Catching Up!

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.

Val Thorens - April 16

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.

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!

Lisbon (Easter Weekend)

For Easter Weekend, I went to Lisbon from Thursday to Sunday morning to meet up with an old roommate from the US (Alex).  In Switzerland, and much of Europe, both Friday and Monday are public holidays so this led for a nice extended weekend.

Lisbon is a very fun place with great food, lively people, and many pretty sites.  On the first night, we grabbed a late dinner and then went out for a few drinks in Barrio Alto, which is a fun area of the city that has 250 bars in an 8 block area.

Saturday morning we hit the sightseeing hard with a morning tour of Belem, walking tour of the city center, and then a bar crawl with some of Alex's friends at night.  One important fact to note is the Spanish and Portuguese live a bunch different lifestyle than the Swiss and Americans; for example, our tour guide took us to our last bar at 2:30a, we left early, so that we could get to bed by 5am given we had another tour planned the following day in Sintra that required us to get up at 7am.  If going back, I would recommend another day to sleep and sightsee and possibly spending the night in Sintra or Caiscais as the area is gorgeous.

Pasteis de Belem

Most Western Point of Europe

After flying back in Easter Sunday, I enjoyed Easter dinner at the Baleskys with our American visitors that were still in town from skiing the weekend before and the Lawrences (UK Manager that did a secondment in Detroit I knew).  Great dinner with friends, followed by introducing friends to Settlers of Catan, and then missing the last train and being stranded so I had to stay in a packed apt. until the next morning.

All in all a great weekend!

March - Skiing and Copenhagen

March is the month of US visitors as you'll see from my updates; every week there is a planned visitor and a few travel plans so should be a lot of fun.

Weekend of March 5

Group of 7 of us rented a chalet in Chamonix for the weekend to go skiing; this was also the weekend that another engagement team did a ski weekend so there were about 30 people in that town for the weekend.  We got a little over a foot of snow per day so probably one of the better ski days of the season; I managed to ski some off piste, took a wrong turn, and then ended up at someone's house and had to take off my gear and hike 15 min. back up the hill for the first time.

Week/Weekend of March 12

I grabbed dinner this week with the first US visitor of the month; Emily, an elementary school friend, was working in town from Netherlands.  Small world!

For the weekend, I traveled to Copenhagen to see two other former US coworkers; one now working in the UK (Kate) and the other in town from Detroit (Michael).  We did a walking tour, canal tour, and went to the Carlsberg brewery.  Definitely a fun city and would like to go back...in the summer when warm!

Weekend of March 19

Two other former coworkers were in town this weekend (Geoff and Pat) so a group of 8 of us rented a Chalet in Verbier; weather was gorgeous!

Currently, flying to Prague for work for the next 2 days; I've been before, but always fun to get a free trip to a cool city!

Marathon Training

As you be aware, I'm currently training for the Geneva marathon and planning to run with a few other coworkers.  This will be my 5th marathon and I feel pretty comfortable regarding how to train and what to expect based on the level of training.  I thought it would be fun to add an update regarding the differences from the US both positive and negative for comparison; I was contemplating calling March the "Month on E" rather than the "Month of Visitors."

Training in Switzerland has its positives, such as nice paths along the lake, many runners (PWC group runs every lunch), an active culture, and weather that allows you to run year round (I can count the number of times is was less than 32F on my hands and number of snowfalls with one).  No longer battling ice and snow as in the US has been a definite plus!

However, it also has its challenges:

Skiing - Although offering a great cross training opportunity, it also presents two challenges.  If not running by a lake, it's hilly as we're in the alps and it results in needing to run every weekday as skiing, or other travel, is planned every weekend so your body never rests.

Diet - My fastest marathon was when I was a Vegan.  The Swiss love their cheese, between raclette, fondue, rosti, tartaflette, etc. there is no shortage of tempting dishes compared to salad.  The chocolate also doesn't help....

