I don't know why, but in February, we have what is called Sportferien (sport holidays). I'm not complaining, but it is a little bit strange that we have two weeks off again after only being back in school for a month. I guess it's like an extended version of the mid-winter break that we always had. :-)
So, in the first week, as usual, Dorina and I had to work at the school. Unfortunately, I came down with an exhausting, draining cold (ha, no pun intended there), so I was pretty useless. Luckily, we had some pretty awesome and motivated (read: money-motivated) students who were paired with us for all the cleaning and odd-jobs. So, with their motivation (and understanding that a sick person cleaning makes no sense), we actually finished all of the work by Wednesday.
In the middle of this cleaning, Dorina and I moved into an apartment for the next six-ish weeks. A teacher at school is on vacation for six weeks and asked if we wanted to stay in her apartment while she and her husband are away. It's a win-win situation, because she has someone to look after the apartment, and we get a chance to live in a different part of town and to live on our own. So of course, we said yes. :-)
On Friday, we took a train (or three) to Davos, Switzerland. It's about three hours by train and in the middle of the Alps. There, we stayed in the vacation apartment of our host family with one of their daughters and her friend.
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| Red dot = Davos; Purple dot = Winterthur; Red outline = Switzerland |
Friday evening, Dorina and I watched Die Teufel trägt Prada (The Devil Wears Prada) and went to bed afterward, but the next day, alles ging los! After eating breakfast, Dorina and I bundled up (three pairs of socks each, thick sweaters, leggings, jeans, snow boots, two pairs of gloves, hats, thick scarfs, etc.), and we ventured out into the meter-high snow. It was cold, but not any colder than what I'm used to from home (between 5-14º F, depending on the time of day). We walked around the beautiful snow-covered lake and marveled over the mountains. If it were physically possible for my jaw to hit the floor, I would have had to drag it around with me.
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| When it's so sunny, and you have so much clothing on, winter really isn't so bad ;-) |
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| After a while, it started to snow, which just made it prettier |
So, we walked and walked and walked through Davos, with a goal of a coffee shop and the swimming pool in mind. We eventually got to the coffee shop, but just after it had started snowing, so it was overflowing with people. We decided to hold off on the coffee (since we could go with the other two girls on Sunday), and went to the swimming pool. Probably it sounds a little funny that we wanted to go to swimming, but it's a popular thing to do here year-round. Mostly, all of it is indoors. Mostly. There was also a swimming pool outside--yep, in the middle of the snow. It was heated like a hot bath and had jets on two sides of it. We went there first and tried to find a jet to sit by, but they were all taken, so we went back inside. Later, we went back outside and got to lay on a metal chair-like thing in the water above a jet. It was like a water massage or something. I don't know...but it was awesome. The water was letting off so much steam because of the temperature difference between the water and the air, so you could barely see to the other side of the pool. After a little while, your nose and ears start to get a bit chilly, but dunking yourself under water for a few seconds does the trick, at least for a little while. At one point, it was even snowing, which made it even cooler. Eventually, we went home and spent the evening in. After packing, cleaning, a small walk around the lake, and getting coffee on Sunday, we ventured back home, all four of us packed in one car. Unfortunately, there was a LOT of traffic, so it took us three and a half-ish hours to get home, plus the train and bus from Zürich--just enough time for Dorina and I to wash our laundry, unpack, and repack for our trip to Nice, France starting the next morning.
But, more on that later...
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| Nice...coming soon :-) |
I've gotta say, this break is turning out pretty great. Loving life :-)
