Now that we are back in der Schweiz, Cass is all about skiing. We (he) decided that we should try out Flumserberg first, since it is fairly close to Zürich and it has some good beginner slopes and learning areas. Side note: in the US, ski slopes in order of increasing difficulty are green, blue, (blue-black), and black. Here in Europe, it goes blue, red, black. So now instead of skiing mostly greens, we are skiing mostly blues.

The way most people do ski equipment is to rent it locally, schlep it on the train to the ski resort, then schlep it back. Then you either turn it back in and re-rent the next time, or you do an entire season rental and keep it until sometime in April. We just rented stuff for the weekend this time. We rented boots and skis, and we ended up buying poles, ski helmets, and storage bags for the boots and skis. The last time that I rented skis (at Whistler), we went back after the first day and switched them for shorter skis which drastically improved my attitude about skiing. I have a lower back injury, and while I can ski with no problem, I don’t have a lot of ability to control my legs. Heavier skis are much harder for me to switch around when making turns, so I give up pretty quickly. With shorter skis, the turns are much easier. HOWEVER, there is some formula that the rental places use when picking your skis and if you ask for shorter skis than the formula says, they are very reluctant to give them to you. This time, I asked and they gave me barely shorter than normal. Needless to say, we found out later that they were still too long for me.

We also decided that we would get up and take a 7:25am train from Bahnhof Enge to Unterterzen (the stop for Flumserberg). This meant getting up at 6am to get ready and get all our stuff together. We also stayed up after midnight the night before watching the Amazon documentary on LuLaRoe that my sister recommended. AND we didn’t eat breakfast thinking that we could get some McDonald’s in the Bahnhof, BUT the McDonald’s there doesn’t open until 10am on Saturdays. The combination of all of these mis-steps meant this trip was doomed (at least for me) from the start. But we weren’t going to acknowledge that yet.

The middle pic is the ceiling in part of Bahnhof Enge. Train stations are really cool.

When we got to Unterterzen, we had to take 2 gondolas up to Flumserberg. Luckily, Cass had bought our lift passes online and loaded them on to our Swiss Pass, so we didn’t have to stand in the long line for the cashier (die Kasse). It took us a bit to figure out where to go for the lifts and where to rent a locker to stash our stuff. But we finally got it figured out and got ready to go get on the lift. We started down Chürzabfahrt (literally means Short Downhill). It was a nice slope, and there were no parts that made me uncomfortable. However, when we got to the bottom I declared that I was retiring from skiing. I just didn’t have the leg control to ski without wearing myself out and/or getting injured. It’s not fun to ski that way. Side note #2: this is probably the 3rd time I have retired from skiing. First, I quit after skiing at Deer Valley which was just to difficult overall for me, then I quit at Whistler before Cass got me to go swap out my skis. This time, it was official - I will not ski again.

I told Cass to go ahead and go check out the other slopes, I will go check out the cafes. And I did. Went to the small cafe and had some hot chocolate (heisse Schokolade), then to the cafeteria to have some goulash.

I decided that I wanted to go get the train back to Zürich and let him stay and ski some more, so Cass came down to give me the key to the locker to get my stuff. He talked me in to going to check out the learner area so that we’d know what it’s like for when we take our middle daughter there to learn to ski. So off we went. The learner area doesn’t have a proper ski lift, it has the t-bar thing that you sit on and it drags you up the mountain while your skis are on the ground. I’ve never used one before. But both of us hopped on it together. About halfway up it, I wiped out and landed on my right wrist and shoulder. I AM DEFINITELY OFFICIALLY RETIRED NOW. We hadn’t even gone up high enough to be able to ski back over to where I needed to get on the gondola, but I didn’t care. I popped off my skis and started walking. Uphill. Carrying skis. In my ski boots. Shoulder and wrist sore. It probably took me half an hour to walk back, but I got my stuff out of the locker, gave Cass back the locker key, and got the gondola down to Unterterzen.

I did get one picture from the spot right by where I fell on the t-bar lift. I was definitely not feeling this ski trip.

The gondolas were empty, the train station was empty, the train was empty. It was about an hour and a half back to Zürich. All I could think about was getting back to the apartment, getting a hot bath, and lying on my bed. As soon as I stepped off the train back at Bahnhof Enge, I realized that I DON’T HAVE A KEY TO THE APARTMENT.

I knew I had already been kind of miserable about the whole trip, so I just sent one message to Cass, knowing that he might not see it for a while. I had to stop myself from bombarding him with messages until he answered. I hadn’t planned on returning my ski gear right then, but now I had plenty of time to do so. So I walked over to Sihlcity mall where we had rented our stuff. The Ochsner Sports store was slam-packed. I waited around for a while and finally got helped. Left there, then walked home to drop off my poles and boot bag so I wouldn’t have to carry anything around. I dumped my poles over onto our balcony (thank goodness for our ground floor apartment), and I was going to leave the boot bag on the ledge because it had a waffle, an apple, and a Coke in it and I might need some snack to survive in the wild. Decided to take out the apple to eat now, and when I tried to prop the bag back on the ledge it fell right over to where I couldn’t get to it anymore. Oh well I shall have to fend for myself in the wild. Then I went and sat on a bench by our train stop and ate my apple. My tooth broke.

Walked back over to Sihlcity mall to get inside where it’s warm, and I ended up walking around every floor of that mall twice. Then I walked out and walked around all the surrounding shopping areas outside the mall. Went over and checked out the cinema, and I decided that I might go see the German viewing of West Side Story that started in about 2 hours. I was just about to go back in the mall and walk around some more when Cass finally messaged. “Eagle has our extra house key.”

Side note #3: over Christmas, in fact on Christmas Eve morning, we got a call from our landlord company. One of our neighbors had reported to them that our kitchen window was left open and it appeared that we were away on holiday. Yikes! We had been in the USA for 2 weeks at that point and our kitchen window in Zürich was wide open. It had been cold, it had snowed, however the one good thing was that the kitchen is on the back of the building which is very private. Cass had left a spare key to our house in his desk drawer in case of emergency. This was definitely an emergency. However, on Christmas Eve there weren’t many co-workers who were in town and/or available to go get the key and go save our apartment. Finally Eagle (who moved to Zürich just before we did) said that he could go over on Christmas Day. After a problem actually getting into the office (which was closed for the holidays COVID), he was able to get the key and go close our window. Luckily, one of the neighbors had actually lowered the outer metal shutter that we have on our windows which served to keep out most of the worst stuff we had imagined.

Eagle lives over by this store that Cass always comments about when we pass it on the tram. McPaperland.

I got the key from Eagle, and I was finally able to get my hot bath. I think I was asleep by 7:30pm that night.

That was our first time skiing in the Swiss Alps. It was quite memorable. Cass went back the next day and didn’t leave until about 11am. He said it was much better on the train and getting the gondolas up to Flumserberg. He was able to ski as much as he wanted before things shut down for the day. Probably the only issue was that the train back was pretty crowded, but that’s to be expected. He also didn’t rent a locker and just left his boot bag stashed somewhere. People in Switzerland just don’t mess with your stuff, so a lot of people do that. His Sunday trip was way better.

I’m definitely considering coming out of retirement #3. Our daughter just arrived for a 6 week stay, and I know I’ll want to ski with her as she’s learning. And Cass has done some research on what size skis I need, so we can be very specific with what we ask for. So hopefully I’ll have some more posts with pretty pictures of us skiing in the Alps this season.