My first time skiing

This post is going to be rather short because my first time skiing was rather short lived. Since Roy hired some ski's for the season, he's been super keen to hit the slops and try them out so on the weekend he convinced me to come along with him and one of his work friends. They researched the various ski slops close by and found one that is aimed towards families and has a baby slop for beginners. Roy and I headed to Martigny to get me some ski's to hire for the day. The shop was super busy with other people trying on different boots trying to find the perfect ones. I wasn't all that sure on how ski boots were supposed to feel but I soon found some that seemed to feel pretty comfortable. We lugged our gear from the shop to the train where we met Roy's friend and hopped on the train to take us to Les Marecottes.

We got our ski passes, hopped on the cable car and zoomed up the side of the mountain to a small ski town which luckily wasn't all that busy. We donned our boots and then the teaching began. Roy gave me some pointers on the fine art of snow ploughing (the key to every beginners ski adventure). We were on a part of snow that wasn't even officially a piste, just a small slope near the local restaurant. I was ploughing ever-so-slowly down the slope and Roy and his friend Chris were encouraging me to go a little faster. The key to stopping in a snow plough is to lean forward which seems rather strange to a beginner. To me, it seemed that if I leant forward, I would go faster.. but in fact, it's true what people say.. you are supposed to lean forward to stop. So while I was going faster and faster down the tiny slope, I neglected to take everyones advice and I didn't lean forward which caused me to go faster than I had cared to go. My strategy to stop was to sit my bum down which wasn't really working so I had to pull out the big guns and fall on my side to stop myself before I went down a rather large hill.

By this time my feet were killing me. It seemed that I had chosen the wrong boots. I gave it another go, ignoring my aching feet thinking that it's normal for my toes to go numb and tingly in snow boots. Once my feet started to cramp I decided that I'd had enough and swapped them for my cosy pair of hiking boots. I used to think that my hiking boots were cumbersome! But after wearing a pair of ski boots, my hiking ones were like wearing pillows. I decided that it would be best for me to sit this one out and let Roy and Chris do their thing on the slopes. I practiced the art of snowman making and I also made a stock pile of snowballs to attack Roy and Chris once they came back from zooming down the mountain.

After lugging my ski's and boots around for the day, I'm starting to consider snowboarding just so I have less to carry. They are HEAVY!

Neuchâtel

Yesterday was a public holiday in the Catholic cantons and Valais is Catholic so Roy got a day off work *smiling face*. He didn't know that he was going to get a day off until last week which is a bit surprising since most people that work full-time get to know their days off, off by heart. But anyway.. we decided to take a train trip to another canton that isn't Catholic since there's not much to do in a town when everything is shut, quiet and lonely. I had been keeping my eye on the the weather website meteoswiss to see what the weather was going to be like in various parts of Switzerland and up until yesterday, it was telling me that it was going to be a dull and overcast day full of rain and strong winds in majority of the country. Yesterday morning the website told me that it was going to be a little overcast, a small chance of rain and a bit of wind so it wasn't as bad as I was expecting.

We decided to jump on a train and head up north to a place called Neuchâtel which is situated on the bank of a large lake which is funnily enough named Lake Neuchâtel. It's always fun to catch a train to different cantons in Switzerland because there's heaps of different looking trains so it makes you feel like you're going on an interesting holiday somewhere.

After two hours of travelling through fields, mountains and towns we arrived at the nice lakeside city. I forgot to take advantage of the free toilets on the trains and since I wasn't prepared to pay 1 CHF to empty my bladder at the station toilets, we snuck into the music school nearby and used their modern, clean facilities for FREE.

After pretending to be music students we walked down to the lake and enjoyed a thermos of vin chaud (a must for every winter adventure) and admired the ducks in the water.

It wasn't a super cold day but a toasty beverage never goes unwanted. Vin chaud is definitely my new favourite winter drink.

