Getting ready

Bonjour friends.  I'm skipping my weekly French class tonight in order to do some catching up on work and to pack my bags.  I'm heading back to Estonia tomorrow night and will be working there Wednesday to Friday.  Then I am spending the weekend in the other St Pete - St Petersburg, Russia!  I have a few books on Russia on my Amazon wish list, but I just simply haven't had the time to read them yet.  Still looking forward to learning about this fascinating culture while I'm there!  I'm planning to do some sightseeing, go to the ballet, and hopefully check out some vodka and caviar.

The past week has been a bit of a blur, but I feel like I should tell you that I ran three times last week!  Woohoo!  My weekly running dates with my friend Ashley have really been helping me get out onto the pavement.  We actually just went again this morning for 4.5 miles!  I was particularly proud of myself today, since my legs were already tired from skiing over the weekend!

Hope everyone has a great week :)

Happy New Year!

Happy Chinese New Year!!  As I was heading into work this morning, I saw this sign in one of the watch shops here in Geneva.  Cultures collide!

I am certainly missing the public holidays that we had in Singapore for Chinese New Year, but maybe I will try to find some decent Chinese food here in Geneva.  Happy New Year!

Ski weekend with visitors

Hello hello.  How is everyone?  This week has started off a bit rough for me - work is stressful.  I've just started a new project, and I have a big fear of the unknown!  The way I'm feeling now actually reminds me a lot of how I felt at work when I first moved to Singapore.  You'd think that I would have some ideas on how to deal with the stress, but so far, I've just been eating cookies.

Anyway - one thing that always helps relieve stress is fun times with friends!!  Mike and Stephanie came and visited me this past weekend.  We spent Friday night in Geneva, but then early Saturday morning, we picked up our rental car and headed out to France to hit the slopes!!

It was a bit cloudy, but little bits of sunshine tried to peek through!

I knew from our time together in Colorado that Mike and Stephanie were much better skiers than me, so I was a little bit nervous about the weekend. I was perfectly prepared to ski by myself both days - better safe than sorry! - but we actually spent all of Saturday skiing together!  We were in La Clusaz, which is the closest ski area to Geneva, about an hour by car.  Our first ride up the lift, we ended up on a run that was pretty steep up top (at least for me)!  It took me a while to get down it.  I had to go slow, and I still fell a lot!  Luckily, Mike and Stephanie were patient coaches and cheered me on as we made our way down.

We spent the rest of the day skiing beginner runs together.  The visibility was pretty terrible, and from time to time it snowed.  Since La Clusaz is pretty low in elevation, it isn't that cold.  While that is a good thing for keeping your body temperature comfortable, I guess that means that the snow isn't always so great for skiing, especially towards the bottom of the mountain.  (I'm such a beginner that I don't really know the difference, but that is what Mike and Stephanie both said!)

The views were still pretty!!

After a rough start to the morning for me, I was doing really well skiing with the two of them!  I feel like I'm getting better at skiing, but it definitely takes some time for me to shake off the cobwebs and get back in the groove.  Mike and Stephanie were great at helping me navigate some of the runs, and they also helped challenge me more than I would have done on my own!

Unfortunately, on the last run of the day, I fell pretty hard about one minute from the end of the run.  I took a pretty solid bounce, and after that, I was just totally exhausted.  Time to apres-ski!

Well deserved beer.

Well deserved vin chaud.

Well deserved lasagna.

One thing we learned was that, if you are going to a French ski town, you need reservations and most restaurants don't serve dinner before 7pm!  We were turned away from several places for either coming without reservations or for coming too early, but we managed to find a delicious and affordable meal in the center of town!

Because we booked everything a bit last minute, we weren't actually able to stay in La Clusaz, so we spent the night at a hotel in a small town about 15 minutes away.  This actually worked out really well because on Sunday, we went to a different ski area - Le Grand Bornand!

Le Grand Bornand is about 15 minutes from La Clusaz, so we were able to get there just as the lifts were opening.  The weather on Sunday was so much better.  It was beautiful blue skies and sunshine all day long!!

