Grüezi Mitenand! Ich bin Lisa. Meine hausaufgaben für Dienstag ist schreiben meine Familien-Stammbaum.
Mein Vorname ist Lisa. Mein Familienname ist Lacampagne. Ich bin ein Einzelkind, also ich habe keine Geschwister. Ich bin sieben und zwanzig Jahre alt.
Meine Eltern ist Kathy und Rich. Sie sind nicht geschieden, aber nicht verheiratet. Mein Vater wohnt in Los Altos. Das ist mein Geburtsort. Meine Mutter wohnt in Truckee. Truckee und Los Altos liegen in California. California liegt in den USA. Rich ist ein Program Manager. Er arbeit bei Google in Mountain View. Kathy ist Rentner.
Rich hat drei Geschwister, eine Schwester und zwei Brüder. Meine Tante, Suzanne, hat Ehemann, Mike. Sie haben eine Tochter, meine Cousine Julia. Sie wohnt in Portland, Oregon, und sie ist Studentin. Mein Onkel Loren wohnt in Missouri, und er hat drei kinder, Lorenzo, Tori, und Tommy. Mein Onkel John wohnt in Clear Lake, California, und er hat einen Sohn, Mateo. Meine Grossmutter ist gestorben. Der Geburtsort von der Grossvater von mein Vater ist Pau, France, also “Lacampagne”!
Kathy hat eine Schwester, Carol, und ein Schwager, Randy. Sie haben zwei Töchter, Katja und Natalie. Der Geburtsort von Katja und Natalie is Zurich. Sie sind Schweizerin und Americanerin. Carol und Randy haben eine Schwiegertochter und einen Schwiegersohn. Natalie wohnt in Washington DC. Katja wohnt in San Diego, California, und sie ist ingenieurin. Die Mutter von meine Mutter ist Peggy, und sie ist tot. Mein Grossvater hat eine Ehefrau, also meine GrossMutter. Ich heisse sie “Papa und Ata.” Sie haben drei Enkelin.
Ich bin verheiratet. Mein Ehemann ist Freddy. Er macht mich glücklich, aber er kennt Meghan Markle nicht. Er ist Ingenieur, aber er ist im Moment leider arbeitslos. Er sucht Arbeit. Wir lernen Deutsche.
Freddy hat drei Geschwister, ein Bruder und zwei Schwester. Seine Schwester alt (Sophie) hat einen Ehemann, Lewis. Ich habe zwei Schwager und zwei schwägerin. Meine Schwiegermutter und mein Schwiegervater sind Sarah und Leo. Sie wohnen in den Adirondacks. Den Adirondacks liegen in New York. Sie haben einen Hund, Fergie.
Freddy und ich haben keine kinder. Wir wohnen in Wollishofen.
Our last spectacular stay at Engelberg was only marred by the Hotel Clerk denying my credit card, charging Freddy, only to realize when reviewing my bank statements that he had double charged us. When I called to inform him, he said he would see to it. He said this every time I called him for the past month. Fed up and with no plan for the coming weekend, I asked if I could just be comped a night, and he agreed. We were going back to Engelberg!
And just in time for this warm, dry spell to subside. A series of storms were about to grace the Alps!
We took the 5:49 am tram through Zug and Lucerne. It’s amazing what you can do in a train vs a car! I meditated, did some Duolingo, and listened to my book, Detransition Baby (recommended by Marlene!). In the blink of an eye we arrived in Engelberg at 7:53.
It was a perfect setup - it had snowed all night, then stopped at 10 am. With 20 cm of fresh snow, and moderate winds to provide refills, I really braced myself for the dreadful PPP (Palisades Powder Panic). What took me by surprise, however, was that we did not wait in a single line that day!
Freddy bought the Engelberg Outdoor Guide, which came in handy to orient ourselves and put names to faces we had seen in our last visit. We started our morning warming up on untouched groomers with 6 inches of powder on top! Though we make fun of Conor for this being his favorite type of skiing, it’s a real pleasure. We then dropped into Sulz, which is a cool face with many chutes, spines, rolls, and features to play around on. What also took me by surprise was how very few were willing to traverse a little or click out and boot up for a minute to secure untouched goods. Oh well, more untracked delight for us!
For those who haven’t skied with Freddy, he milks powder days dry. While I’m surfing along, powder lapping at my thighs, Freddy is next to me, stomping up a spine to get face shots. His favorite feature about himself is his mustache when frozen..
Once the clouds lifted, we moved over to Laub, which is this 1200 meter 30-35 degrees face that can be seen from town. It clearly avalanches a lot, as the word “Laub” is an ancient word for Avalanche. Wow, it was joyous! We yoyo’d the whole thing in an effort to be safe (though let’s be honest these thighs can’t ski 1200 meters straight..). It truly felt like hero skiing, the kind of pitch where the skis and gravity do all the work as you bounce to the rhythm of the freshly fallen snow. Mid-run, I pulled over to Freddy and said this is the best ski line of my life.
