) but it timed well with us since we were having dinner in Sion with other friends (we had our first try of Swiss fondue - YUM) so our train got us back to Saint-Maurice just before Ben was due to arrive. He hopped off the train with his backpacks, looking rather tired so we walked back to our place where he quickly settled in and told us about some of his great adventures. Ben's visit was timed well because there was a Catholic holiday in Switzerland so Roy had the Monday off work. Since our neighbouring canton of Vaud isn't Catholic, there was no holiday there so the shops weren't shut so we decided to go to Lausanne for the day.

After my friends showed me the greatness of Artisanal beer in Sion (Les Divins Brasseurs), I was really keen to hunt for more pubs that brewed their own beer. I did a quick search on the internet before we left to go to Lausanne and discovered that there was indeed an artisanal beer pub in Lausanne so that was one of the main points of interest for our day. We toured our way around the city until we came to the pub which we promptly parked our butts on a stool and ordered a tasty brew. I had tried a Belgian Framboise (raspberry) beer when I was in Holland so I was very keen to try the Kriek (cherry flavoured) beer that this place had to offer. It was very sweet! Nice too, but I think I prefer the Framboise since it didn't have that sickly, sweet flavour to it.

The sun was near setting time so we caught the metro down to Ouchy to admire the sunset over Lake Geneva. A sunset over that lake is always so beautiful!

Roy enjoying some Marzipan carrots and Ben enjoying the sunset.

Ben left on Tuesday to go to France to continue his journey west. A few days later our second set of visitors arrived. This time it was Mitch and Lu who live in Holland. Mitch organised a "work trip" to Switzerland but to Lu and I, it was a housewife conference. They arrived on Saturday night which happened to coincide with a Guggenmusik festival which roared it's way through our little town of Saint-Maurice.

Mitch and Lu have a car which came in handy for a bit of exploring on Sunday. Even though the trains are great here, it's always fun to go for an adventure where the trains can't take us. We went up the mountains near Martigny to a place called Champex where we donned our hiking boots and hiked up a small mountain to Le Belvedere. Check out Lu's blog for the story about our snow storm adventure. These fantastic photos were taken by our trusty photographer Mitch!

The rest of the week (while the guys were at work) Lu and I did our usual housewifey thing... eating, cooking, giggling and lots of watching of L.A. Ink (which we got rather addicted to). Most nights the guys came home to a hot meal on the table and we ended most nights with either Raving Rabbid competitions between the guys or watching a movie.

Saturday morning came and we were all itching to hunt for some more snow so we jumped in the car and headed up to Gstaad and to the bottom of the chairlift to Glacier 3000. We were tempted to go up the chairlift except it was 77 Francs each for Mitch and Lu (Roy and I have a 1/2 fare card) and they weren't expecting to see snow on their trip so they didn't bring their snow jackets. So instead we decided to play in the snow-covered paddock that we passed on our way to the chairlift. Since we all still get really excited when we see snow, the paddock was adequate for our adventures. Who needs snow fields, alpine coasters and husky sledding anyway?

Since the only snow I had seen in my entire 25 years of my life was the tiny bit of snow which turned to brown muck in Beijing, I was SUPER keen to make a snowman. Lu and I quickly got to work to make the foundations for an epic snowman. We soon realised that it's hard work to make a snowman when you don't have adequate snow gear on so we settled on a rather small snow lady as our hands turned to icicles. We managed to pull the guys away from their snowball fight to help us gather snow for our lady and before too long, she was done. A marvelous, voluptuous snow lady stood before us in all her glory. Lu topped her off with a hat, sunglasses and even some shiny, pink lipgloss. 

 

Some more snowball fights, attempted snow angels by Lu (resulting in wet jeans), and enjoying the destruction of our snow lady (throwing snowballs at her head) we walked back to the car so we could continue on our road adventure. But only after a pose in the bathtub in our snow paddock.

I absolutely love playing in snow but ask me in a few months after we've lived through our first snowy winter, I might have a different opinion...