In an attempt to prove that we do more than ski, here's a post about Zurich. We live in Wollishofen, which is a residential neighborhood on Zurich’s Silver coast. This refers to the Northeast facing, cold side of the lake. The Southwest facing side of the lake is called the Golden Coast. There are some days that I look longingly at the afternoon sun on the other side of the lake after we have already descended into shade, but it normally doesn’t bother me. The weather sucks everywhere; there's nowhere in Zurich that compares to California Sunshine. Wollishofen is nestled between Zurichsee and the Sihl River, which does not run into the Zurichsee, but forms a confluence with the Limmat river, which joins the Rhine somewhere down river. We live on Albisstrasse; let me show you around!

Transit Stations

Butzenstrasse is our local stop. In the direction of Zurich, you can take the 70, 184, or 185 bus to the Wollishofen Train Station. You can also take the 7 tram, which takes you to Zurich Enge and Zurich HB. Enge is my stop for work, and HB (stands for Haubtbahnhoff) is the main train station where not only can you take a train to anywhere, there is also shopping. In the other direction, the buses take you to Adliswil or Kilchberg. All these routes are part of Zurich’s transit network called the VBZ or Zuri Linie.

Wollishofen Train Station is our closest SBB train station, which is a stop along the corridor between Zurich and Zug. This is how we primarily get into the mountains.

The Grocery Store

Coop is across the street from our apartment, and because of its proximity, that is where we go. I am now a loyal Supercard owner and made my primary language French to make me feel trilingual. A lot of the grocery stores here are 2 stories with people movers with an angle of a magic carpet for carts. Speaking of carts, you need to insert a coin into the cart to detach it from the others, which you get back at the end.

The grocery store has been a place that makes me feel like I'm integrating. In November, every grocery trip was a Herculean task to decode what object of food we were trying to buy with Google Translate camera at the ready, remembering to weigh and sticker your produce before getting to checkout (if you forget you get shamed), having your American credit card be shamefully rejected when tapping and having to use your chip and signing your receipt while the store clerk makes it clear that you are asking a lot. Now, I’m a veteran. I pay for groceries with TWINT (UBS's online banking app) and I can successfully locate most things that I am looking for without staring hopelessly at a sea of yogurt praying that I don’t buy a dairy free variety again!

The two highlights of the grocery store are the bread and cheese section. These are marvels putting even a Whole Foods to shame. There is a backroom where the Cheesemonger resides and will cut you a piece of a full wheel. There’s the bloomy rind section, blue section, fondue and raclette, and the young cheeses.

The other grocery chains are Migros and Aldi, which are also close by as well as the specialty cheese shop (Chäs und Brot) and the Butcher. In general, food is really expensive here, but the quality of the produce is high.

Trail access

There are great neighborhood trails for running and walking. Entlisbergwald is a little forest with nice gravel trails overlooking the Sihl river. There are packs of toddlers in onesie puffy outfits strolling around in pairs in the morning for Forest School. There is an excellent running/bike path that follows the Sihl from downtown to Sihlbrugg for 20k. You can also cross the Sihl on a walker’s path and get some serious vert climbing to the top of Uetliberg. Additionally, you can go down to Zurichsee and run along the pedestrian path on the lake. I thought I was really going to miss Tahoe Donner Trail System, but we really spoiled here too!

Waste

Zurich’s waste and recycling program is complex and thorough, and makes you feel good that waste is disposed of properly! Trash bags are really expensive (1.70 CHF/35 L bag), this certainly incentivizes us to throw away less and stuff these to the brim. We share a dumpster with a few apartment buildings on the street. 

Recycling is still a bit perplexing. Paper and cardboard are picked up every other Monday from outside our apartment. Paper must be tied with string. I have heard stories that if you do this wrong you will be fined, so I listen to the rules!

You bring plastic bottles, other PET plastic, white/green/brown glass, metal, nespresso containers, engine oils, and lightbulbs to the Coop where you separate it to its correct container. There are some plastics, like for salad greens or cookie containers, that fall into an unknown category. So I put them in with the dairy plastics hoping one day someone will validate or chastise me so I can officially know.

Once a month, the Cargo tram comes to the neighborhood, where you can throw away bulk items that don’t fall in any category, like styrofoam, crappy furniture, engine parts, used clothes, anything up to 100 kg. Usable items like clothes go to charities. But you have to bring it via foot or bike! Also monthly, the e-tram comes to pick up any old electronics. They literally park an empty train car at the end of the 7 line and people get in line to fill her up! 

Tram Point

Albisstrasse is starting to feel like home, and I’m really excited for more folks to visit. I made a map of Zurich with points of interest. The Albisstrasse layer is our local neighborhood!

I would like to form a routine on when and how I access backcountry information to inform where I tour in the Alps. In Truckee, I think I had a decent routine of reading the avalanche forecast every morning, then on Wednesday/Thursday/Friday, I would scour our group caltopo, guidebooks, check slack if there were any ideas there, and call/text people to get their opinion. On the day of, I had my Gaia map downloaded and was ready for the tour. Now in Zurich, I have not skied enough to form a routine, but I would like to share the resources I have been playing with in the hopes that discussing these tools will help me formulate which ones I like and are important, and give you a head start when you visit! Note that most of these tools have great mobile apps, which is how I primarily access them.