Last few weeks of training, looking forward to being done training soon!  On a side note to add more activities to the mix, soccer starts next week:p

Dolomites

For the last weekend in February, I spent a long weekend (Thurs - Tues) in Cortina d'Ampezzo.  The city is about 2 hours north of Venice and was home to the 1956 Winter Olympics and the Skiing World Championships every few years.  At each resort I skied, I tried to make sure to ski the GS courses as there seemed to be one everywhere.  The resorts are quite massive and there are 12 in total connected on a single ticket and it's only feasible to ski one to two in a day.

Day 1 - I arrived and went to Venice for the day while out on my training run.  I relieved the glory days of my 2010 trip with Gergen and ran by where we stayed, first bar of our Eurotrip, and across the Rialto bridge.  It was a good day of sightseeing before jumping in my car for the 2 hour drive into the mountains; Venice is not the best city to run in though with many bridges and tons of tourists I noticed, but definitely a city with many sites!

Day 2 - I spent this day skiing in Socrepes; there are two ski resorts in Cortina (Socrepes and Faloria).  First impression of the Dolomites is the mountains are extremely pretty and similar to the US as there are trees; I did not find the skiing overly difficult compared to what I was used to in the Rockies, Switzerland, or France.

Day 3 - This day was a bit of a scramble as I was scheduled to run 14 miles as part of marathon training; this is no easy feat in a city that is at altitude, very hilly, and less than one mile long.  Ultimately, I tried to find a gym and a treadmill using Google Maps; on my 1st try, I arrived at a gym being built, 2nd try someone's apartment, and my 3rd and final try, I called a hotel and used their gym whose treadmill wasn't great so I biked 25 miles instead ha.  The 2nd half of the day I drove to Alta Badia (neighboring resort about 30 min. away) to check out some new terrain:

Day 4 - I skied Cortina3 - Faloria this day, which is the other resort in Cortina; note that it's now a blizzard and the city received a foot of snow overnight and it's supposed to keep snowing for the next 2 days.  This place was small, but really fun and unique as it requires you to take a gondola from the city to the top of a plateau that is then the base of the ski mountain.  Note the snow in the pictures....

Day 5 - Most epic day ever and the day that will not be forgotten! - So to start day 5, I had made the decision that I wanted to get up early to drive to Arabba (50 min. Away) to ski the Sella Ronda (5 hour ski loop through 4 of the resorts around a central mountain) and the Marmolada Glacier (Highest Peak in Dolomites).

I awoke and jumped in my car, which was a SMART car, and started my drive.  Not very far into the drive, I saw a large truck stopped and the drive was attaching snow chains and I was sliding all over the place and decided it would be best to do the same.  Having never used snow chains, I followed the directions/pictures and installed the chains; these were quite loud while driving and helped a little, but I also stopped and was assured that I had installed these correctly.  

Not much further into the trip (about 15 min. from my hotel), I made the executive decision that this trip is not going to happen as my car physically is unable to climb the mountain.  As I make slow into the mountain switchbacks and then accelerate to continue my climb coming out of them, the car's traction control keeps diverting power from the wheels and I'm literally not moving.  After some research in the manual (which is in Italian), I can't figure out how to turn off the traction control and take a U and head back to my hotel.  Note that I consider myself one of the better drivers in the snow I know, have not gotten stuck, and have received complements on my ability to handle a car in bad weather so this was a bit of a let down.  I could've taken a few more risks, but probably not the greatest decision on mountain passes. Further note that after performing some internet research, I discovered that there is not a switch for traction control in the car I was driving.

I didn't end up skiing this day as I'd skied all of the terrain that was reachable without driving and was a bit frustrated from the morning's drive.  I did try to go shopping and arrived at the store at 12:30, which coincidentally closes from 12:30 to 3:30; this city is beating me down today, ha.

Today was spent driving back to the airport to fly home.  All-in-all this was a great trip; the skiing wasn't that difficult, but probably one of the prettiest areas I've been.  I learned some good life lessons like how to install snow chains and to not to rent the smallest/cheapest car when on a trip in the mountains.

Stay tuned as I'll have to make it back to ski the Sella Ronda.

