Neglect

While 2012 was a year of exploring, 2013 became a year of wedding-preparing. We still managed to squeeze in an adventure here and there but planning an event a year in advance sure does make the time fly (in the best possible way). 

Now that life is more settled and vacation imminent, I'll try and get as many blog posts out of my head and onto the page as I can. This thing has become a much better archivist of our time here than I ever could have imagined.

I've also heard that people prefer this site over the tumblr, so I'll continue to put the big photo posts here and save the more impromptu things for tumblr.

Onward!

Snowshoeing without Snowshoes

The weekend before we left Switzerland for Christmas, we drove back up into the Jura for a walk.

Summer hiking trails turn into winter snowshoeing and cross country skiing trails.

The snow was packed enough that we we able to walk on the snowshoe trail sans accouterments (two words of French! In a row!)

It was significantly colder than Lausanne. I had to break out my Extreme-Chicago-Level-Of-Winter-Puffyness coat.

Among the sport enthusiasts, there were lots of babies learning to cross country ski. They looked hilarious, all bundled up in their snowsuits, their cheeks bright red. Learning to ski in general, looks quite difficult so I felt quite sympathetic with the three-year-old collapsed on the side of the trail, totally sick of the whole experience.

Anthony explained to me that woodpiles are an appropriately manly background for a photo. So I obliged.

Hard to believe that we've been here a (over!) a year already.

Backtracking: November in York

One of the most amazing things that happened in this year of amazing things was my best friend moving to York England to take her masters in Saving the World (and I say that without a hint of sarcasm, the people in this program WILL save the world, no doubt about it).

As a result, I got to go see her for a too-quick weekend.

You know how you have those weekends where it feels like you were able to pack 5 days into just 2? This was one of those occasions. Sleeping was not a priority when there were musicals to see, chance encounters with long lost friends to have and vampire movies to watch. 

Sunday morning, before heading home we took a nice long stroll through York and admired all it's quaint and adorable winding roads.



I have seen a lot of cathedrals since arriving in Europe, this one was by far the biggest. Seriously impressive.


It is amazing to me how different things are within such a small area. Cute Swiss towns are so vastly different from cute English towns. Yet they have so many things in common. Cobblestones, for instance. And intriguing little alleyways.






The center of town is enclosed by a massive Roman wall. We strolled along it with our coffees and chatted about important things.



So excited to go back.

High Elevation Marmot Encounters

In Montreaux, there is a cog-wheel train that will take you on a 45-minute journey up into the mountains.

Standing on the lakeshore in Montreaux, you would never imagine views like this exist so far above your head.

But they do.

As we hiked along one of the many ridges, climbers appeared out of (seemingly) nowhere. Upon further inspection, it we discovered that they had climbed up the face of the mountain. My brain could not comprehend this until we inspected further:

This is the Via Ferrata. One of our Swiss friends explained it to us - apparently it's somewhere between really daring ladder climbing and really tame rock climbing. You clip into the ladder so it's quite safe. I think we will be trying this when the weather warms up. I am attempting pull ups in the meantime to build strength. So far I can do one-half of a pull up. Progress.

View back to the train station/hut/marmot village/yurts/platters of delicious assorted meats. This looks like the edge of the world, doesn't it?

Amazing views and epic mountain scenery isn't enough you say? You were expecting something more you say? WELL. Let me tell you about the marmots. They live in marmot villages. 

Because they are totally classy. And friendly.

And completely unaware they have giant front teeth. But they want to get to know you so badly that they'll throw themselves at the fence that stands between them and you. And the apple in your pocket. They really want to make friends with that apple.

Speaking of marmots, if you want your heart to explode from happy fuzziness, read THIS. 

After a super Swiss lunch, we started along one of the many other trails that run through the area.

There was a car rally going on somewhere below us and the sound of vintage engines got Anthony all distracted.

While we spent the entire day exploring, we only covered about a quarter of the trails that stem from Rochers-de-Naye. When the summer comes again I think we'll come properly equipped to do some serious hiking.