It's now the 29th of December, 2010, and it's been a few days since I arrived back in Switzerland after my Eurotrip. Technically, my Eurotrip hadn't ended since we ended up going to Austria for the snows, rather than the Swiss Alps like I had told everyone lol. But yeah, I got back into Switzerland from Florence on the 23rd, and on the morning of the 24th, my relatives and I headed over to a place called Arlberg in Austria for our snow break. Anyways, more on that later. Last I left off, I was about to head back to Switzerland.
Day 59: Got up nice and early in order to check out of my hostel in Florence and make it in time for my train. Given that I needed to wait in line to "buy" my tickets (ie. reserve a seat), I thought I should get to the station a bit earlier than usual, so I decided I would get breakfast after I got my tickets. It was a good thing I did. The line was long (it got longer as I was in the line), and there were only two counters opened. It took me 40 minutes to get my tickets from Florence to Milan, and then Milan to Arth-Goldau. By that time, the train to Milan was about to leave, so no breakfast sadly. At least I still had some biscuits left in my bag from Prague lol. They would keep me satisfied until I could get some food later on in Milan. However, like all Italian trains, it was delayed. The good thing was that it wasn't so delayed that I would miss my connection. Brought back memories of that very first day that I travelled and got stuck in Milan for the night because I missed the last connecting train. Anyways, after rushing onto my connecting train, everything from then on went smoothly. Got to Arth-Goldau and changed trains again; this time to Lucerne. And once at Lucerne, changed again to get back to Emmenbrücke Gersag. Tired and hungry, I headed over to my uncle's restaurant where I was finally able to enjoy some substantial food, before walking back to the house. I had just found out that, contrary to what I've posted here before and what I've told everyone I've met lol, I was not going to be spending Christmas in the Swiss Alps, but rather in Arlberg in Austria. Bit of a disappointment, since the Swiss Alps sounds cooler lol. Nevertheless, having a white Christmas and spending it up in a ski lodge will be cool no matter where it happens. Got back and unpacked everything, did laundry, and then repacked again. Borrowed some ski pants and a ski jacket from my uncle. I really wish I had had these on my Eurotrip since they would have kept me so warm (but I would have looked ridiculous walking around in those lol). I was all ready to head out at 8am the next morning. In less than 12 hours I would be zooming down a mountain like a pro (or so I imagined I would be lol).
Day 60: Technically, the numbering of the days was only meant to apply to the days on which I was travelling around Europe, and the Christmas trip was not meant to be a part of that. However, since I was leaving the country again, I thought the numbering should continue. Day 60 started early, with us all waking up early to pack the car, and make sure that we had everything. Surprisingly, we headed out without having breakfast. I thought we would stop somwhere along the way to eat, but alas, this was not the case. Crossing the Swiss-Austrian border was a bit anti-climactic. The guy simply waved us through. No checking at all. In a way, I kinda wanted to be checked just as an experience lol. We ended up getting to the ski resort Enzian at noon. After checking in, we finally had something to eat in the resort's olden-style restaurant which overlooked the mountains. After lunch, I decided it was finally time to hit the slopes (albeit the small ones lol). After testing myself out on my uncle's skis and my cousin's snowboard, I felt more comfortable on skis, simply because I had more things to hold me up lol. Either way, I knew I would probably spend more time on the ground than upright on either skis or a snowboard. Ended up hiring skis for the entire time that I was there. Was eager to take lessons in snowboarding so I could at least feel a bit more comfortable, but they weren't offering lessons for beginners during the days that I was there for. Oh well, next time. First time skiing was definitely a weird experience. I'm just not used to having such long extensions on my feet, and moving was a bit of a pain especially when you're on level ground. To start off, I simply "skied" in the space next to the parking lot. Once I got the hang of it, I moved onto the small hill where I skied downhill for the first time. Quite a fun yet scary experience for me lol. Getting back up the hill on the skis was not fun though. I did this for about ten times, before I was simply too tired to do it anymore, and headed inside to get ready for dinner. I must say that my first experience on skis was quite fun, but I wasn't too comfortable yet and stopping and turning were still things I needed to master.