February (1st Half)

February 13 (Koinis Wedding)

I took a short weekend flight home to go to Steve's wedding and took quite the whirlwind trip to see friends and navigate linking rides across the state:

Flew home and landed on Thursday to stay with the Broff-Bergs and grab dinner with some of the Royal Oak crew.  The initial landing was a shock to the system as I'm not quite used to this cold anymore!

Friday, I relived a prior life grabbing brunch with Berg at Nat'l Coney before heading across the state by catching a ride with one of the bridesmaids to Muskegon.  You'll notice a recurring theme of breakfast/brunch as I tried to take advantage of this as we don't have many (or any I've found) brunch locations in Geneva.

I had the rehearsal dinner on Friday, which was a lot of fun, but the jet lag hit me quite hard at 9PM as I was struggling to stay awake.

Saturday, I grabbed breakfast with Steve, Greg, and Steve's dad before the wedding.  The wedding was a blast and it was so great seeing friends from soccer, PwC, and the RO area.  Manage to deal with the jet lag as I hosted the after party until 4am.  

Sunday, I rode with some wedding guests (Dan Kelly) to my brothers in Grand Rapids where I caught up with family before meeting up with my dad for dinner to ride home to Hastings. 

Monday, I had breakfast with a neighborhood friend coincidentally in town from Boulder (Erin), had dinner at the Gergens, and then caught up with JK, JD, and Mills at the end of the night before heading back on Tuesday (now).  

It was a busy weekend, but I wouldn't have done it any other way; it definitely made me thankful of all of the great friends and family surrounding me.  I can't wait to see many of you soon in EU or when home again in the summer.

Coincidentally, I finished both of my audit reports from the US.  This involved me signing a document, emailing my Swiss boss to then sign, and then email back to the US while ensuring all of this was done before midnight CET:p

February 20

It took a few days to re-adjust my sleep schedule back to European time from being home; luckily, it was not a crazy busy week.  On Friday, I went to the movies with friends; this was my first time at a movie theatre in Geneva.  The movies are in English with French and German subtitles and it's pretty funny seeing what words are obviously lost in translation

On Sunday, I went to Grand Montets (Chamonix) with the ski club.  I learned a fun lesson that you need more than your Swiss working permit at the border crossing; I got a 'free pass' the first time, but was warned that next time I would need to spend the day at the border until the ski club bus returned.  All in all, nice sunny day of skiing!

January Update (2nd Half)

January is a tough month as an accountant during busy season working 80 hour weeks (weekdays alone); I think the Swiss mindset is a little different than what I'm used to in the US.  For example, eating through lunch and dinner at the client site does not exist here nor does mandatory weekends working onsite.  Still late nights working a combination from onsite and home, but I was able to eat dinner at home almost every night and maintain a regular running routine and have free time on the weekends.

Weekend of January 23

My engagement team spent the weekend together in Verbier skiing and stayed at one of our Assistant's family chalets (Thank You Freddy).  Never would I have ever envisioned taking a group vacation for a weekend of busy season ha.  Team had a blast and skiing was spectacular.  Had my first Raclette at a restaurant where there were two seatings for the entire restaurant (7 and 9) and a central Raclette machine where everyone is served from.

Most of the team at the top of Mt. Fort

Why hello there Matterhorn

Raclette

Weekend of January 30
Spent the weekend relaxing, catching up on life, and no skiing as weather wasn't great; officially a fail on skiing goal ha.

Weekend of February 6

Back on the bandwagon and skied with the ski club in La Thuile, Italy.  Fun fact for the region is many of the cities have French names and I was under the impression I was going to ski in La Thuile, France (also a close ski town) until I saw signs for Courmayeur.  Blue bird day and the resort had some great runs that seemed endless; the women's World Cup will be at this resort the end of February and we skied the GS run that was in the process of being gated.  Smooth, tough run that apparently is the steepest GS in Europe.  This was also my first time skiing in Italy and the terrain is similar, but food choices are quite different:

France/Swiss: Tartaflette and Rosti

Italy: Polenta and Pasta

Currently, I'm on my flight back to the US for the Koinis wedding on a short trip (Thursday - Tuesday); I will miss the skiing goal this week, but it's an acceptable excuse.