A Well Kept Man

Alli and I spent another ski weekend in Breckenridge. On Saturday, we skied with a coworker of Alli's whose wife was out of town, so he and I skied all of the tough runs and Alli tried to keep up (rather successfully I might add). Prior to this previous Saturday, I never ventured on a double-black diamond run...

After some careful thought and consideration, it appears that I need to get back on the blogging wagon. I suppose now that things are quite settled in Colorado, I really have no excuse. I imagine the blogging experiences won't come nearly as frequently as they did in Switzerland, but I shall try my best to bring you some of the more enjoyable ones.

We have managed to ski a few times so far this winter, a week (almost) in Breckenridge, a day at Keystone, and a long weekend in Vail. As it has been snowing more and more lately, hopefully the days will rack up a little quicker...although with a minimum of two hours to the mountains (instead of one to the Alps) it makes it a bit more complicated when you have a dog at home waiting impatiently for your return. The ski resorts in Colorado are very different from Switzerland, both topographically and vegetatively (I think I made up those words)....

In Switzerland, most of the skiing is above the tree line (where the trees can't grow), whereas here in Colorado, there are lots of Aspens and pines. Also, the Swiss runs were much wider and more meticulously groomed, whereas the Colorado runs can become a bit precarious in the afternoon after the skiers have pushed the snow around making unfriendly bumps. Either way I'm spoiled as I get to play on the weekends in the great outdoors. I also seem to wipeout more often here in the States, but that might be due to an increased risk tolerance...as in if I get hurt I don't need to worry that the medics won't speak English and I'll be subject odd-ball European medical procedures involving leeches and moldy cheese.

Well, after almost two months back in the US, I have a lot to talk about. First, thanks to all of those who have suggested I make a more earnest effort to continue writing. I must say that I have missed this venue, and look forward to continuing to write as often as I am able. I am back at work (never even missed a beat), but I am missing a key person in the equation. My darling wife is now in Colorado, working for Medtronic in Louisville meaning I am here in the Cities all by my lonesome (with the dog of course). Our house went on the market about two weeks ago (www.4708-10thave.com) and while there was some early interest, that didn't really pan out (ask me about it over a beer sometime...

The Swiss experiment is now over, after 10 months of getting the opportunity to live in an absolutely gorgeous place we are headed back to America (by the time you read this, we will already be back). We both decided that we will miss our evening walks down to the lake the most, followed closely by skiing in the Alps and the chocolate. The high cost of living conversely will not be missed, nor will the inability to communicate with the locals...

Thank you all for sharing this part of the adventure with us, and I hope you stick around to hear about all of the adventures to come. I can't promise they will be as exciting, humorous, and photogenic, but hopefully they will continue to give everyone out there a glimpse of how you too can live the life of A Well Kept Man (or Woman if that's your style)....

As the days in Switzerland became numbered, we decided to basically sit back and relax while savoring the last few days we had in our foreign home. We ventured to Morges for their annual tulip festival, we had dinner with our friends Tom and Sarah (Indian food...yummy!), and dessert with our other friends Jennifer and Jeff (but not on the same night, that would have been crazy!). We even had time to go out for a $90 per plate three course dinner (we decided our wallets needed to remember Switzerland as well).

Lausanne was host for the time trials of the Tour de Romandie (basically our geographic area's version of the Tour de France) so we checked that out one afternoon/evening. But our favorite way to remember our time here was to take our nightly walks down along the lake...très romantique!

Our goal was to go leave Switzerland with no regrets, and I can honestly say we achieved our goal. We didn't necessarily get to every nook and cranny of Europe, but we did see quite a lot of it (her?). Here are some stats and figures to help put into perspective what we were able to do over the last ten months...

2. Number of Swiss cities we visited: 40 (trust me, that's a lot)

7. Cow-related festivals attended: 2

For those interested in going on a tour of a water bottling facility, I strongly encourage you to not drink two cups of coffee, a bottle of juice, and a bottle of water before the two hour tour begins. You would think that there would be plenty of facilities along the tour, but there weren't. Which isn't good when everything the tour guide is pointing out is water related: the bottle washer, rinser, the bottle filler, the fruit juice storage tanks, mineral water, still water, soda, lemonade...(you get the point). The best part of the trip (after the post-tour visit to the water bottling plant's lavatories) was the generous amount of free drinks...I even got a backpack with a selection of some of their products. So to recap, the water bottling plant was pretty cool but in the future I plan to dehydrate myself before visiting as I have a hard time saying no to free stuff.

My cousin Joel and I are the same age (well, within a year anyway...but we grew up together and manage to cross paths a few times a year so we always try to make interesting stories), which makes for fun times as we are pretty much at the same place in life (except for the whole being married thing, otherwise, two peas in a pod). Our first day together was spent heading up to the village of Grandson to see a castle. Inside the castle were various period artifacts such as armor, weapons, furniture, stag's heads, tapestries, and other chateau stuff that seems to blur in my mind now as I've been in so many of them I've lost count. The castle did however have some unique treasures in the basement...classic cars (classic, old, same difference). The was an Austin Limousine belonging to Sir Winston Churchill, a 1906 Ford Type N, and even a car once owned by Greta Garbo (I guess she was some kind of a movie star or something according to Wikipedia). The castle wasn't the most exciting tourist attraction in the world, but that didn't prevent us from having a great time. After the castle we stopped for lunch to have the European equivalent of a burrito...Doner Kebab (truly one of the top food stuffs I've encountered on this adventure).

We followed this exciting day up with a trip to Berne, the capital of Switzerland. We spent some time looking for a Jack Wolfskin store as my cousin likes to have exclusive fashionable items that aren't sold in the US (something about striving for individuality...). Anyway, we explored Berne from the train station up to the hill overlooking the city. We stopped in the humongous Münster of Berne (the large Gothic church with a 100m tall tower) and climbed up to the top (254 steps) where we were treated to a sudden fear of falling, as well as the church bells (the largest bell in all of Switzerland is in the tower, thankfully when the noon o'clock bells went off, this one didn't as my ears would probably still be ringing. The bell weighed something like 20,000 pounds, but even the smaller bells were well into the 10,000 pound range and required us to cover our ears).

After the church, we decided to try a local beer (remember, I haven't found Swiss beer I enjoy yet) and surprisingly enough we found something drinkable at the Altes TramDepot (even though we didn't have seconds, I mean...how much beer are you supposed to drink before 1 pm anyway?). We checked out the lone, last resident of the bear pit (his name was Pedro, unfortunately Pedro is no longer a resident of the pit as he died about a week after we left...RIP Pedro), and made our way back to the apartment for Joel's last evening in Switzerland before he was off to his next adventure in France and Spain. It was nice to have Joel visit, although in the future if anyone desires to visit us wherever we may be living, please schedule your departing flights for later than 12 pm if possible as 7 am flights are no fun for the host...