Alright; it's been a while since I've made any blog posts so I'll use this one to catch everyone back up and will hopefully be able to stay on top of this going forward as I have a string of traveling planned soon. I think the issue being its easiest to catch up when flying, which I haven't done much of lately. and marathon training seems to always be a good excuse:p.
Last ski trip of the year was to Val Thorens; skiing was a little wet, but not too bad as Val Thorens is on a glacier and one of the last resorts to close. We stayed at a Club Med all inclusive so that was a definite blast.
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| Waiting for the lift to open for first tracks |
Ski Bar Crawl - April 23
I hosted a ski themed bar crawl with a few friends starting from my apartment; I think the only ski themed aspect of this was everyone wore ski socks, Flip Cup was Ski Cross, and Buffalo was Pole Plant. All-in-all good times to keep the ski season yet alive even when off the slopes.
Epesse Wine - April 30
First wine fest of the year in Laveaux; you'll recognize the photos again later....
Geneva Marathon - May 7
I ran the Geneva Marathon as part of corporate challenge (run as any size team, but only the top 3 runners count) and the good news is we won! Bad news is it was one of my slower times and luckily my teammates in the group of 3 were 20 and 30th overall. The weather was a little warm and I was under-trained; there were so many times I wanted to quit and only finished because I knew the team was counting on me....we won by 1 minute and 30 seconds so I'm glad I didn't slack more than I did. I guess that'll happen with a training program that entails trying to balance with ski season and a wine festival the prior weekend.
All-in-all the race was very pretty and it started on the country side and then we ran into the city so it was net downhill.
In action at the Marathon - In a red shirt, disregard the PwC shirt above, ha.
Vaud Wine Fest - May 14
To celebrate being done with the marathon; a few of us went to the Vaud (canton-wide) wine festival.
Yes...these look familiar as we're in Epesse again, but we also went to a few other towns within the Laveaux area.
Lucerne - May 21
I was planning to teach training in Zurich the following Monday so I used the opportunity to go to Lucerne and also Brunnen. Lucerne is gorgeous and I spent the day wandering around the city and hiking up the old town walls; in Brunnen, I went to the Swiss Army knife museum where they allow you to assemble your own knife and then took a boat on Lake Lucerne back to Lake Lucerne. Brunnen is about 45 min. from Schweiz where Switzerland was formed. The region is quite pretty with many lakes connecting the cities within the mountains.
Balesky Going away and company weekend - May 28
No major traveling this weekend, but it was the Balesky going away apero on Friday and then the company weekend on Saturday. I may have said this already, but given the number of expats here and the close network that forms it seems that every summer that there is a going away party every weekend and every fall there are quite a few welcoming parties. Odd tradition in Switzerland is its customary for you to pay for your own going away party ha.
Company weekend is an event that the Romandie branches of PWC have each year where the offices go to a location for the weekend for team building, a huge dinner, and then a night out with everyone. Very different event from the US, but quite fun as all levels participate; the current years event was in Diablerets and the activity was going to the top of a glacier and hiking.
Weekend of June 4 and following
On Saturday, I did my first major road biking ride and rode up and down the Jura mountains for 4 hours with Mario. Good times and great work-out, but extremely sore as I haven't biked in over a year. On Sunday, I went to Yvoire to get lunch with friends and found my new go-to restaurant for visitors. The restaurant (Jardins du Lemans) is in an old town that is reached by taking a boat across Lake Geneva from Nyon and is great when the weather is nice.
The week following was full of travel for work:
- First 2 days in Morasch, which was 10 minutes from Brunnen
- Day 3 - Basel
- Days 4 and 5 - Zurich
Basel was the only new city on this list and I spent some time running around the city to get acclimated; very pretty place!
Needless to say at the end I was exhausted and actually skipped a trip to Madrid over the weekend as the prior week was out-of-town and now its Monday and I'm on a flight to Prague currently (hence the blogging). The EuroChampionship started last Friday and it has been a blast to have soccer on every day and night. The event really ignites the nation as its on in every restaurant/bar and everyone is talking about it as well (the stewardess announced scores on the loud speaker of the flight about 5 min. ago).
I did manage to get my Swiss Driver's License this morning in anticipation of the France road trip in 2 weeks; I'm not sure the continent is ready for me on the road. One thing to note about this process when compared to the US is the Swiss have got the DMV process figured out as I was able to walk in, turn in my forms, pay a fee and have my ID within 10 minutes!
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