zee alps

So after Budapest I had about 24 hours to regroup, do laundry, pack again and get on a train heading east...to Switzerland! Apparently this is what people who know how to partake in winter sports do when it gets cold. My friend, Shauneen (who also lives in Paris and is doing the school thing), was kind enough to convince her grandparents (and her grandparents were kind enough to be convinced) to let eight of us stay at their chalet in the alps during our winter break from school. I love Paris, but it was nice to walk around and see trees instead of buildings, to breathe in fresh air instead of strange city smells and to not have to watch my every step for fear of stepping in dog crap. It was so relaxing and just what I needed before school started up again.

We took the train from Paris and stayed in a little village on a mountain called Veysonnaz. When I say little village, I mean little - "main street" has an ATM, a couple of restaurants, a tiny grocery store, a bar and a ski shop. I was told that the chalet that we were staying at was basically at the top of a mountain, but I guess I never really thought about how would we actually get there. Shauneen just kept saying we have to get the bus that takes us to the top. So we get on the bus. The extra large coach bus. On tiny mountain roads. In the dark. I was terrified the whole time. As we got higher, the roads got smaller and the turns got sharper. Thirty to forty minutes later we get to the top and I see the city where we started our journey was now just a bunch of tiny sparkling lights. But we're not there, yet. We have a 10-15 minute walk with all of our luggage up a never-ending very steep hill. At the time, when we were all struggling to make our feet move forward while dragging luggage, groceries and ski/snowboard gear in the pitch black up a hill that seemed to unfold endlessly before us, we were not happy campers. But we made it to the top in one piece and arrived at the chalet that was waiting for us, swallowed up in the darkest sky I've ever seen with stars bigger and brighter than I ever imagined.  Here are some of my favorite pictures from the week:

The mountain roads that terrified me to my core. Good thing our first trip up was at night so I couldn't see what was really going on.

The Chalet

The view from the chalet

Hanging out on the porch

Life above the clouds

So this brings me to mid-week when we all agreed that for one day everyone would buy lift tickets and we would go skiing/snowboarding together in the alps.  All of us were at different levels - some had never been on skis or a snowboard, some had been but not for many years and then there were the pros who helped the rest of us with...well, pretty much everything. I had been snowboarding a few times many years ago and knew that this would be a stretch for me, but I was ready to try it again anyways. 

So, we get on the lift. We're gliding above the alps and I'm noticing it's a little more intense than Minnesota slopes. And then we get off the lift...the bunny hills that I'm planning on circulating all day still look like mountains to me.  Suddenly I feel as though my Minnesota upbringing has left me ill-prepared for the alps.

And then it comes back to me. I vividly remember why I didn't continue snowboarding in Minnesota. I don't have the ability to disembark from any type of lift when attached to a snowboard. Here I am, almost a decade later and I haven't magically acquired this ability.

And alas, it turns out I can't snowboard. These are the things I can do, however, when placed on an alp strapped to a board:

- crash into a group of people who see me coming, note my inability to stop and don't get out of my way (to the man whose skis i ran over while he was still wearing them, i'm sorry)

- get shown up by three year old children on skis

- run into a sign that says "caution: slow down"

- face plant trying to get figure out how to work a button lift while getting dragged up the bunny hill

This isn't me in the video, but it is essentially what happened to me when it turns out this is the only way to get back up the hill. 

My friend, Nora, and I called it quits after lunch. We returned our boards to the shop owner in town who gave us a once over and tried to not sound judgmental when asking "...that's it? you're done?". Yes, sir...we're done. At this point, I had more bruises on my derrière than a free banana. Here's me right before we dropped off the snowboards. The walk home was arguably the most successful part of the day. Even so, face plants and all - I'd do it again.

The rest of the time, we let the people who knew what they were doing hit the slopes and those of us who had their fill of winter sports wandered around and relaxed.

Me and my friend, Asmir

Asmir and Nora risking their lives on icy snow to bring bread back for the crew

Raclette - A traditional Swiss meal and a good excuse to eat cheese for dinner. Eight of us polished off an entire half wheel of cheese.

Cheese: it's what's for dinner.

Shauneen's birthday dinner...the big 2-4

Here's the crew!

On the train back to Paris

budapest, you da best

One of my favorite things about living in Europe is that a weekend getaway to another country is super easy. So, late in January, Jaime and I met up for a long weekend in Budapest, Hungary. Just a hop, skip and a 2 hour plane ride away and there I was waiting for Jaime at the airport trying to figure out the Hungarian word for arrivals so I could actually find her (it's Érkezés if you ever need to know). I was just happy to be on solid ground after developing a increasingly irrational fear of flying over the past year. Flying gets to me more and more because I don't trust machines to function correctly all the time and I don't trust people to not make stupid mistakes. Seeing as flying is a combination of these two things, I'm always expecting a wing to fall off or the pilot to push the wrong button. With every flight I've taken recently, something happens that pushes me a little closer to insanity every time I board a plane. This trip was no exception.

