[Imported from "LewyLife"] Switzerland christmas holiday 2006 diary:

Written on my XDA, ready to post up using wifi which i didn't have appropriate swiss telecoms card for...so here it is posted the normal way:

Saturday (23rd):
Left house at 5am (i loaded most of the cases into the mini van taxi), 1h30 queue to get through security checks + plane crew 30min late due to working late the day before with fog, then take off was aborted, right hand generator replaced on the tarmack + refueled, so a further 1 hour late. Berne airport is small and friendly. Onto double decker, 2 drop off's then us at the "Sunstar" hotel.

Sunday:
Woke at 3am so spent 2 hours reading Freakonomics in the bathroom and nearly sleeping before rhea's alarms went repeatedly at 7:30. The breakfast buffet was very comprehensive, though the orange juice tended to run out, even with the little glasses. Up to "First" on the gondalars oposite the hotel; so hot up there I had to take off me fleece, leaving T and coat (glad I had thermal tousers on though, for all the time spent sitting on snow). A couple of runs from the top of the chair lifts left rhea tired and bruised after a rough fall, so she was lagging on the descent to grindlewald, with a fair kilometer walk at the bottom allong board unfriendly track and pavement through the town.

Montag:
Day off boarding as rhea's utterly battered from yesterday and i'm pretty achy myself. Ironically we had a earlier start today in order to catch the train up to "kleine schneidigger" via "grun", then up through the mountain to the "top of europe": a big modern place kinda like like a james bond super villian lair pearched 3.5Km up, complete with observatory/death ray. Christmas dinner for rhea and I was fries and salad, which was cool as we've been missing out on the simple food with the hotel's fancy 4/5 course dinners. Ice 'placace' was slippery but not as fancy as i'd imagined (be better is they served vodka shots!), took several panarama's, half filling rhea's 1Gb memory card in her new camera. Just made it back down in 1h30 for the evening sleigh ride, which was mostly wheels on road with 100 meters of gravely sounding snow, before the 2 poor horses steamed their way (literally) slow up the ascent to town. Out like a light at 9:30 while rhea was outside on the phone to england.

Deinstag:
On my own back up to Kl. Sn. On the 10:30. Took in 3 different runs before heading down route 21 (after a false start taking and wrong turning and lifting back up), nearly when back to the same dead end chair lift station, so walked back up a slope, only to be faced with a rubbish length of narrow flats. Rest of the decent alternated between decent streaches and patches of solid ice, impossible to board on. Made it down eventually, walking the last seaction on the flat again (getting a taste of what rhea was grumbling about on sunday), to the station, back in time for generously sized waffles in the lounge. Canaster avec spasticated laughing fit, apres shower and generous helpings of buffett dinner.

Mittwoch:
Floated down for the end of breakfast at 10am, aching/painful feet feet all around, so just go up to First and make 2 runs from the top before spotting the parrents knocking about up there. Chips and pitza on the mountain, then split from the family and boarded my lonesome way back to town (run was in better condition, more actual snow had appeared). Had a propper swim but avoided the sauna/lobster room this time. Dinned, complete with our super enthusiastic waiter, then laughed as the elvis impersonator's sound system tripped out the hotel power circuit repeatedly while we were playing some more cards (beginner's luck had worn off for me).

Donnestag: Epic lunch outting, starting at 11am, with 9 separate transport legs on the way there, including (but not limited to): bus, 4 person gondalar, 30 person gondalars, vernacular rail, normal rail and foot. All I can say is thank god the swiss transport system works as good as their time pieces! Lunch *was* taken in a revolving resturant of 60s film fame, 3Km up with the birds and crazy-ass paragliders. So was ok that we only just got back for dinner.

Freitag: Should get our last bit of boarding in... indeed we did, going up First one last time I finally felt i'd got it down, taking little jumps without problem. Rhea left me at the top, as her knees gave out again, so I made a final on my own. It felt like the right time to be going, my legs were the tiredest they'd been all week, having to stop repeatedly before they gave out. It seemed the families had landed at the hotel the previous night, as the previously quiet, little pool had 25 ppl in, mostly rowdy children. The entertainment suited the clientle, boogy and tap, fairly captivating jazz piano and dance/juggling. An odd combination, but I was happy to break off our family card game to watch, especially having been lubricated with generously proportioned long island iced tea. Threw stuff into suitcase in good spirits.

Saturday will then involve knocking about Grindlewald town til our bus connection to the airport at 2:20pm... Yup, all as planned, sucessful shopping and a takeaway pitza from across the road before departure. We're currently hanging in the departure lounge, and will be for the next 2 hours as plane is late...