After 30,000 feet of vertical descent, we called it, picked up our shoes and extra clothes from the train station (weekend trips are easy when you can just store your toiletries/shoes/extra clothes at a locker), and wandered along the river path to the Banklialp Hotel.
There we met my favorite Hotel Clerk (he really is a nice guy!), and hopped in the sauna. This time, we filled a tub next to the sauna with cold water - my Wim Hof brethren know where this is going… Three cycles of unplugging the human computer from the power outlet was enough. We staggered to dinner where we sampled 3 types of Käsefondue (plain cheese, cheese with sauerkraut, and cheese with ham). It was truly an eating display; even us dairy lovers couldn’t even finish this amount of cheese. We rolled our Oompa Loompa bodies to bed.
We had set our sights on touring at least one day this weekend, but when we woke up Sunday, things didn’t go as planned
There had been moderate to strong winds in the last 24 hours, stripping all west facing slopes of anything but ice
It was stormy and low visibility up high
The options that we knew of close by were west facing
Begrudgingly, we both realized we had to ski inbounds again. Begrudgingly LOL I’m such a brat. There were half as many people and twice as much powder than the day before. It was incredible!
This time we started on Laub. It felt very eerie at the top with low visibility and the wind whipping. You had to rely on how your skis felt more than your eyes. On our second lap, Freddy spotted a chute that ran into the main funnel. We tiptoed over, and the snow was super reactive! Freddy ski cut it, and the whole thing broke and shot down the mountain. I’ve never been witness to an avalanche that big before, so it really blew my mind how it moved with such speed and fluidity. (Bruce Temper is saying “Grl.. have you read my book?”). Unfortunately for the run, what was under the windslab was not as soft, but we still had fun.
We then headed over to the Vagina Couloir. An edgy name for an edgy line that can be viewed by all passersby on the main gondola. It is a mandatory straight line for 20 feet into a mellow chute with cliffs on either side. We had seen folks rap into it earlier in the season when the entrance was ice, but it was skiable now. Freddy shot through with ease. I steadied myself at the top of the line; I’m not into lines so committing, but I had to do it. I tried counting down, but couldn’t budge. Freddy yelled up saying that was easy, that didn’t move me. He said to film it, but my trembling hands were in no state to start the GoPro. With some deep breaths, I pointed and screamed rather loudly, my voice echoing off the cliff walls. It was in fact not as bad as I thought it would be. Confidence flowed through me, it feels really good to feel like you’re skiing well!
We ended the day with fun powder laps lower on the mountain as visibility had stayed poor. All was going well until Freddy called Last Run. We took one last heated seat chair lift (truly a luxury you didn’t know you needed) and started skiing down when Freddy’s heel piece moved back and the ski delaminated. Not the ending we wanted for the day, but of course the brightside is that it’s New Ski Day for El Fred! RIP Pinkus, he’s a Scott Boiiii now!
Raclette from the cheese pop-up shop at the bottom of Titlis
Happiness only begins to describe the rich, oily indulgence of Raclette on good Brot
I learned a lot this weekend.
We didn’t set ourselves up well for ski touring with this storm. The tours that I was looking at were west facing and above tree line. I think this comes from not having dependable places that I know are good and safe for storm skiing.
I don’t have a ton of experience making avalanches. With wind slab being our problem, Freddy felt more confident and easily predicted where things would slide, and managed that risk (by ski cutting). I certainly feel grateful to learn from him in that terrain, and avalanche education is an endless journey.
Skiing inbounds is freaking fun! Having worked at Palisades Tahoe since I was 15, I rarely got to ski all day on a powder day without working. This means I mostly skied packed powder then waited in line for 30 minutes. It was really refreshing to wiggle your own tracks lap after lap.
I javelined Freddy's pole at Freddy, pretending like it was a bow and arrow. Direct shot to his right forearm. It's been swollen and very painful for the victim for the last four days (and counting). I remember being 12 and my ski coaches saying "No ski pole swords on ski team!" I have now learned that one shouldn't hurl a pole at anyone. I'm sorry Freddy!
Months before boarding a plane to Europe, Maria was already on budget flight sites looking for deals to visit us. Maria is one of the most driven individuals I know, so when she came to stay with us last year for a month to “shred,” I knew she was serious about being a good snowboarder. The same happened this year. She was coming to shred the Alps. In a tizzy of excitement, I booked a room in the Davos Hostel (or as the sign says “The YouthPalace”) in early November before Omicron surged. We were locked into this trip, as we all anxiously tested ourselves before the trip. Negative! Maria hopped on her plane and was off.
