Snowberries

It has been snowing almost all day in Geneva. It was mostly what I would describe as "Lake Effect Snow," which my fellow Chicagoans will explain to you is big fat snowflakes that fall around the city due to the lake but don't really do much damage in terms of piling up. Since about 4pm though, it has really been coming down and now there is substantial accumulation. This puts a bit of a hitch in my plans to do laundry tonight as I refuse to put on boots etc and add to the annoyingness that is the laundromat. All the skiers I know are super excited about our recent cold and wintry mix streak. Everyone else (read: boring stupid people) is complaining. I have to admit I am not looking forward to walking in this to work tomorrow, but the colder it stays, the longer the ski season will last.

Although I'm surrounded by ski resorts, it's quite rare for Geneva itself to get snow. It only happened twice last year, and this is the first big one I can remember this year. The outlying areas can get a lot, but in the city it is not common. This weekend has been interesting. On Friday, a holiday here, I left my apartment in a light drizzle to head into work about 11am. By the time I was about 10 minutes down the road and exiting my tram stop, it was (conveniently) snowing. As far as I know my office building is at the same elevation as my apartment, so I thought this was really weird.

Saturday and Sunday I was snowboarding in the day so I don't know what the conditions were like in Geneva. In the mountains though, the snow was superb and some of the best I've ever skied in. Sunday I was in Flaine which is huge but there aren't many trees there, which makes it look like a big Artic tundra. The snow is always super, and I decided to take a lesson to refresh my snowboarding memory. I also had my bindings adjusted and felt much better on my board at the end of the day, so looking forward to next weekend already.

Saturday I went with my friend Bhav and a friend of hers, Cheryl, to Les Gets, part of the gigantic and awesome Portes du Soleil resort where you can ski back and forth between France and Switzerland. (Culture tip, gentle reader: pronounced "ley-zhay" and obviously not "les gets"). It started off as a beautiful sunny day, so after a few runs, we thought it would be a good idea to get some food for a picnic and enjoy lunch on the mountain. We went into the store and got cheese, bread, salami, chips and some strawberries and naturally, champagne. Except when we came out of the store, the sun was gone, and it was snowing. And when we got to the top of the chairlift, it was even worse and blowing around.

Call me uninspired, pessimistic, whatever - at this point, I was not keen at all on sitting outside in this snowstorm and having our "picnic." Picnics are not meant for bad weather and everyone knows the ski lunch break for us average sporty folk (as you know I am as self-described in my earlier posts) is meant to warm up and eat something good at a exorbitantly expensive price. However Bhav, ever the optimist, insisted we continue on down to find a nice spot and have our picnic, and surely the sun would come out. For the record, it didn't. She was carrying all the food in her rucksack except the strawberries, which were tucked neatly in my ski jacket right under my boobs. We couldn't find a good spot immediately and it was decided that we would just "pull over" to the side of a cat track and have the picnic. Sitting on our snowboards actually made decent picnic tables. The only problem was it was windy and freezing. So we ate with our gloves on and used the snow to wash off fruits and things. Although I was cold and grumpy, it did end up being a nice picnic and we were all giddy after drinking a bottle of champagne, surely as people skied by thinking "who the hell are those nutters?!" As a side note, my next two ski runs were absolutely horrible - I think half thhe bubbles went into my legs and the other half went into my brain. That's the last time I drink while skiing. Now apres-ski is a different story...

Anyway Les Gets was an awesome resort, beautiful ski area with lots of trees, views of the Mont Blanc and a really cute town, so we are trying to get back there for a weeken before the season ends. If the season holds up, my plans for the rest are as folllows:

This weekend: Snowboarding in Crans-Montana and Caprices music festival Saturday, Les Contamines Sunday

April 5/6: Les Contamines and Flaine

April 12/13: weekend in Les Gets

April 19/20: maybe Zermatt?

April 26: then the season is over at most places and I am going to Poland that weekend to see Abby & co! Yah!!

Here are some pictures from the picnic! Doesn't it look WARM