Olympics

As the Olympics draw to a close, I have to say that it was interesting watching them from a foreign country. In a way, I felt more American during these games than I have during previous ones. When Americans won events I felt more pride, and when they came up short I felt a greater sense of loss. I’m not sure what specifically explains this. Perhaps it is simply due to the fact that when you’re living abroad you feel somewhat disconnected or removed from your native country and an event like the Olympics allows you to feel a strong connection with an element of “home”.

Some of my friends asked whether I also supported Switzerland given that I’m a resident of the country. I guess I supported them more so than any other country (aside from the U.S., of course), but I definitely didn’t feel a significant connection to the team itself.

As the Olympics were televised on both French and Swiss channels, it was interesting to listen to the biases of the announcers for their respective teams. While I’m sure the same thing goes on in the U.S., I never really consciously picked up on it since my support was always aligned with that of the announcers.

Back to banking?

When I worked in investment banking, long hours were the norm and the concept of a personal life simply didn’t exist. Sadly, I got so used to that lifestyle that it actually seemed normal to me. Everyone else around me was living that way, so it didn’t seem that strange. Each day blended together with the next – in the office at 9am…leave around 2am. Some days were a little better; some days were a little worse. And a good “weekend” consisted of “only” having to work for a portion of each day and actually being able to meet up with some friends for dinner.

Needless to say, my work schedule now is a bit different. The hours are fairly regular and working over the weekend is definitely the exception rather than the norm. That said, the last week has given me flashbacks to my prior professional life. I’ve been staying late every night and even have logged some legitimate weekend time. Fortunately this is a short-term phenomenon, as I don’t think I could manage it much longer. It’s funny…while in banking, I could handle a 4am night with ease, while now I struggle staying past 9pm.

I guess it’s all about expectations and conditioning yourself to your current situation. That said, I definitely wouldn’t want to go back to the “life” that I used to have. Regardless of how much money you paid me…

Upcoming Travel

It looks like I’m going to have some interesting travel coming up for work. Assuming things don’t change, I’ll be heading to Greece and Kazakhstan in April, Romania in May, and Australia in June. I was supposed to go to South Korea in May as well, but the timing conflicts with Erin’s graduation from NYU so I’ll obviously be in New York instead.

I’ve also got some personal travel planned – Zermatt in March for skiing, Rome over Easter and Copenhagen in May – so the next three months should be pretty hectic.

La Tour-de-Peilz et Les Avants

Today I went with Emilie to visit her sister Cecile and some others at her sister’s apartment in La Tour-de-Peilz, which about 20 minutes east of Lausanne along Lac Léman. After lunch we went up in the mountains above Montreux to a town called Les Avants. There is a “luge” run there – basically a long road that is closed to traffic so kids (and adults) can sled down it. We went so Cecile’s boyfriend’s sister’s three-year-old daughter could ride a sled down the hill and play in the snow (I tried writing that more efficiently, but couldn’t come up with anything that worked).

To go down the luge run, you have to take a funicular car up a steep hill. Once you get to the top, you have a pretty spectacular view of the eastern end of Lac Léman and the Alps in the background. I unfortunately hadn’t brought my new camera as I didn’t know we’d be making the trip to Les Avants. As a result, all I have in the form of pictures are these two from the camera on my phone. Needless to say, the quality is a bit limited.












The luge run ended up being a lot of fun. I can’t remember the last time I actually went sledding, but I imagine that it must have been nearly twenty years ago. It was pretty funny as there were a lot of little kids (probably around five years old or so) who were flying down the luge run with their helmets on and driving luges that looked more like tiny race cars. I think if I were their age I would have never wanted to leave.

New camera

Given the volume of pictures that I’ve been taking, I decided to buy a new camera and ultimately selected a Nikon D90. This is a significant upgrade versus my previous digital camera (a six-year-old Olympus), so I’m looking forward to using it a lot during my future travels.

After finally getting through the instruction manual (it’s 300 pages) and prepping the camera accordingly, I decided to take it out for some test shots today. The biggest difference that I noticed was that the zoom is pretty incredible. The camera actually came with two lenses (an 18-135mm and a 70-300mm) and I didn’t even try to larger lens with the stronger zoom yet.

Here are some of the pictures that I took.

















Later in the afternoon, the weather took a bit of a turn...

Almost forgot...

At the hotel in Adelboden, we had an interesting experience in the sauna. Since it had a “no swimsuit” policy, we simply went in with our towels like the majority of the other guests. For a while it was just the four of us, until a middle-aged dad and his son decided to come in stark naked, with no hesitation at all. Since the sauna door was transparent, we could see it coming from a mile away. Their swimsuits (more like Speedos, actually) came off almost in mid-stride, and before we knew it they were sitting right across from us – directly in our line of sight, unfortunately.

Once they started talking it became clear that they were Dutch. Assuming they couldn’t speak French, Yvain said something to the effect of “I could never do that with my dad” and we laughed. We weren’t laughing five minutes later, though, when the guy started speaking French and asking about how the skiing was. He wasn’t fluent, but was definitely conversational. We were embarrassed, to say the least.

The whole nude thing wouldn’t have been that bad if it weren’t for the stretching, scratching, itching, etc. that was going on. We did our best to avoid seeing all this, but it’s kind of hard when it’s happening only a few feet away.

Adelboden – Day II

On Sunday we had another great day of skiing. The weather was beautiful and the snow conditions were perfect. Here are some of the pictures from the day.



















Here is a picture of where we stopped for lunch and the views from the restaurant.