Even with a canceled flight and a train misconnection that caused significant delays, the psych was still high as Maria rolled into Davos 7 minutes before New Years. I had a Kleiner Klopfer at the ready for when she got off the train lol. Also, you can buy fireworks at any grocery store in Switzerland, so there were public firework shows as well as little firecrackers going off especially in front of the hostel. We were in bed by 1 am to be ready for skiing and riding the next morning!
Maria at the top of Jakubshorn
I was set on snowboarding, knowing that if there's no pain, there's no gain. Funny enough, that slogan was etched on the bindings of my rental board. It was a good sign. The good times only lasted until we finished taking cute pics at the Top of the Jakobshorn (day pass was 71 CHF), realizing we now had to get down. For context, Maria is a great snowboarder, who polished her craft in her Tahoe Snowboarding crash course last January. As for me, I snowboard once a year, the annual reminder that it’s good to try things you’re bad at even if they make you very sore the next day.
We now had to scrape our way down an icy cattrack. The road to success is a bumpy one where you may need to put life and limb on the line for glory. Thank goodness I was wearing a helmet. It’s also a good reminder of how scary it is to be the slow person on a ski piste. When playing MarioKart, no one asks how the banana peel feels after being run over! I turned off my sense of fear of being hit with a shot of Absolute Vodka.
Left to right: (1) a Schumli Pflumli (2) Maria taking a nap mid mountain after her 25 hours of travel (3) Old men getting served champagne in a hot tub mid mountain surrounded by fake palm trees.
After a few runs, we turned in for lunch near the top of Jakobshorn, or should I say pre-apres? We found Leo Mondale's coveted drink, the Schlumli Pflumli, which is plum schnapps, coffee, and whipped cream. We drank it on these wooden beach chairs overlooking the Graubunden Alps. There were a couple of hot tubs set up with some groups of old men soaking with cigarettes. To our right was where the paragliders were taking off and behind us the smell of raclette wafted from their heating trays. Not exactly Palisades Tahoe High Camp, but certainly an experience!!
Liquid confidence flowing, I really felt like my snowboarding was improving, all until the last run getting into town, I caught my heelside edge and whacked my head backwards, holding back tears as German families passed me with disdain and Maria faithfully laughing at me by my side.
Left: Apres Bar vibes Right: Fred and Maria showing off a particularly dry cider
We finally made it to the bottom, and it was a party! The slope funnels you down into the XC track, which ends across the river from the main Bahnhoff, which is also where the paragliders land and the half pipe is. We lucked out on an outdoor seat at Bolgen Plaza and got some good wine and currywurst. Freddy, who had toured at Pischahorn, showed up and we listened to some headbangers until the sun set over the ridge. We went back to the hostel and rested until we went to dinner at the Hotel Parsenn. I had inadvertently booked us a table at the Apres Bar for the elderly. No one was within 20 years of our age, but they were all having a better time than us dancing in their ski boots to songs like “Sex Bomb” by Tom Jones and Mousse T.
Inbounds Fred looking at what he skied the day before (Pischahorn)
The next day, the three of us went to Parsenn (75 CHF for a day pass). We took a funicular train to the Weissfluhjoch. As you ascend, you can see SLF’s research site and building at the top, which looks like a concrete bunker that could withstand any sort of weather. Very cool to see where a lot of avalanche research happens! We took the tram to the tippy top, and it was an 360 view of the alps. You could see down the Davos valley to Arosa and Madrisa as well. Then we skied one of the longest pistes in Europe (12 km!!). We stopped at the bottom of the gondola, but you can take the piste all the way to Klosters!
We took the train home, a quick 2.5 hours. Watching the ski traffic on the one lane roads going back to Zurich going at a crawl made me even more thankful for train travel. Though the conditions were really icy, I had a great time spending New Years in Davos with two of my best friends!
A fun end to the weekend was that my mom sent pics of when she and my Dad went to Davos almost 30 years ago. Early 90s ski fashion always makes me laugh! Thanks for that Kathy!
Flumserberg is advertised as Zurich’s mountain. Closest by train, you can take a funicular right from the train station and you’re there. Flumserberg also has Thursday and Saturday night skiing! They have an uphill track on one piste where you bring your headlamp and they groom the slope. If you’re not feverish for vert, you can also have a nice fondue dinner on the piste with your workout. This all sounds so nice as advertised, but I assure you it was not that easy!
