Christmas

"Shit, did I miss my alarm? was I dreaming that I missed my alarm? Did I even set it last night? Yeah, of course I set it, I remember seeing that it would go off in four hours. But I think I missed it anyway. Maybe I should check, then I could set it right if it was wrong and can see what time it is now." I open my eyes. It's dark, there's no sound except for my father's snoring. I reach around for my phone and see that it's currently 4:13a.m. "Well I didn't sleep through it, and well, it's set for

6:30a.m. I must have been dreaming, I guess I can go back to sleep for a couple hours..." I close my eyes, relax, and my mind goes blank.

4:30a.m. "Fuck, can't get back to sleep"

4:45a.m. "I wonder what the snow is going to be like over there."

5:00a.m. "I suppose I could pass the time with some phone games if sleep isn't going to happen"

5:30a.m. "God I'm bored, what time was he planning on waking up? isn't this his normal time to be up by now?"

6:00a.m. "Fuck it, I'm taking a shower." I get up quietly, go to the bathroom, and as soon as I'm in the shower, I hear my father get up. Once out of the shower, I sit down at the table with my dad and we sip tea in the dark silence of Christmas morning.

6:45a.m. Two shirts, a sweater, a ski jacket, boxers, a pair of shorts, a pair of ripped up pants, a pair off not ripped pants, belt, bandana (spare in the pocket), goggles, two gloves, two over-sized socks, two shoes. I don't know the conditions out there nor have I even been on a board for two years but hopefully this costume of mine will suffice.

7:10a.m. Panattoni in my mouth, we leave the house. It's dark, it's cold, it's snowing. No one except an occasional snow plow is in the streets. We get to the train station as we begin to see the first signs of dawn. After a complicated exchange involving a 'pain ou chocolat', we finally get our tickets and go wait for our train.

7:41a.m. We board the train, the excitement grows, the snow stops but the temperature remains much to low for comfort.

7:51a.m. We arrive in Aigle. It almost feels like it's getting colder. Less than ten minutes later and we're in the next train.

8:24a.m. Leysin: our destination of the day. A small ski resort town that seems to of forgotten to advertise themselves. We walk the empty streets looking for the ski station. Finding it on the other side of the town, the first thing I see is -6ºC on a nearby billboard. I get my rental board, the boots, the card, and I'm set to go up.

9:30a.m. I slide my card through the machine, walk through the gate, walk up the stairs, and pick a gondala to take me up to the first run. No lines of people; I sit alone for the fifteen minute ride to the top. Looking out the window, I see nothing. I am in a cloud with a visibility of a few feet at best. Then, like god put on his defrosters, I could see everywhere. Below me was a cloud, above me was a cloud, but all around me was miles and miles of snow-covered trees, empty ski slopes, powder.

The second layer of clouds doesn't seem to be as bad as the first. When I leave the gondala, I can see maybe around twenty feet. Irrelevant however, the second I'm on my board going down, I can see my destination, the next lift, but inbetween is a depth-less white plane. I bounce up and down, take drops when least expected, and slow down to dreadful crawls for no apperent reason. I could of closed my eyes and still have gotten the same effect. I manage however to make it to the second lift alive (only three hundread yards away). The second lift isn't as plesent as the first. As I climb higher and higher in altitude, the temperature drops and the humidity increases. The vision stays about the same: if it's not white, I can see it, if it is, it looks flat. 2205 meters high, I am at the top of Chaux de Mont. I look around hoping to get some kind of glimpse of a nice view but all I see is white with the ski lift trailing off into the void. There are no trees, there are no shadows, there's only a cliff to my left and one neon orange stake in the ground to show the boundary. In front all I see is VERY bright white gradating into a darker white which is the sky, there is no seeing the intersection.

"Made it to the top... Well, the only way to relearn is to try right?" I cautiously approach the beginning of what I think is the run."Well, it's been snowing all night last night so at least if I fall it should be powder, not to mention, I shouldn't have to worry about ice or choppy tracks since I'm probably one of the first people to go down today. ...Alright..... Okay.... and go." I point the tip of my board in what seems to be the direction downward. Powder, it feels amazing, I cut through it so easily, the snow flies above my head, I'm in heaven, I hit a chunk of crusted ice, my face hits the ground, I'm back on my feet, I don't care. About halfway down the first run I realize that I'm actually on what seems to be a black (hardest difficulty of ski run), I slow down a little from my speed high and start carving the moguls; it's hell on my knees but the serotonin rushing to my brain says "it's okay, just go." I make it to the mid-mountain lift, I want to go all the way to the bottom. I take greens and blues the rest of the way. I cut in and out of forested trails and wide open valleies. It may have taken a good thirty minutes of ski lifts to get where I was but it was well worth it. I have never been on a run that lasted more than 5-10 minutes; these runs never ended. I finally reach the bottom. Mentally lost in the snow, I dismount my board and go through what had just happened in my mind. The smile on my face is un-concealable, I feel like a four-year-old on Christmas morning. "Heh, it is Christmas." I think to myself.