Bluebird special

On Sunday, we skied together for a bit and separate for a bit.  There were a lot of beginner runs in Le Grand Bornand, and since I was feeling pretty tired (and cautious) from the day before, I was happy to take it pretty easy for the day!

Whenever I got nervous about how to go down a run, I would follow the ski school children!

Going up the chair lift

 

Lunch was rabbit in mustard sauce with polenta.  Amazing!!!

Vive la France!

We spent the day going through various runs.  We all agreed that we liked both La Clusaz and Le Grand Bornand for different reasons!  La Clusaz seemed to be more suitable for various levels, whereas Le Grand Bornand had very easy runs and very hard runs, but Mike and Stephanie didn't seem to find much in between.  I was really happy that we got to try both places out though, and I would definitely return to either!

  

I had such a super fun weekend with these two!  We are already talking about doing it again next year!!

Ski weekend in Chamonix

Bonjour friends.  How is everything?  I've just returned from a weekend in Chamonix, France!
I had a big deadline at work this past week, so when some friends organised a weekend getaway at a chalet in Chamonix, I was happy that I could say yes to the invite!

Backing up, my week was totally crazy.  As I alluded to in last week's post, my sleep schedule was thrown totally out of whack by the Super Bowl, so this week was a bit difficult for me.  I was tired (and heartbroken from the Seahawks loss) the whole week, and things were still busy, so the timing wasn't ideal.  Fortunately, I had some fun things to keep me upbeat, including a work dinner to celebrate a deadline and book club!

I bought this chocolate bar in the spirit of trying something new.  I would not recommend it!

Snowy day in Geneva

Dinner at a French-Indian fusion restaurant.  I know it sounds weird, but trust me - it was amazing!!

 

Treats to thank the client for all their help!

Nevertheless, I was SO happy when Friday finally came.  After work, we packed up the car and headed out to Chamonix!  It took us just over an hour to get there, and we headed straight to a cool microbrewery for some music and food!

We headed home pretty early because we knew we would be up early to ski the next morning and wanted to spend a little time in the hot tub before bed.  We woke up to foggy skies outside the chalet.  There was lots of snow, so it was peaceful and lovely morning.

We went to Les Houches, which is one of the ski areas in Chamonix that is supposed to have a good mix of trails.  Most of the people in our group were pretty experienced skiers - some even took some off piste lessons - but I am still definitely a beginner!  Luckily, it was also Becca's first time out this season (and also in the Alps), so I was fortunate to have someone to ski with for the day!  Once we got up the chairlift and above the clouds, it was so beautiful!!

Becca and I did mostly beginner runs.  I had a few really epic wipeouts, but I think I'm making progress?  The trail to lunch was actually pretty challenging for me, but I managed to make it!!

We had an incredible lunch at this place!  A little hard to find, but worth the effort!

After lunch, we skied to the bottom (without falling at all!!) and headed into town to check out some apres-ski and the France-Scotland rugby match.  Later that evening, we headed back into town for a delicious dinner at Munchie's.  A great Asian fusion restaurant seems a bit unexpected in a French ski town, but it was really good - I would definitely recommend it!!

Sunday, a few of us decided to skip the slopes in favor of sleeping in, in-house massages (our chalet was awesome), and relaxing.  It was great.  Lazy Sundays are such a luxury!  Hope you all are enjoying your Sundays too!

In summary

Hello my friends and happy Super Bowl Sunday!!  I am so excited for tonight's game!  Kick off is around 12:30am here in Geneva, so I'm thinking of taking a little nap this afternoon so that I have plenty of energy later on.  I've already made a pot of chili to get in the spirit, and I'm looking forward to a great game tonight.  Go Seahawks!!

Notable things that happened this week:

I was shocked to find that the month of January is already over.  Where does the time go??

I had to call DHL, and the person working only spoke French, but I managed to have an entire conversation and arrange a delivery!!  Hooray progress!

I applied for my visa to visit Russia at the end of February - I'm really looking forward to it!

I did four loads of laundry and put together a cabinet from Ikea.

I ran three times this week!  (And also considering going today... but not likely haha.)  My run yesterday was actually during daylight hours, and I was rewarded with a blue sky and some beautiful views along the lake!