Lugano, Laax and Lenzerheide

This weekend I decided to do what I've been wanting to do the last few weekends...head to the mountains for some Swiss Alps skiing. There are so many different spots to choose from, so instead of choosing on my own I decided to let my Swiss friend, Stephan, decide. I told him I didn't care where we went as long as I could get there by public transportation. He was driving from Zurich and could meet me there. We decided on staying in Chur and that way we could choose from a few different mountains, Laax, Lenzerheide or Flims. My adventure began when I had to carry my skis, poles and a ski bag with enough for the night on the bus to the train station. From there I took a short train ride to Bellinzona about 25 min. But remember I still had all the bags. From Bellinzona I had a reservation on a bus that took two hours to reach Chur. When I got a text from Stephan saying that he thought the road was closed because of the recent snow storm, I was a bit worried. Since he was driving from Zurich he suggested if that was the case to stay on the train to Zug and he could pick me up there. As he predicted, this was the case. I got off the train in Bellinzona and the very helpful bus driver, who spoke no English, but still wanted to try to talk about California and Arnold, helped me get my ticket changed to a train ticket to Zug...which was about a 2 hour train ride. And yes I still had all my bags! The train ride was beautiful. I can't tell how I like the mountains in Switzerland more: covered with snow, or green grass. The views are absolutely breathtaking. It's the kind of thing you look at and want to capture, but the picture can never do it justice. From Zug we drove to Chur about one hour and rather easy since most of it is a highway. Did you know it is a law in Switzerland that you CANNOT pass on the right? It actually makes a lot of sense, but I am always surprised to hear these little Swiss idiosyncrasies. We reached the town about 230pm and decided to drive up to one of the mountains, Laax, to check out Apres ski. The best part was that the bar was called The Crapbar, because it is named after a mountain nearby. Laax is well known for the great snowboard park and for this reason it's full of boarders, you would love it D! After running into some friends of Stephan's and hanging out for a bit, we headed back to Chur to grab some dinner and call it a night. I was excited for my first fondue in Switzerland to be with someone who actually knew what they were ordering. Stephan spoke to people in Swiss German and then had to translate for me. It was really good, I thought, he said he knows better places in Zurich, but it was definitely up to my standards. It was a lot better than I remember it being the last time I tried it in Geneva when I was about 13. I guess appreciation and sophistication just come with age. After dinner we grabbed some drinks at a bar nearby. I kept commenting on how happening Chur seemed compared to Lugano. I guess this is because of it's proximity to ski towns and also the military training that is located in Chur. Sunday we headed to Lenzerheide to ski. It was only about a 20 min drive from Chur and it was surprisingly not crowded. This is one of the huge differences between skiing in the states and here. It seems like maybe because there are so many mountains the people are just spread out among them. It was snowing lightly at the bottom and by the time we got to the top, the visibility was very poor. Luckily, Stephan used to be a snow board instructor and I was able to follow his lead. We stayed toward the lower portion to avoid the white out conditions the rest of the day. It was comforting to see that the avalanche warning was only considerable. This is also a major difference skiing here. In the states, you would never hear about that issue, you probably wouldn't be on a run if that was the case. We had a great deal of skiing, drinking hot chocolate and hanging out. The funniest part was the first time we stopped for a hot chocolate break and the workers there were doing major work with the snow blower trying to clear out an area. They weren't very aware that they were blowing all the snow right on top of people's snowboards that were on the ground nearby. They had a rude awakening when they went to find their board and they were completely buried in the snow. For some reason, we found this very entertaining. Afterwards he dropped me off at the train station in Chur to take the bus back to Bellinzona and train to Lugano. This time the road was open and the travel time was significantly less. The bus drove through a different pass and the landscape was again spectacular. The nice part about buses here is that they are nothing like buses at home. Being Switzerland they are always perfectly on time and they are super clean. I was exhausted from skiing, but felt like closing my eyes I may miss something exciting out the window. It was a great weekend! Now I'm just going to get through the week and then I'm off to London on Friday!