It started while I was boarding the plane. First of all, I should say that I was flying with easyjet, a low fare airline that flies in and out of obscure airports all over Europe, let's you check in online 60 days in advance, only allows one carry on item per person with a 10 kg (22 lbs) max weight limit, sometimes you have to walk out on the tarmac to board the plane and it also has a first come first serve seating policy once you're on the plane so there's no prearranged seating assignments. It's kind of terrifying. Sometimes people clap when the plane lands and in my mind I'm wondering if they're clapping because successful landings are rare. I'll never understand it. Flights like this are super popular in Europe though, so I do it - but I'm always watching everything and everyone with a critical eye (as if I have any control over the situation). As I'm boarding this particular flight to Budapest, I spot the pilot in the cockpit right before I get on the plane and I see him scribble something on a piece of paper, jab a hole through the middle of it and stick it on a knob on the control panel. Once I choose my seat, I've got time before take off to think about what the pilot wrote. Actually, it's all I could think about. The more I thought about it, the more it bothered me and finally I convinced myself that he had written one of these:


Needless to say, I spent the majority of takeoff and landing in panic attack mode hoping that he would at least read the reminder about the wheels. I hate landing. Naturally, I decided that I would look online later to calm my fears about the intelligence level and experience of easyjet pilots because I'm still convinced that my pilot's note held more importance than something like call mom or buy milk. So I look at the website. Bad idea:

Recently we’ve been looking for pilots with a minimum of 1,500 hours, but as a result of the feedback we have received, we will be relaxing this requirement, in favour of placing more emphasis on “quality” of hours achieved.

Relaxing requirements? I need Xanax.

But I made it to Budapest. Wheels on the tarmac and all. And the city was beautiful.

Jaime and I crammed a lot of fun things into a few short days. We did a lot of walking around and, since it was January, a lot of warming up in cafés. We were both surprised with the food and wine in Hungary. Everything we had was so delicious...Jaime and I both ate dinners that placed within our top five meals ever...who knew Hungarians can cook?!

One day we hit up Budapest's famous Gellért Thermal Baths. It's not normally my thing to sit and stew in other peoples' filth, but these baths are something Hungary is known for so Jaime and I wanted to at least try it. Mostly, we had heard/read that the inside of this particular bath was beautifully decorated with stained glass and mosaics; the interior had been compared to that of a cathedral so we had to see it. It was basically us two Minnesota prudes amongst shameless naked 70 year old women. We stayed for a little over an hour, mostly people watching and turning into prunes. All in all, it was pretty (err..the interior was pretty- not the old women), relaxing and entertaining. I'm not sure if the thermal baths healed me in any way, but at least I now know the general idea of what my ass will look like at 70.

We went on quite an adventure one morning trying to find a flea market that was mentioned in our travel books. We have both been to flea markets in other countries and were super excited for the potential of this one because it was talked up in our books. It was definitely off in its own part of the city, a little difficult to find but finally we stumbled upon it at the edge of a park. Jaime was excited to find some vintage pottery and I was on a mission to find an antique skeleton key. We get to the entrance and it turns out we have to pay to get in. We look at each other, a little confused because that's not normal, but we assume that good things in life aren't free and we have to pay the price to get into the awesome flea market...

Fold out table upon fold out table of crap. Useless crap. It's like the clearance shelf of a gas station convenience store. Batteries, cracked cd's, diapers, hairbrushes, a scumbag selling Hungarian porn, expired crackers, cigarette lighters, etc. We cruise around to make sure that's really all there is and promptly leave.

It's ok though - the city was cool enough to compensate for the piles and piles of crap flea market debacle.

me, on a bridge

Jaime making friends with a German language enthusiast to get directions

My favorite thing in Budapest - the vintage metro cars


one of our coffee breaks


Jaime leading the way to Buda Castle


Parliament at night

Buda Castle at night

525,600 minutes

How do you measure a year? Actually, I'm a nerd and googled how many minutes are really in a year and it's 525,948.766 minutes, but that just doesn't have the same effect when you're trying to cram it into Seasons of Love from Rent...I see the problem and the need for a modification in order to make the song work. The point is, a year ago today I landed in France ready for my big adventure. Here's how I would measure my year:

in visitors

in vacations

in strange foods

in lunch dates with Marie

in cheese

in bread

in wine

I could also measure my year in new friends, homework, skype dates, metro problems, second-hand smoke, chocolate croissants, cultural misunderstandings, ups, downs, and many more things that make me smile (or, sometimes cringe). I'm looking forward to the next 525,948.766 minutes...and at the moment it doesn't seem like enough. I love it here.