Anyways, the Christmas Eve festivities in the resort were awesome. We were served canapes and champagne before we all started singing carols. In order to not be the odd one out, I sang from the German lyrics. I think I still stood out since I was pronouncing everything wrong anyway lol. After that, we headed up to their fancy restaurant (not the olden-style one) for our five-course meal. Simply amazing!! It's been so long since I've had such good food, considering I've been living on a strict budget for the past two months lol. I won't go into much detail about the food here since I've already done that on Facebook. One thing I did notice though was that there was rum everywhere. I consumed so much rum that night, especially since I had ordered a gluwein-type drink which was simply rum with tea earlier on. Best dish that night was the scallops, but then again, scallops will always taste good lol. It was an awesome dinner, and it was great to be able to spend Christmas Eve with my relatives in such a nice place, whilst it was snowing outside. Definitely the white Christmas that I had wanted!!
Day 61: Christmas Day was here and I was heading up the mountain with my uncle and cousin Alex. My aunt and other cousin Darryl were going to have a more relaxed day shopping and sightseeing. Carrying the skis was bloody annoying, but necessary since we had to catch a bus to the nearby mountain down the road. At this point in time, I had had only an hour of skiing experience, and was about to head up the mountain, simply because my uncle thought it would make me learn faster lol. I wasn't even able to stop properly or turn yet!! My thoughts at the time are once again on Facebook lol. Once the chairlift got to the top, I hopped off, and couldn't control the skis as they took me down a slight slope. As a result, I found myself face-first in the snow, with both skis already off my feet. Great start lol. This was a position I found myself in a lot of the time. My uncle and cousin were really patient with me, and stayed with me for quite a while. However, even after a while, I knew they wanted to do their own thing and didn't want to be dragged down by me so I told them I was OK with learning on my own. In a way, it was also good that they were gone so they couldn't see me stack it so many times lol. Going downhill scared the shit out of me. I don't understand how people do it, especially those little kids that went whizzing past me. As a result, I found myself zigzagging at a very wide angle down the mountain (at points I was even going back up the mountain with the momentum I had gained). It took me forever to get to the bottom especially since I couldn't even turn. Eventually I learnt to turn right. Turning left was something my body was physically incapable of doing for some reason though. As a result, I kept finding myself on the ground after attempting a right turn. Fortunately, I didn't sustain any major injuries. Only a few scratches on my right arm. My right knee was a bit weird though after a particularly bad fall. I had managed to do two turns in a row but had gathered too much speed and was unable to stop. Ended up falling and tumbling a bit, and my right ski didn't come off my foot so my right leg was bent in a weird position. Fortunately, it was still OK and not broken. After that, I was a bit more cautious lol. And of course, the moment I had fallen, my uncle and cousin were loking down from above in the chairlift and had seen everything. So much for not having them see me stack it lol. I somehow managed to get to the bottom of the mountain after quite a long time, and then found out that my uncle and cousin had done four rounds of the mountain already.
After that particularly arduous morning, I was already exhausted and hungry. Lunch was potato soup, which was nowhere near as good as the one I had in Prague. After lunch, my uncle and cousin wanted to head back up. My body (especially my thigh muscles) was so sore, but who knew when I would ever be able to ski again after I left Europe, so I joined them. This time, I was able to get down the mountain a lot faster than the first time, but even then, one time was all I could manage. I was really drained. Luckily so were my uncle and cousin, so I could head back without letting on that I was that tired lol. Once we got back to the lodge, I simply collapsed into bed and fell asleep. At this point, it was only 4pm lol. Ended up napping for an hour before heading into the bar with my cousins for some free sausages. It was at this point that they suggested we play squash. They had mentioned the night before that this place had a squash court and I had mentioned how awesome I was lol. Even though my body was aching, I knew I had my honour to uphold lol. Surprisingly, even though it was killing me to walk down stairs, once I got onto the court and started running around, I was fine. No pain whatsoever. And I thrashed them. Just like I said I would lol. Hahaha now I sound like an arrogant bastard. Nevertheless, they put up more of a challenge than those back home in Oz who have simply given up on playing with me since they can't be bothered running. I even imparted some tips on how to beat me lol. Anyways, after an hour of intense squash, we were thoroughly exhausted and hungry and so we got ready for dinner. It was another amazing dinner. I'm gonna miss having such fine dining. Once dinner was done, I hit the hay. I really needed my rest after such a draining day lol.