Adelboden – Day I

This weekend Emilie and I went to Adelboden, a Swiss mountain village in the Bernese alps near Interlaken. We went with Emilie’s sister Cecile and her boyfriend, Yvain, who is also French, so the weekend also served as an intensive French lesson for me. While they all speak English, conversations naturally revert to French and I prefer this as it helps me learn. That said, it definitely gets exhausting trying to understand everything.

The weather was beautiful, so it made for a great day of skiing. Plus, I got to try out my new skis and they worked out very well. Though the boots had felt comfortable when I bought them, you never know how they’re actually going to feel once you’re on the mountain. Fortunately, the only soreness that I felt was that which would normally be expected. My feet ended up feeling pretty good.











Emilie, Cecile and her boyfriend are all very good skiers, so I spent most of the day just trying to keep up with them. Even when I was at my best over a decade ago, I still think that I would have had trouble matching their pace. But I followed them all over the mountain (with no falls) and didn’t hold them up too much, so I’ll consider that a success.











One of the best parts of skiing in Switzerland is stopping for lunch. The combination of the food and the views makes for a very enjoyable experience. Here’s a picture of the restaurant where we ate. We got one of the tables right in front, so we were able to enjoy the nice weather. Here’s a picture of Cecile and Yvain as well.










The hotel where we stayed was very nice and had a full spa facility, which we made thorough use of after the long day of skiing. There was an indoor pool, an outdoor heated pool, a sauna, a steam room and a bunch of other showers / jets, etc., that I wasn’t quite sure how to work. The only thing missing was a Jacuzzi, but given all the other amenities I definitely wasn’t complaining.

For dinner we went out for fondue at a place that Emilie and her sister had tried last year. They said it was the best fondue that they’ve ever had, so I had very high expectations. And it definitely lived up to them. I’ve only had fondue perhaps five times and I’m far from being an expert on the cuisine. However, I can definitely say that this was extremely good. Getting the cheese the right consistency when it’s served is truly an art and this place had mastered it.











Here are some of the pictures of the food. And as you can see, no one left hungry.

Getting Personal

So my sister tells me that certain posts are starting to get somewhat “awkward” do to the fact that I often refer to a vague “we” in them without providing more detail. In my defense, I’ve always been someone who likes to keep his personal life “personal” and, to be honest, the thought of posting personal stuff on a blog that is accessible to the world (at least in theory) is a bit unsettling.

Though traffic to my website is almost exclusively friends and family, you’d be surprised at the random visitors I get. Believe it or not, I’ve had “strangers” from countries such as Germany, Singapore, Russia, Finland, Japan, Switzerland, the U.K. and Vietnam. And within the U.S., they’ve come from Minnesota, Texas, Missouri, South Carolina and Oregon.

But I digress. Oh yes…the original purpose of the post…well for those of you who aren’t already aware, the “we” is a reference to my girlfriend Emilie. She is from France, but lives in Lausanne and I met her not long after I arrived in Switzerland. She’s fluent in English – hence why I’m not fluent in French…yet (I hope). Here’s a picture from a recent day of x-country skiing in France.

Apologies for the Cliff notes version, but one can only open up so much in one sitting. Babysteps…

Busted!

Today I decided to buy a couple of things after work and took the metro on the way back to my apartment. At the Lausanne Gare stop I was minding my own business when the metro "officers" boarded the train to check for tickets. Since I have a monthly pass, I had no concern and confidently provided it to them before they had even questioned me.

When they swiped my card, however, I noticed that the little red light on the officer's hand-held machine illuminated rather than the little green one that I was expecting. "That's not a good sign", I thought to myself. And it wasn't. It turns out that my pass had expired...yesterday. And since I was unaware of this, I hadn't refilled my card today or simply bought a single-ride ticket.

The damage...CHF60 (about $60). And had I not paid on the spot, it would have been CHF80.

Oh well, there's nothing that I can do about it now. I just wish the guy had shown a little compassion and even pretended to consider cutting me some slack. I mean, it's not as if I had snuck on the train with no ticket and tried to pull a fast one. The guy could clearly see on the back of my card that I've refilled my pass every month since June. Is one day of ignorant freeloading such a big deal? I guess so...

Broken Record

This week I headed back to France for some more x-country skiing. I admit that I'm probably starting to sound like a broken record these days, but, in my defense, one needs to take advantage of the snow while it lasts, right?

The area where we skied is called Chapelle-des-Bois, which is right along the French border with Switzerland. It's very nice as there are a lot of x-country trails of different lengths and difficulties. Similar to previous x-country excursions, we took the 8km trail. The following are a couple of pictures from the day.










I feel like I'm steadily improving and today was by far my quickest time. That said, the long uphill portions of the trails remain my nemeses and serve as humbling reminders that I've still got a lot to improve upon. At least this time I passed a lot of people, rather than simply being the one who was getting passed. That's considered progress, right?

On the way home I decided to do my part to stimulate the global economy by purchasing a set of (downhill) skis, boots and poles. I figure they'll pay for themselves over time as it costs nearly CHF 70 to rent a full setup for the weekend. Plus, the convenience of not having to go rent rent everything each time I go skiing is a huge benefit. The following is a picture of what I got -- Head skis, Dolomite boots and Scott poles.

Next weekend I'm heading to Adelboden in the Bernese Oberland region of Switzerland for two days of downhill skiing and look forward to trying the new equipment out.

Under attack?

Today was the annual testing of Switzerland’s civil defense sirens, which takes place on the first Wednesday of February each year. It basically sounded like an air raid warning from World War II (at least based on my perception of such warning systems from WWII documentaries and movies). It also made me think of something you might have heard in the U.S. during the Cold War – when American school children would duck and cover under their desks as practice for a potential nuclear attack during the 50s.