It was the day before Sundar Day (Google gave everyone December 17th off). So I’m rushing to finish work and errands before we’re supposed to meet Eric (our new WhatsApp group friend) at Flumy. Freddy had done all the planning, and I am dazed and confused, ski equipment flapping on the outside of my backpack because I didn’t have time to stuff everything inside as we ran to catch the 7 tram. As I repacked my bag in the tram, Freddy realized we’d missed our connection, so we threw our bags off at Tunnelstrasse. Lucky for us we had enough time to make our next train, the S2. Our next surprise was realizing that the S2 only goes to Unterterzen (where the funicular is) on weekends. In addition to that we were night skiing, so we would have had to thread the needle of a four minute connection to make the last funicular up to the wrong side of the resort where night skiing was. Sheesh! This was getting more complicated than we wanted for a Thursday night shake out. We discussed turning around at this point, but we’re stubborn fools who have a hard time grasping the sunk cost fallacy. We continued.
A pack of kids walking their ponies through the Zeigelbrucke train station. I found this quite odd.
We regrouped and transferred trains at Zeigelbrucke, which took us to the town of Flums. We caught a bus with a very gutsy driver who did not flinch at the switchbacked, snow-covered road. They dropped us off right at the bottom of the piste, so we headed up! Freddy was on a mission to do a vertical K, so he pushed me, making me do stints of very fast skiing. It’s not particularly inspiring to walk straight up a steep icy piste where you can only see what is lit up with your headlamp, so best to make a workout out of it! I got passed by many skimo dads who actually had tight race suits, long poles, 65 mm width skis, and helmets at the ready. It’s really quite a look especially when they’re in a pack, but they’re so efficient I can’t even make fun of them as I heave my mouth-breathing body uphill.
A quarter of the way up, the inversion layer broke to a quiet and spectacular view of the Alps looking like they were suspended in space, lit up by the almost full moon. It was the first time that week I had gotten above the clouds, and it felt marvelous. Maybe this wasn’t such a bad idea.
Fast Fred kept up with the Skimo Dads!
We kept going, which felt quite long since I had no concept of our relative gain when all you can see is in your headlamp’s sphere. Finally we arrived at the top, where there was a refuge with warm fondue inside, but we were in a hurry to catch our train home. We started skiing down the refrozen piste. We did a small second lap so Freddy could get his vert goal, then chattered down to the bus stop, where we were on time to take the last bus down the hill at 8:35 PM. We took this bus to its terminus in Sargons, which is on the Liechtenstein border. This would allow us a direct train back to Zurich HB. We made it back home a little after 10:30 pm.
To sum up our stats: we skied 1000 meters, which took about 2 hours. We were on transit for 4.5 hours. It’s definitely a hard justification post work, so we are back to the drawing board to answer the fundamental question of if Zurich has pre-work/post-work ski access.
You may be wondering, where’s Eric? We never caught up to him, as he drove by car to Flumy, taking 45 minutes, and started up with his friend. They did a lap and had a nice fondue dinner, then drove home. My American brain is filled with jealousy on having a car, but we’ve committed to a year of public transit, and we will make it work!
I’ve been obsessed with Chamonix for a long time. It is an intoxicating place where you can sip espresso in a cafe and know with some certainty that the guy who just walked by you in the Petzl thong definitely did something rad that day. The town has a potent mixture of accessible-yet-mega objectives in many sports. To sum it up: stoke-inducing!
When our new friend Felipe posted on the Zurich Googler Skier Forum that he was looking for partners to do an AIARE 2 course in Chamonix, I thought it would be an excellent opportunity to continue my avalanche education while going back to a place that is quite meaningful.
Felipe and his wife Leslie gave us a ride from Zurich to Chamonix (in their Subaru Outback!). Felipe is Brazilian, and Leslie is an American PhD student at ETH. They live in Andermatt (a great basecamp for both skiing and climbing) and are kind people we hope to do more exploring with.
Fat flakes in Chamonix
The road from Martigny is a series of switchbacks on a barely 2-lane road that has been featured in the Tour de France. Add on the meter of snow that the area had received in the last week and I was very happy I was not driving! We crossed the unguarded border into Vallorcine then took the tunnel into Chamonix because the Col des Montets was closed. In the morning we walked outside and HOLY it had snowed at least 40 cm overnight on top of the meter that had already fallen in the week prior. Fat flakes were still coming down. We walked to Chamex to meet our instructor Danny.
Danny is from Boise, with a ton of experience and a teaching style that could be described as stream of consciousness. Each day, we would start by making a plan in the AIARE booklet:
Who are you touring with?
What are the avalanche conditions?
What’s the weather?
What’s the terrain plan?
What risks are you taking on with that plan?
What will you do in an emergency?
El Fred gets faceshots
It was level 5 avalanche danger because of the sheer amount of snow. The Mayor of Chamonix tweeted that it was the most snow Chamonix had experienced in mid-December since the 1950s. Needless to say, we decided to stay out of avalanche terrain that day! We went up the valley to Le Tour, which has great low angle options though you could certainly get into some fun trouble if conditions were right. By just walking up the cat track to ski a 25 degree slope we set off a small avalanche that sympathetically triggered another below. We turned around, skiing down the gentle piste, getting face shot after face shot. It was so light and deep that you really had to time when you went up for air!! As you are supposed to do in avalanche education, we debriefed after a glorious day in the falling snow, dissecting when we were most at risk, what we thought went well, etc. Additionally, Fred and I had an incredible tartiflette, which dare I say might be my favorite way to enjoy cheese and potatoes.
