our christmas tramping…
Posted by christolles | Filed under Austria, Germany, Switzerland
Merry almost Christmas! As Tory and I will be on the road for a bit, we thought it would be of interest to include you in our plans. Though of course it’ll take us weeks to actually post about our travels, at least you’ll know where we’ve been :)
Below it a Google Map of our journey, Geneva –> Munich –> Burgkirchen –> Salzburg –> Vienna before back to Munich for a ride home (to Geneva). We’ll be staying at a combination of hostels, CouchSurfing, and our dear friend Nick Kole from RISD who lives in Vienna.
We miss you all dearly - Frohe Weihnachten!
autumn hiking in the swiss alps (verbier, switzerland)
Posted by torytolles | Filed under Switzerland
A few weeks ago, as a favor (!?) to the environmental policy lawyer I’m interning with, Chris and I brought her two dogs (Brit, 1 year old, and Tessa, 3) to their professional dog-sitter in the ALPS. Tough life, I know. Two trains and a bus ride later, we arrived in the picturesque skiing village of Verbier having wrecked minimal havoc with the two golden retrievers in tow. In the dark Chris and I tried to pick our way up the mountain path to the apartment… and we would have climbed for hours had it not been for Tessa, the older and wiser golden. She resisted my not-so-gentle tugging and nosed her way down a concealed trail to our home for the weekend. Thank you Tessa! We dropped our bags and returned outside to play in the snow.
After an hour and a half of running and wrestling, Brit and I were still having a wonderful time…
… but Tessa was ready to go in.
The next day Chris’ fellow interns from Shelter Centre [Shh! It's a secret! -ed.] joined us for an amazing hike. Snow had already accumulated in the mountains, as you can see above, and our “trail” quickly devolved into “wherever the group happens to slog through the knee-deep snow.” The village in the background is Verbier.
Mountains are tall in Switzerland! After Chris voted to not keep the dogs long enough for our hike, he complained all day about how much fun they would’ve been.
It got hot.
And sunny. This is our friend Simon. He’s from England. What a stud.
We made it to the top around 3PM and I felt like Johanna Spyri’s Heidi looking out across the valley. Simon’s girlfriend, Clem, and I had a wonderful trek down the snow-covered road while Chris and the rest took the more geographically direct - but chronologically longer - off piste expedition. They did not get down until after dark; I was a little nervous.
The next day we visited the Barrage de Mauvoisin, this crazy huge dam near Verbier. Sorry our photo doesn’t do it justice - it was also very cold and windy and pictures were not a priority. To give you a sense of scale, those are real people in the middle of the photo. Map below - see Mauvoisin in the lower right?
watson home-making 103: geneva, switzerland (a miracle!)
Posted by torytolles | Filed under Home-Making, Switzerland
[Apologies: after living in our new apartment for more than a month, I finally managed the magical combination of cleaning AND camera.] Living here has been such a blessing. We still did not have a place to live the day before our sublease ended - and Chantal came to the rescue! She is an incredible roommate and shares with us an amazing apartment.
This is our cozy kitchen. Vixie, the fish, lives above the microwave and probably has been horribly irradiated over the years.
This is our bedroom. The small plant on the left is our little basil plant. His name is Lazarus Junior. It has been touch and go a few times. The doors lead to a balcony!
Chris and I have reveled in our access to Chantal’s books. Notice the giant gap in the Lord of the Rings section? We are hooked.
We live about three blocks from the lake. A small marina is right there, and the Jet just around the corner. With the lake right here and a park one block to the right, it is the most wonderful place to run - and live!
