16 February 2008 – A visit from Satan and a visit to my old landlord

 

 

Do not fear.  My soul, I hope, is perfectly safe.  I have not sold it to Beelzebub.  As far as I am aware it still belongs to myself or my God.  This was merely a kind visit from a much loved university friend.  Over his years he has gone by many names but non have been as prevalent over the 4 years we spent at Imperial College as Satan.  The man I speak of is (of course to those of you who have met him) James, who, while with me in Geneva, actually managed to pick up another couple of nicknames, namely Bob Marley and Amy Whine-House (incidentally if anyone saw her at Glastonbury this year – what a mess!).  These names were of course picked up the night before the 16th of February, which is where our story begins.

 

Having been invited to the house warming party, of a couple that had recently moved to Carrouge (a quaint little town in the canton Geneva and just outside the city), the night before we planned to go Skiing in Leysin, we realised we needed to be careful.  In order to get to Leysin (a small resort in Switzerland) and meet up with my old, White City landlord (out there visiting his home town), for a full day on the slopes we needed to get to Geneva train station for 06:30.  A sensible pair would have decided that imbibing alcohol the night before was off the cards or even that going to the party was too great a risk.  When James and I are together we are seldom a sensible pair however.  In fact James referred to me as, “A catalogue of errors” at some point over his stay with me.  Our first great idea of the saga was how to tackle the party problem.  Given that not going was out and not quaffing some of the good stuff was also a no-goer we came up with something quite ingenious.  The panacea for our party problem was to knock back the beverages we had bought before 11 and not touch a drop after, thus giving us plenty of time to party, sober up and get back home for bed at a half sensible hour in a most satisfactory sober state.

 

We awoke the next morning wallowing in our own crapulence at around 09:00.  Needless to say, like all wonder drugs and miracle cures our solution hadn’t actually worked and had made the situation quite a bit worse.  The execution of the first part of our plan was perfect but our black swan was the delicious punch being served, the evaporation of our inhibitions and Angie turning up with her famous Jello shots post 23:00.  After a period of puzzlement over what to do next an impromptu plan B came out.  It must have seemed like fate that James had only just passed his driving test and given us an alternative mode of transportation.  Of course there was always the idea that I could drive but considering I’d passed my test four years ago and hadn’t driven since even we could see was not to be followed through.  Plan B took us to the airport, got us a hire car and set us on our way down the Swiss motorway to Leysin at around 11:00.

 

Having had no breakfast in the morning, hunger was starting to take its toll.  There was only one thing for it:  A quick stop off at the motorway services.  Little did we know the motorway services in Switzerland are a far cry away from your usual, greasy, fast food service stop in the UK.  In Switzerland the motorway services are restaurants, built for fine wining and dining.  While a sit-down meal was welcome in many respects it was going to take a considerable bite out of what little time we had left for getting to Leysin.  We arrived on the slopes at 14:00 for the most expensive two and a half hours snowboarding I have ever done.

12 January 2008 – What to do in Winter

 

 

As tempting as it was to just leave this picture without the accompaniment of text, other than the heading, it does come with a story which some may find solace in.

 

Switzerland had an uncharacteristically large and early snow fall in the mountains.  In Geneva people get excited when they can see snow on top of the French part of the Jura mountain range.  They would also get excited if they could see snow on top of the Jura in Switzerland but for an entirely different reason as the range only enters Switzerland in the canton Jura, which is a couple away from Geneva (and roughly 150km).  The reason les Genevoises get excited when they see the snow is because it means it has settled low enough to be able to hit the slopes.  When there had been snow on the Jura for a couple of weeks it was time to venture on my first snowboarding trip.  But today was not the first trip.  It was the second where the slopes of Verbier put me in my place.

 

My first snowboarding adventure had also been in Verbier, when I went out with Shaf, Pratikshya, Sumeet and big John.  On that occasion we were boarding on a few feet of fresh powder and ended up caught in a snowstorm.  I think the adrenaline rush of trying something new,  the soft bed of snow to land on and not being able to see what I was going down (due to visibility of about 10 meters), meant I was fearlessly able to get the hang of things by the end of the day.  I had fallen many times, cart-wheeled at one point and felt like I’d done a couple of rounds in a boxing ring.  All was good though.

 

My second snowboarding trip, was with Jayson.  He had done boarding a few times and I was full of confidence from the last trip, convinced my linked turns were now coming on and I would probably master the whole thing in another day.  This day was a little different from the first however.  The pistes had been groomed so the snow was now fairly hard packed and visibility was perfect.  It really hurt when I fell and I could now see what I was going to fall down.  The blue slopes I had been doing looked like black ones in my mind.  Very timidly I made my way down, fearful to even pick up the slightest bit of speed.  By lunch I was telling Jayson I should switch to skis.  He told me to wait after I had eaten and through lunch conversation I decided to stick with the board and not give up.  Having since gone 16 times last winter I’m now in love with snowboard and starting to tackle black runs like they’re blue. 

 

The best bit about snowboarding is that I now look forward to winter.  This is something I never thought I would be able to do.