Then we decided to check out the centre of the city which was bustling with people carrying on with their day (they had to work.. hehe). We stumbled across a gourmet grocer where I found something I had been searching for, for the last month or so.... Brown Sugar! It seems like a weird thing to be searching for but you can't find it in the normal grocery stores here and when you have a recipe that calls for brown sugar and you know you can't buy it, it makes you somewhat sad that you will be missing out on all of the tasty treats that you can make with that sweet, molassesy sugar.

Brown sugar and a few other gourmet things packed in our backpacks and a paper cone full of hot chestnuts we wandered the town admiring the old buildings.

This little guy was waiting patiently for a handful of bird feed from the old man that lived in there.

Since trains aren't very frequent we decided - almost too late, to head back to the train station and since we didn't know the city very well we almost didn't make it to the next train. But after a brisk walk (resulting in sweat on a reasonably chilly day) we made it onto the train with about three minutes to spare. One thing we have learnt is that the trains here are always punctual (it's something that the Swiss take pride in) so you can never expect to catch the train if you arrive there two minutes late. But we made ourselves comfortable for the trip back to quiet, ol' Saint-Maurice. I think I'd like to go back to Neuchâtel to explore some more. A short afternoon adventure just wasn't long enough for us to fully appreciate this nice city.

My first time sledding!

I made friends a couple of months ago with a couple who have lived in Switzerland for the last two or so years and since they have experienced a couple of Swiss winters, I decided to let them show me the art of sledding. We went up to Thyon which isn't all that far from where they live. We packed their car with sleds, lunch, a thermos full of vin chaud and their beautiful dog Tobias who has his very own (handmade by his Daddy) wooden box in the back of the car. Tobias is their baby! He goes EVERYWHERE with them and I don't use the word 'everywhere' lightly because he is a very well travelled pooch! When it's not winter, he gets his very own blue box on the back of my friends motorbike where he sits strapped in and enjoys the wind whooshing over his floppy ears.

He even gets to sit on a blanket on a sled to keep him up off the snow.

Before we headed off with our sleds to the hills, we enjoyed a packed lunch of sandwiches and a toasty, vin chaud to warm us up before we tumbled in the snow. Thyon has a really long sled run which takes you a fair way down the mountain so myself, Annabelle and Mr Tobias set off with our sleds down the run. The sled run wasn't quite what we were expecting since it was the start of the snow season and no one had used it yet, it was covered in a deep layer of powdery snow which wasn't very good for sledding. So instead of zooming down the mountain to meet Robert who drove down to meet us and take us back up the top, we trudged through the deep snow with Tobias gamboling down the hill in front of us. What was meant to be a quick and fun slide down the track turned into a long (50 mins) trudge. 

The long and unkept sled track didn't dampen our spirits, we hopped in the car and headed back up the mountain and decided to have some fun on the beginner ski runs with our sleds. I was learning the art of how to control a sled that is zooming down the hill. The key is to stick your foot in the snow when you want to turn - right foot for turning right and left foot to turn left. Take this advice lightly since it's really hard to keep a crazed sled under control when it's hurtling down a hill. We soon discovered that a cheap, plastic sled is more fun than a nice, wooden sled since you really can't control the cheap, plastic sleds which makes the trip down the hill just that little bit more exciting.

Trying to keep Tobias warm by keeping him off the snow.

Whilst I was having a break from running up the hill after sledding down it, I entertained myself by throwing snowballs up in the air for my furry friend to catch them and eat them.

After the novelty wore off from sledding and we were utterly exhausted from running up the hill, we headed to an Irish pub for a beer. This little gem of a pub has a HUGE selection of beers and my favourite - Belgian Framboise beer.

They also had a toasty bière chaud - hot, spiced Kriek beer. Since we were a little apprehensive to order it, the owner brought out a taster for us which convinced Annabelle.

Waiting patiently as we sipped our well deserved beverages.

I thoroughly enjoyed sledding! I am going to keep my eyes open for a cheap, plastic sled to buy so that anytime I spy a hill of snow, I can jump on my sled and hurtle down it. If only Brisbane had winters like these!