Switzerland

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(Off the beaten path? The town we were living in isn't even an option on the list, so I put Chur instead. The town we were living in is called Igis. And apologies but the 't' button is messed on this computer..just a warning)



In Switzerland we became removed. No moblie phones, internet and more or less, just the three of us that spoke english. IOt was almost therapeutic in a sense- being in some tiny, Swiss town you could barely properly pronounce the name of, where nobody could find you if they wanted to. Everyone only knew that you were now gone into the abyss of travel and woul dhave only their imagination of what adventures and situations were befalling you each day.

I could feel the weariness pulling at the edges of me now. 30 hours of traveling with minimal sleep and across oceans and time zones. My throat was slightly sore and my nose getting sniffily. My bag, I could care less about at this point. I had com eto terms with losing it and had thus prepared myself for the worst- replacing all of its contents in expensive Switzerland.

And then we crashed. It's hard to relate to this feeling when you haven't experienced in in a while- constantly moving, traveling, being on your game. Sleeping only minimally and for short spans of time and of not very good quality. We climed into a real bed with pillows and blankets and just crashed.

All throughout Europe, everyone has these crazy shutters on their windows. When you close them the room becomes utterly black- you can't see a thing. Last time I was in Germany I remember sleeing entire days away when jetlag, travel weariness and those shutters would come together in coalition against me. Here it was again- a big slumber.

I awoke what seemed like days later, quite disoriented. I was well slept now, just somewhere in Switzerland- getting here was all now kind of a blur or a dream. I ventured out of our dark bedroom into the living room. And what seemed like directly outside my window sat epic, towering mountains, sharp, capped with snow and steeply sloping down, all the way down to my window it seemed. I am a girl that has grown up in he mountains. But these constantly had an eerily close presence that couldn't go unnoticed throughout the entirelty of my stay.

Annika and I had chuckled a bit when reading the phrase in the email from Corina, our Canadian-Swiss friend we were visiting. She mentioned how she would be taking us to a certain mountain, which upon reaching its summit, would sled down for 45 minutes to an hour (followed by exclaimation marks). However, we saw the light the day we hit the mountain.

Corina, Danny, Annika and I suited up. Layers and layers anywhere you could put them. Gloves, hats an borrowed show pants. Then aroun the corner to the shop to get beer. By this point Corina ha enough faith in our Swiss-German, or atleast thought it was humorous enough to let us speak with shopkeepers and clerks at tills on our own. However, the two of us usually ended up doing it as a team. We approached the checkout stand with our cans of varying beer in hand. It all went rather successfully and we even gave exact change! We were quite impressed with our performance until the final question she asked us in quick German.

Now, a general rule we had adopted since living in Switzerland was, when being asked a question by someone in Swiss-German, of which you are unable to understand, simply state: "Nein, danke". Therefore, you haven't agreed to anything and you're being polite about it by saying 'please'. At tills, it's usually something like, "Would you like a bag?".

And so this lady says somethin gto us after our purchase of beer that we don't understand and we cherfully respond in unison: "Nein, danke!" and head on our way.

She has a strange, slightly puzzled look on her face as we leave her, however, and Corina and Danny simply laugh at us. Corina explains that she told us to have a nice day. Annika and I look at one another and laugh too, we have become strange foreigners.

We get into the cramped back seat of the car- which had become an obstacle course since one of the sledds had to go on our lap because the other filled the entire trunk. Once we were finally in the back seat, sled on lap, Danny, who is sittin gin the passenger seat, cracks a beer. We exchange urgently puzzled looks. All Corina says is something along the lines of welcome to Switzerland and not to spill any on the seats.

Sitting on the summet of a Swiss mountain. You can see everything. The snow all around is a brilliant white that forms a sharp contrast with the blue of the sky. The sun warms us a bit as we sit and crack our beers. There we sit, blussfully sipping, our only discontentment being that we don't have sunglasses (though I do have some bomb, borrowed goggles that are orange).

Once we're all giggly from all our beer, we decide it's probably time to do what we came here to do and sled down this mountain.

Now, let me explain a Swiss sled here briefly for those who are unfamilliar:

http://www.gloco.de/data/media/728_thumb_0000881_bild_media.jpg


So as you can see, it's hard-looking, wooden and raised off the ground a bit. The idea is that two of you sit on this, one behind the other and steer by sticking your feet off and digging them into the snow. Your feet double as your breaking system too.

There I stood, at the top of this steep, icy-snow covered hill, sled in hand, staring down. I think I would have been terrified had it not been for the beer running though me and the orange vision I had due to my goggles. Annika and I, the rookie-foreigners got to shar a sled and Danny and Corina shared one. Obviously they made us go down first. I, for some reason got to be the "steerer" first.

"Just steer with your feet! You'll be fine!", they yelled, in attempted assurance.

The two of us rip down on our little, wooden sled, throwin glegs and feet out in an attempt at steering. Unfortunately for us we didn't learn quite quickly enough and smashed, solidly into the hard, ice wall. Half-laughing, half in real pain, we both collected ourselves from the pile of ourselves and sled and tried to save some face. Corina and danny whizzed by us on their well-steered sled and yelled out something about wtf we were doing like that. We looked at one another and reluctantly climed back upon our sled. I could feel the bruises forming already.

We learned that Corina wasn't exaggerating about this epic sled ride, for about an hour later, after mastering the steering somewhat and stopping for occasional beer breaks, we reached the bottom. The bottom, though fun, was probably the worst on the body. I winced as we slowly glided towards a sharp slope covered in ice that stretched as far as i could see until the road. I could hear the screams of others that had gone before us (likely more experienced in the way of Swiss-sledding). Once more foot, centimeter, milimeter...and we ripped down the hill, unfortunately in kind of a right-bound direction (right at this point = the edge of the run and some trees and rocks) and our speed only increased...rapidly. Annika was trying to tell me that everything was going to be okay and that if you grew afraid then you would crash into the trees at 40 km/h. We somehow managed to stay on the track and I began to laugh and was unable to stop, my eyes watering from the wind.

The last bit we somehow took a jump and actually were airborn for a few seconds there. I looked down at the beautiful, Swiss mountains, the pristine snow, the trees and crunch: the little sled landed on the densely packed ice below us. I felt the impact all through my upper then lower back then my bum. We ripped up to the fence, almost hitting another girl and her boyfriend, eyes streaming and laughing uncontrolably.

The cheese fondue we ate afterwards, though amazing, did not stop the massive bruises from forming all over my body over the next week. They came in the most obscure places that I would come across in the shower and run show the girls.

And then we got the call that my beloved backpack had been found and would be delivered to me sometime that sunday (between the hours of 11 and 10?). Corina thought this was quite impressive since Switzerland apparently shuts down on Sundays, no one does anything, nothing is open, she explained. But, none the less, we got the call and walked out to the sketchy van at 10 30pm to claim my backpack.


(there is absolutely no spell check on this computer..just sayin')

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