Arrival in Geneva
Tuesday, March 9th, 2010It’s funny how after a month of living in Whistler and barely even considering hitting the slopes, it only took three days in Geneva before I was skiing in the Swiss Alps. Or the French Alps. It was a bit confusing actually*, since we were literally right on the border. I think we bought lift passes in Switzerland and skiied in France. Or the other way around.
It was the first time I had been on skis since I was five, when at one point I took them off and left them at the bottom of the chairlift (believing that’s what someone had instructed me to do) and proceeded to take the chairlift to the top of the slope without skis. Twenty-five years later, I didn’t fall over once (except when I took a semi-disastrous wrong turn into the forest on the last run of the day, but let’s not talk about that), and my instructor told me I was “full of it” when I said that I had never skiied before, save the aforementioned left-my-skis-at-the-bottom-of-the-chairlift debacle.
Having snowboarded a few times between the ages of 18-21 and enjoying it more or less but not really understanding what all the fuss was about (hence my absence from the Whistler slopes), I was a bit skeptical of how the day would unfold, but I have to say that I loved (nearly) every minute of it. I’m very keen to go back as soon as my ankle rashes from the ski boats heal, and maybe we can go two or three more times until the season finishes at the end of April.
Meanwhile, I have spent nearly a week settling in here in Geneva while Wendy earns a living for both of us as an ultra-talented United Nations translator. I’ve discovered that I quite like being a house husband and that I know more French than I thought I did (pending the results of the language school placement test I just took). And, of course, despite the cold and wind, there’s something special about simply being in Europe, especially after five weeks in North America.
So for now, we’re happy to be back together and living what is perhaps a preview of the permanent life we will someday lead. But, as always, nothing is certain and anything can happen…
* Very confusing, since apparently we were not in the Alps at all but the Jura. It’s hard to know with all these mountains surrounding you.
Nick