Peep the low angle terrain with a fresh coat of paint
The next day, we also skied at Le Tour, getting higher since it was not actively snowing. We still stayed out of avalanche terrain and dug a pit just to understand temperature gradients, which helped me visualize snow metamorphism and how problematic layers can stick around. The sheer amount of snow that had fallen was pretty spectacular: our pit was 160 cm deep, most of which had come in the last week. My highlight was Freddy finding a skintrack that was too gentle even for him! Imagine what the Jake’s skintrack layer would say! Additionally, we went to an exquisite cheese shop called L’alpage des Aiguilles, where a short cheesemonger with an extravagant updo told us the Beauforte d’étè was *chef’s kiss* so we had to get some along with a Reblochon. I know this has nothing to do with skiing, but Freddy made an incredible Tartiflette from the Reblochon later in the week. Wow, French cheese..what else can I say?
Fred with Aiguille de Dru, Grandes Jorasses, and other peaks of note
On Sunday, we skied at Flegère (tickets were 52 Euros for a full day), which is the resort on the sunny side of the Chamonix valley with a fat view of the Mont Blanc Massif. It was a total Type 1 day: full fun in the sun and it had only 30% of the angry thirst you feel in the KT line on a powder day. From an avalanche learning perspective, it was hard to make objective decisions about the snowpack with everyone skiing everywhere. We skied a cool SW facing couloir that was rather enjoyable, and we had a good discussion on why we felt comfortable skiing in avalanche terrain.
To summarize my AIARE 2 experience: You’re paying someone to help you verbalize and justify every decision you make in the backcountry. What would you ski on a Level 3 day? How is stability trending? What uncertainty do you have? Is this skintrack in a runout zone? Should we ski this one at a time? Where is a safe place to wait for you? I thought it was a good exercise because it’s scary to think about the amount of “right” decisions you need to make in avalanche terrain and never knowing if you’re getting lucky. The learnings I felt that I have latched onto the most are:
Runlist: put all your ski tours you do regularly on a list and say under which avalanche rating/problem you would feel comfortable with - there’s a site in CH that kind of does that for you (www.skitourenguru.ch)
Knowing when you're entering avalanche terrain and double checking: Danny called this "getting on the bus." Everytime the group is getting on the bus, stop and take the time to make that decision consciously. This also helped me categorize observations vs decisions
I don’t think one needs to take this class to learn these things (you could do this with your friends or note these things after you tour), but I’m happy to be pushed to explain my decision making since I can’t be reliant on familiar terrain (not that that is the only datapoint your should rely on to make decisions in avalanche terrain!). The Alps feel really fucking big, and for now, I want a big margin for error.
After a divine day of skiing, we started driving home, fulfilled and frothed by the stoke Chamonix inspires. Leslie and Felipe dropped us off in Visp, making the direct train back to Zurich a breeze. Another fun and informative weekend skiing!
After two weekends at Ikea, Freddy and I needed to head to the mountains! In the week coming up to this trip, we were certainly struggling with the weather. It was definitely going to snow - a lot, but slopes at or below treeline did not have a ton of snow, and above, you probably won’t be able to see. We searched and searched, using SwissTopo, MeteoSwiss, Fatmap, and other resources, but honestly didn’t have a great plan. It’s just hard to know where to begin! In the end we booked a hotel in Engelberg because the most important thing is to get out there.
Freddy aboard the 7!
Saturday was definitely the heavy weather day, so we did not try for an alpine start, instead waking up at 7, rummaging through all our bags to find our ski stuff, then hopping on the T7 to start our journey to Engelberg. We went from Wollishofen to Zug to Luzern to Engelberg, taking about 2 hours. The highlight of the train ride was ascending the valley to Engelberg - it starts as a flat valley with green pastures interrupted by quaint villages with cable cars ascending to peaks that were covered in cloudy mystery - needless to say there’s a lot to explore just in this one valley!
We got off the train and took a bus to the bottom of Brunni Engelberg ski resort. It was raining in town, and we wanted to move fast because the rainline was forecasted to move higher. We took the cable car to the mid station with a group of very kitted dudes that were taking a class (turns out one of the was a Googler!). They had a funny saying that at Brunni, it’s always knee deep, you just don’t know if it’s snow, water, or mud.. We got off the cable car, and reality set in - we were about to tour up in the rain. Mustering all the positive energy I had, Freddy and I set off up to the Brunnihütte.
View from the cable car.
