Chamonix

Saturday was probably my last chance to go skiing this season, so I rented a car, filled it with WHO interns, and hit the road for Chamonix.   There were five of us, my friend Catherine who wanted to try skiing again and three interns from the ePortuguese program whom I hadn't met until Friday.  The Portuguese girls didn't want to ski, but wanted to see the mountains and the town.

The mountains are lurking...

We went to the Brevant Flegere station, since it had some more beginner/ intermediate runs for Catherine as well as some more advanced runs. The weather wasn't the greatest on Saturday, it was pretty wet and snowy all day.  It meant that the slopes weren't that busy, and there was some pretty good fresh snow by the end of the afternoon.  Catherine was great to spend the day with, we had some excellent conversations on lifts and over lunch. I am continually amazed at how intelligent and interesting the other interns here are.

On the cable care between Brevant and Flegere

The snow really picked up towards the end of the day, and the visibility got pretty bad.  We made our way all the way over to the opposite side of the ski station, where there was hardly anyone else skiing.  I love silence of the snow, and the silence really seemed to be amplified by the mountains.  It was kind of eerie.

Catherine on the lift behind me.

After returning to Geneva, I had the difficult task of finding a place to park the car.  I drove around paquis for a while, and had no success.  Eventually, I drove to work and parked in the employee parking lot.  I don't have a parking pass, so I had to ask the security guard very nicely.  He said it was OK, as long as I got the car by 8:00am.  By this time, it was pouring rain and I was drenched, so I think he felt sorry for me.

I walked over to meet some friends for dinner, and called it an early night to get some sleep to prepare for day trip # 2 on Sunday.