les alpes

Mountain peaks peek o'er
Seas of cirrus, flurries flit,
Stirring up skiers.

I am a "skier" now!  Well, kind of.  I tried it out yesterday--at a place called Flaine in France--for the first time, and it didn't go nearly so badly as I'd expected it to.  I made it out without anything broken or sprained or bruised, and although there is no finesse to my style as yet, that'll surely come with practise.  Or something.

Anyway, I went with some friends from work.  Well, from fake-work.  I'm hanging out in a different (but related) department this week to learn a bit about the systems that the system I'll be helping built is going to be built on.  If that makes sense.  One of my friends (Nicos) is a snowboarder, and he was the one who was trying to peer pressure me into snowboarding instead of skiing earlier this week.  I did wind up skiing (since "Ski the Alps" is on my list, after all), along with my other friend, Javier.  They were all patient and wonderful and laughed at the right times when I fell down and helped me at the right times too.  Several sweet, old Frenchmen also paused their skiing to help the poor, stupid, mountain-retarded Midwestern girl to her feet.  The Pikachu hat was a hit.

Today I wandered Genève (after sleeping in and whining to myself about being sore for a few hours).  I still can't get friggin pictures off my camera, agh.  I did see a lot of stuff, though, including what was apparently the Old Swiss Man Sunday Chess and Smoking Club.  And would you believe that outdoor cafés are open now?  It rained and stuff yesterday (in Geneva, not up on the mountain; there it was gorgeous weather all day), and Geneva's snow plan worked!  It has certainly all cleared from the streets now.  It also felt a bit like spring, which weirded me out.  I walked around in just my t-shirt and jeans for a while.

Oh, jeez, what else... oh, when I got back to the hostel this evening, there was a crowd of girls cluttering the hallway.  There was a woman speaking to all of them in a British accent, and I was amused when she she said, "You girls crossing the street is what keeps me up at night.  They drive on the wrong side here!"  Oh, you UK people.

how much snow does it take to shut down a black hole?

We are serious
Scientists.  LOL, J/K.
We built a snowman!


First, thanks to Venus for the post title, and thanks to Nadège for the first part of the haiku.  And for the non-1337 among you: LOL and J/K.

Last night, CERN was buried under an additional 18 or so cm (that's 7"!) of wet, perfect, packable snow, which effectively closed the place down.  My boss didn't show up for work.  The cafeteria was empty at lunchtime.  The dudes on my team (those of them that showed up, anyway) and I spent some time this afternoon constructing a snowman and having a snowball fight.  We settled on teams of Northern Europe and US v. Southern Europe, but we discovered quickly that the southern Europeans were somewhat less cold tolerant.  Hahaha.

I also walked home in daylight today.  Well, near-daylight, anyway.  I could see the mountains in the distance, and, my, did they look fabulous.  Pinpricks of light were lined neatly along them, presumably following the roads, and everything was basked in twilight's purple-y glow.

I also finally got out for some exercise, gasp.  I jogged a few kilometres around the complex before realising that tennis shoes did not provide sufficient grip on ice-slick roads and coming home to do sit-ups (!) and push-ups (!).

Okay, I also have advice/info/comments for people who want to look savvy travelling in Europe.

1. Bring assloads of passport-sized photos.  For whatever reason, every friggin card you want here (rail passes, work cards, blah blah blah) will require a passport-sized photo.  Or four.
2. Beer is served in our cafeteria.  At lunchtime.
3. Coffee breaks are key.
4. The easiest thing to do (and this is in general, not just for Europe) with those stupid baggage tag stickers is to stick them on the back of your passport.  It seems like 25% of the times I fly now I have to change flights or something that requires the airline to check what's up with my bags.
5. Carry a digital camera: when you don't have a printer or a fancy-schmancy iPhone, you can just take photos of on-screen directions and look at them later.

I'm sure there're others.  Uhhhh... I'll post them if I think of them.

I don't think there's any more snow in the forecast for now, but it's still pretty magical-looking out there.  Maybe tomorrow will bring another snowman.  Also, I have been talked into snowboarding instead of skiing this weekend, having been given the reason that skiing is "stuffy."  Since I'm not really awesome at snowboarding either... it's not a total loss.  ;)