Lower down, we witnessed interesting avalanche activity - tons of glide avalanches. Shallow snow + plus grassy base + rain event = stuff was sliding to ground, especially where there was wind loading on eastish facing aspects. In some places, there were these cracks where the slab had started to slowly break away from the slab above - an Italian man we met said they call it “bocca di balena” - a whale’s mouth - wouldn’t want to fall in one of those!
We skinned to the top of Schonegg chair (the resort still hadn’t opened for the season) and dropped down a south east facing slope. The top 200 m was fun heavy pow that slowly turned to mashed potatoes that was very hard to turn in. There was not much else we could do but transition and do it again! Going back uphill, I became extremely conscious of how wet I was. I could feel drops of water running down my legs and my gloves felt like they had gained a kilo with the amount of water. When we got to the Brunnihütte, we took a break. The Brünnihutte is a Swiss Alpine Club hut where you can stay for cheap and have decently priced warm food. We stayed long enough to realize our stuff was not going to get dry. I put on my extra pair of gloves and tried to not think about how the rain had soaked down to my underwear. We finished the second lap and made our way down to town.
We stayed at the Banklialp hotel, just your standard chalet-looking hotel on the north facing side so you can have a beautiful sunset view of town! After peeling off our wet layers, we went to the sauna. Protip - spas in Europe are clothing optional! It felt incredible to be warm and dry. We slept well that night!
The next day, Freddy indulged me by skiing inbounds at Engelberg Titlis resort. Since we're carless, we walked 10 min to get to the resort. Tickets are only 72 CHF, a steal compared to what Palisades charges for a lift ticket!
*INSERTING PERSONAL FRUSTRATION SIDENOTE: Why can’t I pack a backpack like Freddy? It’s an incredible ANGER I feel that I am bearing more of a battle against gravity than someone who is larger/stronger/taller than me. And the problem is I can’t blame him, but deep down I am so MAD that he is better at packing than me, that in my mind he holds this air of superiority as he asks what the hell I brought in my bag. And the answer is I don’t know. I just don’t know how it happens, but it makes me so incredibly frustrated that I am slogging around all these extra trinkets (an extremely heavy pair of shoes, jeans (so I could look good for whom??), 5 pens (I counted), and my super extra heavy puffy that I ended up wearing to prove a point on Sunday but just sweated the entire day). I’M BAD AT PACKING, AND I HAVE A BAD ATTITUDE TOWARDS PACKING.*
18th attempt at shooting hotboi's turns!
I know this is an oxymoron, but we had a great inbounds powder day. Even with a leisurely 9:45 start, we took the gondola up to Stand then dropped down southwest facing lines that were seriously so fun! The sun would peak in and out of the clouds showing off the remarkable Central Alps in every direction. We chatted up a Coloradan that lives in Palo Alto (small world!) and an Italian man from Como, who showed us Americans around. He kept saying “Yes Engelberg is where you come to freeride.” I have never thought of myself as a “freeride” skier, but I will certainly take the identity! Around three, the vis turned bad and the legs got tired, so we hitched a ride from our new Palo Alto friend (thanks Nathan!) who happened to be staying two streets away from us in Zurich. Though getting to Engelberg by train isn’t bad, it’s only an hour with a car.
En fin, it was a great first weekend skiing in the Alps with my best friend! More to come!
This stupid hideous piece of capitalist materialism.
I love a deal, I love getting used stuff, so it filled me with joy when I found the for sale page for Zurich Googlers. There’s tons of new stuff everyday that allows me to be materialistic without the guilt of getting something new. I found an Ikea Kallax shelf with 16 squares to store tons of things. I thought this could act as a good first bookshelf in the dining room that now mostly looks like a place where we store cardboard..
I haggled the offer (the internal tool is like ebay) and got it! Oh the endorphin rush!! Shit, now the hard part - how do I get it from Weidikon to our house in Wollishofferplatz?
Queue Dima, an energetic, kind Googler who has worked with Rich for almost 10 years. He’s been checking in on me a lot while we’re settling, and it feels so nice to have someone looking out for me and Fred. He’s also got a stick shift Subaru Forester that he offered me to use to pick up the shelving unit. You know he’s nice since he’s a Subaru person!
I got in the Forester and it felt like home! No one loved my 2006 light blue stick shift Outback with many dings so no one wanted to park near me as much as I did. The clutch is easy, the controls are all the same - I was ready to take on my first time driving in Zurich! I drove incredibly slowly, as I couldn’t always tell the speed limit, and I really didn’t want to be pulled over. It’s a bit confusing to drive in the city because as a car you weave in and out of sharing a lane with the street trams, which always have right of way. I made it to Weidikon, and my stomach dropped realizing I would need to parallel park. Summoning courage (and using the back up cam), I wedged myself into a spot only needing to go back and forth 3 times!
