St. Moritz

Weekend 2:
March 30 thru April 1

Another weekend away, this time in lovely, glorious St. Moritz for a little skiing and R&R with dear friends, Al and Julie.

So first off, for those who've never had a chance to ski Switzerland, you must. And for those who have, why didn't you tell me how incredible it is to ski out here?? The runs seem like they're miles long!

Anyway, an interesting trip. I arrived in Zurich to find out that my bag had somehow not made the one hour flight from Frankfurt to Zurich. Apparently they just forgot to put it on the plane. So the helpful baggage people promised to put my suitcase on a train to St. Moritz and then deliver it to the apartment on Saturday morning. Not ideal, but not that bad right?

So I hop the train up to St. Moritz and my bag flies in a few hours later. The train ride was absolutely spectacular! It seems like the mountains just arrive out of no where somehow. You're just going along on this flat ground, chugging past Lake Zurich and into the countryside, and then there they! The Alps just appear out of no where. Absoultely breathtaking. It's different than it is in the States, when you head up to the Rockies, the foothills kind of soften the visual extreme, here it just goes from flat valley land to soaring mountains in the space of a heartbeat.

It's interesting, the lack of snow fall this season is incredibly apparent. Most years, you wouldn't see nearly this much ground coming through the snow, but the winter has been so warm and the snowfall so little that spring is arriving early this year.

The train itself on the last leg up to St. Moritz is actually part of a train route called the Glacier Express. So pretty, it winds its way through the mountains and at some points it looks like it's going to run smack into the side of the mountain.






The view from Al and Julie's balcony is beautiful:

It looks right out over the lake and onto the mountain range. So my first night with them, Al and Julie broke the big news, they are off to Hong Kong where Al will be taking a pretty incredible position with Morgan Stanley as one of the three managing directors for the office It's an amazing opportunity, but I can't even imagine how much they will miss being able to come up here for the weekends.

So, Saturday was a day for skiing. Julie stayed behind to wait for my bag, while Al and I hit the mountain. Amazingly, the entire mountain was shrouded in a cloud that just refused to move all day long. So Al and I skied in a cloud for about six hours. I don't think I've ever been so tired skiing before in my life, not because the runs were so hard, but because as soon as you skied into the cloud it was a complete white out. It was eerie, you couldn't hear much, you couldn't see anything at all. People would pop out of the mist for a minute as they passed you by and then disappear again just as fast. Definitely an experience to be had.

A full day of skiing ended with an ever so Swiss meal of fondue (unbelievably delicious) and a sound night's sleep.

So my bag (Remember my bag?), did not make it to the mountain. Sadly, my bag actually didn't arrive until Sunday morning, just in time for me to head back to Zurich and to Frankfurt. I guess my bag and I both had a good weekend. It galavanted around the Swiss country side on the train and I spent a spectacular weekend, in a glorious environment, with two fantastic friends. Plus you can't beat skiing in St. Moritz for the weekend.

Aren't I just so cosmopolitan ;)

So finally, a few more pretty pictures: