Switzerland in sum

I don't know if this is a cultural difference, or rather due to the fact that I have never skied outside of California, but I can tell you one thing. There's a certain ring to the phrase, "I've skied in the Swiss Alps." No, better yet: St Moritz. Despite all of those years of ski lessons and attempts at keeping up with my parents, who always wait for me at the bottom, I was still nervous to try skiing in front of the familiy I au pair for. I just knew they were going to laugh at me, as I slowly meandered down the slopes, always kind of afraid to go fast and hit it big time. Falling on my face that is.

Fortunately the day I skied with Matilde and her parents was a good day, and there was someone at the bottom of the t-bar lift to help me each time, which made up for that one time that I grabbed on for dear life to that piece of plastic that wasn't quite placed where it was supposed to be. I secretly think the Swiss must laugh at us silly tourists that don't know how to put the t-bar behind our bottoms so we can sit comfortably instead of getting dragged up the hill.

I think the thing I liked best about skiing in St Moritz was taking the chair lift. Even though it is easier to get a chair lift, the main reason why I liked this safer mode of transportation was because you could eavesdrop on all of the people speaking different languages. Skiing on my own meant I would grab any old chair with a mix of three other people, and listen to them chat to each other, on their phones (it's surprising how many times this happened), or instructors attempting to talk to their students in another language. Whenever I was sitting with Italians, I would amuse myself with their conversations about lunch, where to ski, who was meeting whom. With the Swiss Germans, I didn't even try to understand, just listen to that really cool accent that just kind of smoothes out the rough German language. The best time was when an Italian instructor was talking to his students (who were most likely German speaking) in English. As he struggled along with the words, I couldn't help but laugh on the inside, since he mumbled the words in Italian. Finally, I couldn't take it any longer, and blurted out the answer in English, just in time to ski off the lift. "Ah yes, that is the word! Thank you!" He called out, and we all had a good laugh.

So although skiing was a success, surprising the best time for all ended up being the day of sledding. My fellow nanny friend and aussie Kiera and I decided it would be a great idea to go for a fun day of sledding. As we rode up the funicular, it slowly dawned on us that we were going pretty high up, and wondered if this "little adventure" of ours was going to become more than we bargained for. Despite the fact that we didn't really know how to turn, and it wasn't exactly what I'd call smooth sailing to the bottom of the hill, we laughed our way down that 4.6 km trek....four times, taking pictures at every spill. I'm starting to think that it must be true that those who take care of children love their job because they act like kids themselves.

So I got my white Christmas after all. Even though it wasn't always relaxing (like New Year's eve where two of us nannies were left in charge of serving 13 kids dinner), it was nice to come back to cold weather. It's not every day that you get to build giant snow/igloos, and go swimming in an outdoor pool while it's snowing. And every time I see the girls, they keep growing older, more beautiful, and more sophisticated, almost as if they were turning into two fine young ladies. I think I'm turning sentimental.