Though this story has triumph, it also has troughs. I walked into the seller’s apartment and knew this unit was not right. On top of not loving the Pax fake-wood vibe, it was short for a shelf and the thing wasn’t going to fit in the car. Oh why didn’t I turn around at this point?? The seller and I spent 45 minutes disassembling and couldn’t get all the wooden pegs out of the holes. In my chaotic state, I rushed and started shoving things in the car. Wooden pegs snapping everywhere!
I picked up Freddy, tale between my legs, knowing my addiction for a deal had gotten in front of how we actually want our home to look like. We’ll get back to this as the car was parked illegally in front of our apartment..
We jumped in the car and drove to Dima’s in Horgen. After some navigational challenges (but no stalls!), we found his family’s house. We walked into a flurry of young children in a small apartment. All the kids who lived in the apartment building were in the flat! He welcomed us in, and gave us a great dinner of meat pie and rice, topped with family tea, sweet bread, and chocolate. It was this incredible multilingual household where Dima was speaking Russian to his family and English to us, his wife, Olga, speaking German and Russian, and his kids chattering in Russian while drinking earl grey tea at 8 pm. No wonder everyone was wired!
We learned about the Swiss school system, where there are two forms of high school, one for those hoping to attend Uni and the other for those going to apprenticeship programs (btw med school is free). It really was a chaotic delight!
Dima drove us home, and the wave of a fun dinner was about to crash. We now needed to put together this worthless piece of Scandinavian Design. Stacking one row at a time, the contraption got flimsier and flimsier the more we built up. I had stripped some screws making it so some of the doors on each shelf-box would not work. I was trying to laugh at the absurdity but this thing was pathetic - as always the last piece was very hard to align, so we were banging on the side of the shelves to get it in place. Good thing our upstairs neighbor has a crying child, so we’re both noisy..
It is now complete and in the dining room, and Freddy and I can’t look at the damn thing because of its mediocrity.
I think the lesson I learned is, don’t get wrapped up in a deal!! Buy things that give you joy forever, not just during shopping!!
We’ve gotten very lucky on the moving front. A lot of folks that have moved here have told us it took 20 apartment viewings to get an apartment. With this warning in mind, when my coworker David (and his super awesome partner Adrienn) asked if we were interested in taking over their lease when they moved, we literally jumped at the opportunity.
The apartment is located by Wollishofenplatz, at the end of the 7 tram line. It is about ~20 minute tram or bus to downtown and reminds me a lot of where I lived in the Richmond district of SF. 3-5 story apartment buildings, small shops and restos, replace the 38 with the T7 tram. If we walk half a kilometer up the hill, it turns to gravel paths and we can get to the Uetliberg trail network. We can walk directly down from Wollishofenplatz and in ~10 minute you hit the lake.
The apartment itself has 2 bedrooms with lots of windows, an ikea kitchen with limited counter space, a salmon tiled bathroom, and two balconies. We’re on the second floor and can hear the neighbors upstairs as well as the T7 storming by every 10 minutes. I think we landed in a great spot for our needs (commute and trail running) and price range.
We had an airbnb for 2 weeks before moving into Albisstrasse (the street we’re on). Sans voiture, we did trips on our bikes, shuttling bag after bag about a mile to the new place. We looked quite ridiculous, and I wish I got a pic of Freddy biking with our ski bag!!
Night biking with a 50 lb pack up a hill with a ski helmet on. I've looked better.
On Saturday, we made the pilgrimage to IKEA. Again I must remind myself moving sucks no matter what, but Saturday was certainly a low.
Mistake #1: The day started off rough as we were trying to go to IKEA in DietLikon, but I navigated us to Dietikon. Oops! We went to the Spreichbach location instead, only wasting about 30 min.
Realizing we were going to the wrong station, and it was the end of the line.
Mistake #2: We did not eat a big enough breakfast, felt deep ennui as we got lost in the IKEA corn maze, having to do the loop twice after somehow skipping the Küchen section at first. By the time we got to choosing kitchenware, Freddy had lost all motivation and was willing to purchase colored plates (a line in the sand he had deeply drawn the night before). I still got white plates because I knew it was the funk talking. After another bout of malaise in the lamp section (“just pick a fucking lamp I don’t care”), we stormed off to check out, where we realized we had picked up another persons cart!! We skulked back to the lamps where we dropped the cart off sheepishly, then spent another ten minutes searching for our cart. Mind you, if we had lost this bounty, it would have been three hours wasted. Me, laugh-crying, and Freddy fuming from his ears, we finally found the damn cart 3 sections back from there. Because of the kerfuffle, we forgot to buy a bulb, so our apartment only has built in light for the kitchen and bathroom. We’re working with headlamps on until we get any lighting.