Avalanche Bulletins

In Switzerland, I use WhiteRisk App, which is operated by the SLF (Institut für Schnee und Lawinenforschung). The SLF is a well funded research group based in Davos under ETH (the technical university in Zurich) that studies snow, avalanches, humans recreating in avalanche terrain, mountain and arctic ecosystems, and effects of climate change.

I use their app and read their twice daily avalanche report on the train, normally for the region that I plan to ski that weekend. I could also do it the other way around and start by reading the weather and snowpack first to see where it snowed the most in a given storm. There are some observations on their site, but they don’t publish public observations like Sierra Avalanche Center did. It's good reading for a quick tram ride.

Here’s some other info they provide:

• Snow depth maps + snow pit data
• Data published on snow measurement sites
• On their app, they have an inclinometer and some other free tools to help with decision making (I haven’t used these)
• They have a paid version called White Risk Tour that helps you plan your tours taking into account the danger rating. From promo video, it seems similar to skitourenguru, so I haven’t felt inclined to pay.

Meteo France Avalanche Bulletin

When we went to Chamonix, we relied on the French Avalanche bulletin. I liked the trending avalanche stability, which helped me think about how snow is settling (or not!). They have other good resources like, previous 5 days of snow accumulation and avalanche forecast, wind, snow depth, and a few observations. Be sure to have google translate at the ready! 

Weather

SLF/Whiterisk

I read the weather/snowpack update everyday, and they have a short range forecast for the country. It gives me a high level sense of how much snow in each region, windy, and sun. I’m a simple gal and mostly use this.

Windy

It makes me understand where storms are coming from. I like the overlay of snow in the next three days, then moving the location dot around my screen to see where it’s projected to snow the most. Once I decide on a point, and for practice, let’s say Engelberg, I can look at the temp, wind, rain in the forecast in three hour increments. I use the ECMWF model - thank you Peter (read the Weather Machine if you haven’t!). I also love the airgram to see where the clouds are. This was helpful when the fog descended upon Zurich for weeks. I knew how high I needed to go to get some vitamin D. 

MeteoSwiss

I don’t use it very much, but I like that it forecasts the freezing line in each region of Switzerland (I bet Windy does that and I haven’t figured it out). It’s also easier to find weather in Zurich because that’s featured prominently. 

Mapping

Skitourenguru

This is a helpful site with a large collection of ski tours in Switzerland and Austria. It gives you a series of routes based on your needs like how far from home, the difficulty, and most interesting, the danger level. Then you can click into a tour and it gives you elevation profile, a danger rating between 0-3 (0-1 Green, 1-2 Yellow, 2-3 Red), and an ascent time. On the map (it’s SwissTopo which I will get to), the route changes color depending on the risk at that point. It circles on the map if it is a face that avalanches frequently ascent time, if there has been an avalanche fatality, even where to drop skis for a summit scramble. You might be asking how they make the risk assessment. Their risk indicator takes into account elevation, current avalanche report from SLF, forest coverage, and the Quantitative Reduction Method (TBH only got through the abstract, but I think it analyzes avalanche accidents and how recreationalists use the terrain to predict high risk areas.) Note that I only use the web version - I don’t think there’s a mobile app. I use this when planning a tour.

SwissTopo

SwissTopo has got 400 people on staff continually surveying and updating the national map. Every street, building, tram, etc is accurately represented. I mean every farmer’s barn high up on a hillside. When Freddy and I were hiking the Via Alpina from Altdorf to Engelberg, we saw a lone surveyor walking down from a summer village. Once you get over how detail-oriented the base map is, you will then be impressed by the different layers for each sport: hiking, cycling, snowsports, and aviation. The snowsports layer has ski routes, slope angle shading, and public transport stops. You can also download offline maps and draw tours all for free! I really love this product and use it for some planning and a lot while I am doing the activity. It has replaced Gaia for me, though I keep Gaia around because there are other countries.

Left - SwissTopo: Blue lines are ski tours, red line is trams, black blocks are buildings. Right: Fatmap when you click on a ski tour.

Fatmap

I use Fatmap to look for route ideas (they seem to have different routes, like multi-day stuff that skitourenguru doesn’t). Then when I am looking at specific routes, I use it to look at the terrain. I have a hard time using it for a specific slope, but I think it helps me look at an area/region as a whole to get a sense of the terrain. I’ve been using it before and during ski tours here, but sometimes the app is really slow. 

Inbounds lift status

Bergfex connects with ski resort data to tell you what lifts are open, what the ticket price is, new snow totals, ski maps, and webcams for each ski resort in Europe. I use the webcams a lot to see what conditions are in an area even if I’m planning to tour.

How to get to the Trailhead

SBB will take you anywhere you want to go in this country. They have a great app that gives straightforward directions, maps, and integration with payment. We’ve been taking trains and buses to get to all trailheads, and I’ve only gotten lost once!

As always, there's more to learn, and I'm excited for all the new tools/apps I've tried since moving here. BTW, here is Fred's Swiss CalTopo if you are interested 🙂 it's bare now, but we'll ski more and add more stuff!

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.

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. 

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.

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. 

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?

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.

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?

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.

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. 

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.*  

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!

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!!

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.

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!