Snowboarding in Switzerland Part One (aka What Credit Crunch?)
2009-03-25

Back at the end of January, I made my fourth foray into the European continent for a week long snowboarding trip to Switzerland. We travelled by train the whole way because my brother-in-law (who organised the whole thing) is a Right on Mancunian, granola eating, hippie plane-hater. So basically, what would’ve taken three hours took two days. However, the fact that he had to carry quite possibly the heaviest snowboard bag on the planet on his recently dislocated shoulder kept me from complaining too loudly. (That and the fact that the train trip was a whole lot of awesome)

We set off from Piccadilly station in Manchester to Switzerland. How crazy does that sound? That was a very foreign concept for a Western Canadian like me. The furthest you can get from Calgary by train is erm… South Calgary.

Our plan was to go from Manchester to London, take the Eurostar through the Chunnel into Paris for a quick meal and then an overnight sleeper car to St Gervais. Slightly more interesting than taking the Calgary LRT to Bridlewood, I’ll admit.

The part I was looking forward to most was the London to Paris bit. Travelling through one of the most incredible engineering feats of the 20th century, under the freaking ocean no less! When I was waiting in line at customs in London (Customs… for a train?! – Wow!), I could hardly keep still. What will it be like?! Will there be windows so I can see the fishes?! Will it be like Buckaroo Banzai with weird, glowing, white-eyed deepwater Chunnel creatures hanging off the sides?!

How I didn’t figure out that it would be just a really long tunnel is beyond me. What a dick.

Paris was awesome again, but I have really got to learn French. The locals’ faces would light up when I said "Je suis Canadien" only to return to their initial scorn when I followed it up with the "Pardon, non Francais". I say scorn, I think "disappointment" would be closer to the mark. Having said that, I have now been to France twice and even though I’m a dirty, foreign, no-french-havin’ Anglo, I can say that I’ve still yet to meet a rude Frenchman (and I shared a very cramped sleeping cabin with two of them!). They bent over backwards to try to help me. The Swiss on the other hand… Wow. (More on that in part two).

In other news, how bloody froufrou and pretentious does "A quick stop in Paris" sound?

We arrived in St Gervais, rented a car and headed to our chalet in Veysonnaz. It wasn’t Gstaad, dahling, but it was pretty impressive nonetheless; the photo at the top of this entry was taken from our balcony. Not only that, but we were met with the best snow I have ever snowboarded on. The first couple days were immense, powder, powder, powder. The only friendly Swiss dude I met on the entire trip told me on a T-bar that this was the best snow Switzerland had seen in years.

In other news, what is with all the T-Bars, Switzerland?! I thought the country was supposed to be shitting money. By about day three, my inner thighs felt like they had taken a million running dropkicks from Mr Heavyfoot. (Sorry I had to resort to a random Kids in the Hall reference there, but you get the idea).

It wasn’t until the morning of day two when I felt like Mr Heavyfoot (sorry again) had stomped me into a coma the day previous that I realised I hadn’t been on a snowboarding trip in years and I've NEVER done more than two days in a row, EVER. Also, being at my fattest and laziest didn’t help; apparently, you’re supposed to workout a bit before you go on a massive snowboard trip, who knew? Day one my rep was intact, I was zipping down the hill with reckless abandon, leaving the limeys in my dust (snow spray?). However, after the third day of beer, T-Bars and lactic acid buildup, I could hardly stand and was really struggling to keep up to the other guys on the hill. Struggling to keep up with ENGLISH snowboarders?! Does it get worse than that? Sweet Jesus.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, on the last day I was taken out by a little old German lady. Maybe the Dominion Institute twat was right, maybe I should lose my Canadian citizenship. Do you have video evidence of the take-out, you ask? Does Mr Heavyfoot have a erm… heavy foot?

And yes, as if fatty-can’t-keep-up-to-english-snowboarders-taken-out-by-old-ladies wasn’t bad enough, my out of style snowboard gear will pretty much seal the deal in my Denaturalisation hearing.

More on the Swiss in Part two. I’m thinking of calling it "Switzerland – Land of Cunts". Too harsh?