From Canada to Switzerland!: Switzerland + Alps + Sleighs + Friends = I'm never coming home

Sundays can often be boring here in Switzerland because everything is closed, but this past Sunday "boring" was not in my vocabulary. I ventured off into the Berner Oberland with my host brother, Benji, his girlfriend, Nicole, and a friend of Benji's from when he was on exchange in Taiwan, Chabbie - who made a short stop in Switzerland on her way to Lithuania. Benji wanted to give Chabbie as real of a Swiss experience as he could while she was here, and so came about Sunday.

Benji, Nicole & Chabbie picked me up at a train station that was half way between Zürich and where I live, so it was convenient for all! It was about an hour drive to where we wanted to go and we talked the whole time - in English because Chabbie doesn't speak German - and there were never any awkward pauses because the conversation just seemed to flow. Even though it was the first time I had met Nicole, I felt like I had known her for ages. She was an exchange student in New Zealand 2 years ago, so her English is also very good.

When we finally got to our destination, we put on all of our snow clothes, Benji paid for parking and we walked up to the ticket booth to find out that they experiencing technical difficulties with the gondola and it was shut down for the day. Luckily for us, there was another ski resort about 20 minutes up the road, so we got back in the car and continued to drive until we got to Hasliberg - this time Benji checked if the gondola was working before he paid for parking, just to be safe.

We bought our tickets and boarded the gondola and headed to the top! When we got to the top, we walked around a little bit, enjoyed the breathtaking landscape, and played in the snow a little bit. Before long, we were all hungry, so we stopped into the Chalet and ate before we continued on in our adventure!

Just part of the Panorama

Breathtaking...

Benji and Nicole playing in the snow

Lunch was very interesting for those that were sitting around us. Between the 4 of us, we managed to speak 4 languages at the table - English, High German, Swiss German (which despite was people say, is a language in itself) and Chinese. The people around us couldn't quite figure out what was going on, but I'm sure they enjoyed it anyways.

After lunch, we went into the kiosk and rented our sleighs for the day! We rented 2 sleighs - one for Benji & Nicole, and one for me & Chabbie - or so the plan was... The ski hill that we were at has specific runs just for the sleighs so there is no need to worry about crazy skiers - just crazy people who don't know how to drive the sleigh (so me...). The run that we did was about 7km long and took us about an hour and a half to complete.

Sleigh, sled or toboggan?

Me, Chabbie, Benji & Nicole

After being briefed by Benji and Nicole about how to steer the sleigh, Chabbie and I set down the hill. It wasn't long before we were passed by the others and I couldn't steer that thing to save my life...and that is why this happened...

We went right off the run and into the snow bank and then down the side of the hill...

Sorry Chabbie...

After our small malfunction, we decided to change up the combination. I went with Nicole and Chabbie went with Benji. Nicole drove most of the way because I didn't want to kill either of us, and we went faster when she drove.

Some of the very snowy landscape

Chabbie & Benji

Nicole & I

We took a few breaks here and there to enjoy the scenery and play in the snow a little bit.

What cha doing there Nicole?!

And some of us took this a little bit too seriously...

Thanks Nicole.

It was so much fun and I can't wait to do it again in a couple of weeks with the exchange students at our ROTEX Weekend!

From behind as we sped down the hill

I found the Winter Wonderland I had been looking for!

I took a short video of us going down the hill as well!

When we were finished, we returned the sleighs to the hill and then drove back home. We took the scenic route home though so that we could show Chabbie as much of Switzerland as possible. We had a lazy evening and long dinner and then we sat around and talked before everyone headed to bed!