Mistake #3: We did not sign up for the IKEA family app. Do that!! Good deals and you can return for free.
By the end of this endeavor, we were able to obtain Swedish meatballs, so that was a win.
There’s a lot more interior design to do, so please stay tuned!
In the end, this is why we are able to be in Switzerland. For a long background, I told Freddy very early in our relationship (actually driving home from the first Dogsgiving) that I wanted to move to Switzerland. Mostly because these mountains are real. On a clear day from the office, you can see them rise from nothing. It’s never clear during the winter though!! Second, I knew working for Google, it was actually a real possibility. Third, since my life has fully revolved around Silicon Valley and Lake Tahoe, this felt like a big change while staying grounded in my passions and strengths (tech and skiing).
I had perused the internal job board for a while looking for positions at my level in Zurich, found one that sounded like something I was capable of and reached out to the hiring manager. I met with Rebecca a few times, and the job didn’t work out. This was in late 2020, and not getting a job just stinks!! After that, I let my dream lie dormant.
After coming back from our ski trip in the North cascades, I had vowed to myself it was time for a change in the work I was doing. Lucky for me, Rebecca (who continues to amaze me!) had already slid into my inbox about a job. Within a month I had a job offer, Freddy and Conor got into a terrible car accident, reframing both of our perspectives on life, risk, and gratitude. I took the job, and we got married on my second day of work.
It’s been a really steep ramp up at work. I did not have experience working on a consumer facing product but am continuing to learn. I also dove in on helping launch features on the pixel 6 (that has been reviewed really well in the press!). This is mostly to say that I have learned a ton very quickly and remotely, I am so grateful for my coworkers patience, and I feel deep imposter syndrome working with incredibly sharp and kind people.
While I started the job remotely in June, I finally arrived in Zurich on November 9th. Obtaining a visa took a while (it arrived in mid-September). We had to get married, which slowed down the process, but in addition there was a backlog from covid that made the process drawn out. There was also back and forth if Google would provide moving assistance. We found their team not very helpful, so we ended up just moving ourselves and taking a cash-out option.
So what I actually wanted to talk about in this post: I’ve worked everyday in the office this week. The Zurich Brandchenkestrasse campus has been around for a while. It’s a tetris looking building that has a lot of old Google charm: nap room with a bathtub, tons of pingpong, slides, fireman poles, gondolas for meeting rooms etc... It has two towers that you can’t access from each other, making it hard for a newbie to get around! There’s regional train tracks that follow two sides of the building. You have to book a desk right now, and it’s relatively full, though only half the desks are useable so it’s still easy to get a conference room. On Wednesday, I met the whole TPGM team in Zurich, and everyone was so kind. Again I felt deep imposter syndrome looking through peoples’ backgrounds, strengths and weaknesses, but then you meet folks in person and realize everyone is so kind and supportive and don't care where you come from, just that you're here and part of the team. Close to the office are the thermal baths, which is high on my list. I found the laundry room, shower, and the pressed OJ machine.
I feel more productive already just being in this timezone, looking folks in the eye, and knowing more about them. The confidence I need as I continue to learn this space!
I feel really hesitant speaking German. It’s not that I feel a deep need to be correct or perfect, it’s mostly when someone asks me something in German, my mind goes blank and I can’t think of any syllables to string together in a coherent manner. Needless to say, I need some chutzpah..In addition, I accidentally bought soy yogurt at the store this weekend and we can’t make that fake dairy mistake again!
At first I wasn’t sure how I felt about taking a language class with Freddy. It somewhat pains me that I took 10 years of French class and he is leaps and bounds ahead of my comprehension. I really try to not be competitive with my husband given we work for the same company, got promoted in the same cycle, see ourselves as competent mountain athletes..it just wouldn’t be healthy and I see our common path as an asset most of the time. But I could really envision myself becoming a brat if Freddy naturally picks up German and my skill level remains 0. In the end, we decided to take the same class, so we’re learning at the same speed and have someone to practice with. We also thought it would be fun to take a group class in person to be able to practice with more folks.
We walked into our first class today at Inlingua, it felt weird to be in a dingey classroom again. Peggy walks in and says “it’s just you two!” Quel horror! How can I not compare myself to him!! It’s like you get to sit next to the cute boy in math class, and you want to act cool but you legitimately can’t count to ten!!
Peggy assuaged most of my fears by introducing herself in English and giving us the lay of the land, then it was all German from there. We went back and forth for 2 hours.. “Hello, I’m Frau Lacampagne” .. “Are you Roger Federer?” .. “Nein! Ich bin Herr Mondale” We learned the present conjugation of “to be,” asking someone their name and how they are doing. I can only be “guht” because I don’t know how to say “I’m not good.” And I have homework!! By end of January, I will be certified at the A1 level of German. Guten Abend tout le monde!