Day 62: Boxing Day. I was meant to join my uncle and cousin for another day of snow and mountains. Unfortunately my body just wouldn't allow it. Or maybe it was all psychological. Maybe I didn't really want to go back up there lol. I ended up spending the morning playing pool with my cousin Darryl, before playing badminton with my aunt and then squash with Darryl. It's amazing how my body hurt when I walked but was absolutely fine when I was playing squash lol. I beat Darryl for the first two games, but I noticed in the last game that he was anticipating all my shots and seemed to know where I was going to hit them. Plus his shots were getting better. This guy was learning my game lol. Maybe I shouldn't have told him how to beat me lol. Anyways, it made everything a lot more fun and challenging. He almost beat me (he'll say that he did beat me), but the lights went out before he reached 15, so technically he never won that game. The final score was 14:11 in that final game, and of the five completed games, it was 5:0 my way. Anyways, judging from the way he was playing in that last game, he's definitely a good player and I'm anticipating a rematch sometime soon. And I'll have to make sure that he doesn't beat me lol.
After squash, I needed a shower badly. Looking out at the sky, it was grey. Once I got out of the shower, it was bright blue. Things had changed so quickly. After a quick lunch, I decided that this day was just too good to waste, and even though my body was protesting, I knew that it would stop once I started moving again. Grabbed my skis and headed out to the mountains again, and did one last run. I think my fatigue had actually caught up to me because getting down that mountain was a real struggle for me. At points, I actually felt like I would never make it down. Stopping and turning were just so painful that I ended up sometimes just falling over to save myself the pain (but then my arms would kill since I had to push myself off the ground lol). I made it to the bottom eventually, and knew that I would not be able to go back up (well, go up and come back down lol). Looking back at the experience, I don't think I'm cut out to be a skier. Or even a snowboarder, even though I didn't really do much of it. I just don't like the fact that I'm going downhill so fast. Who knows, maybe with more experience, I'll be able to get over that fear, but for now, it looks like I won't be world champion skier. Exhausted, I dragged myself back to the lodge and conked out immediately. Only woke up just in time for dinner, which wasn't that good compared to the previous nights. However, dessert was great, since they had a crepe "bar" with so many different toppings. Went back up to the room and packed my bags, since we had to check out the next morning, and I didn't fancy waking up early to pack. I seriously had no energy left. Two days of skiing and two days of squash meant that my body was so sore that moving was simply an arduous task. Conked out pretty much straight away, and according to my cousins, started snoring (which only happens when I'm really exhausted lol).
Day 63: It was time to leave the ski resort. After checking out, we had to clean off the snow which had accumulated on the car in the past few days. This took quite a while since ice had accumulated on the windscreen and had to be scraped off. Once we got on the road, I was out once again. It just shows how tired I was lol. Woke up when we stopped in St Gallen, Switzerland for lunch. I guess we didn't get stopped again at the border, which was probably a good thing since my passport was in my bag which was in the boot. Once lunch was done, we were back on the road. For some reason, I was busting to pee even though I had gone earlier on at the restaurant. I blame alcohol. They had given me an Amaretto shot after the meal, and alcohol tends to make me pee a lot. I just never knew that it was that bad (mainly because I never stopped at one shot lol). Anyways, there we were travelling along the autobahn, with no rest stop in sight. I wondered how long I would be able to hold it. Told my uncle, and he was going to take the next exit to find somewhere. However, I knew there that there was no way I was going to last. In the end, we ended up pulling over on the side of the autobahn and I peed into the snow. Such a relief!! Highlight of my day lol!! Plus I can acutally say that I have peed into snow lol. Lucky that no cops were driving past or else I would have been fined 70 euros. Anyways, the rest of the trip home went smoothly and without that bursting urge to pee, I was able to sleep for the rest of the way back.
Like I said at the beginning of the post, it's now the 29th. We were at the snows from the 24th to the 27th. In these past few days, I've simply been bumming at the house, catching up on TV shows. Not much has happened, and I don't really anticipate much happening. I'm not sure what's happening with New Year's Eve. I'm thinking I might wanna travel a bit around Switzerland in the new year just so I don't feel like I'm wasting my time in Europe. But we'll see how I feel when the time comes. To be honest, staying at home and watching shows suits me just fine. My muscles are still sore anyways, so probably walking around right now isn't the best idea lol. Right now, I am a bit homesick, especially since NYE is coming up. I don't know what everyone back home is doing, since I still can't access my email, but hoping that they do do something so I can Skype them and celebrate the New Year at 2pm Swiss time lol. Anyways, that's all for now. Will prob post another entry on the 1st to commemorate the beginning of 2011.
HBL signing out from Emmenbrücke, Switzerland. Merry Christmas everyone!!
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