I spend seven hours in a winter wonderland taking the occasional coffee break to warm up. My last run, exhausted from my day, I decide to mimic my first for good spirt. I have a coffee, get in the gondola, ride to the middle of the mountain, board the 300 yard run to the second lift, and decide, "meh, good enough, i´ll just go down from here." In the last mile strench, I feel as if I am about to collapse. I have completly and efficently used every ounce of my energy. I have a quick flashback to the last time I skied; the hot tub that followed. Unfortunatly there was no hotel we were returning to, two trains and our feet back to the apparment. At least I could catch a little sleep hopefully. I drop off the gear at the equipment shop, notice that the temperature has gone down a degree from our arrival and we start our treck back across the city. When we arrive at the train station, a guy calls us over. "Vin chaud?!?" he says with a smile. We stand around a couldren full of wine and fruit heated by a fire as we wait until the next train. #
"Wish this could happen in the states... Only in Switzerland can you find a guy running around yelling at people to give them free hot wine while they wait for their train."

The trip home becomes a bit of a blur from the combination of fatigue, wine, and the peace of mind from being back on a board. We arrive at the apartment, eat dinner, open presents, and I collapse into my dream-world for the following ten hours.

Montreux

As we took the train to Montreux, I continued thinking about the past 72 hours. The sitting in El Paso for 27 hours, the plane to georgia, then Paris, the geneva. I thought about the UN and the complete change of how people acted here. I thought about the snow-covered mountains that now surround me. I thought about what was to come next. I thought about how good sleep sounded.

(not sure why but the resolution looks like crap until you click on it to full size it, SO CLICK ON IT!)

It was already night time when we arrived in Montreux, but having slept half and hour, I was wide awake. The first stop was the apartment where I could drop off my stuff. Almost every block I would recognize something new. I haven't been to Switzerland in over ten years yet I felt that I had already lived my entire life there. I recognized the tree at the park I used to play in, the school that I'd walk by and wonder who those kids were, the escalators in the market, path full of stairs on the way to the lake, and of course the hundreds of animal shrubs lining the lake. After a quick reminder of where things were in the city, we bought some food, some wine, and some cheese, went home, and ate the first real meal I'd had in about a week.
The first two days weren't too eventful; I walked the town relearning all of it's secrets and enjoyed the wonderful flavors of the food, wine and coffee here. On Thursday, we visited the Château de Chillon, a nearby castle on the lake:




Christmas Eve, was spent figuring out Christmas day. We bought food for three days because nothing would be open and went to the midnight mass and a local cathedral (god I missed that smell). Following the ceremony, we walked home as it began to snow and drank a bottle of champagne (from Champagne) and ate Panattoni going to sleep around two in the morning, impatient for the following day to begin.

Progress

I've never been a fan of politics. I see that it is needed but I find it far from perfect. But that is a reality that we must live in. I felt a bit ignorant in my history when I entered the UN in Geneva. I had learned all of my middle and high school history lessons but felt as if it hadn't been enough. This never occurred to me for some reason until I entered this campus of international politics. Sure, I hadn't slept well in a few days not to mention traveling is always tiring but for some reason, for the first time in my life, I felt as if what had and is still happening today, was for the betterment and advancement of the human race. It seemed a little touristy to walk around reading the little history slates around and checking out the museum and gift store but by the end our small tour, as we sat and had coffee in the lounge, I felt reassured that regardless of mankind's flaws, we are generally good people looking towards the future. Leaving the United Nations of Geneva, I already felt a little more at home in Europe. I felt that it was okay to say "good morning" to total strangers and just to make a nice conversation ask them how they were doing that day.

My father showed me a little bit around downtown Geneva and we soon continued onward to Montreux.

Ça Commence

Dec. 20, 6:52 a.m., Paris, France
It’s snowing. I can’t remember the last time I saw it snow, must have been at least a year and a half, two years. It feels good being back in Europe, cold as hell, but good.
Time is a funny thing. When flying through time zones, if timed tight, you can start thinking the sun no longer exists. You get five hour days and twenty five hour nights. It’s seven in the morning local time, shouldn’t it start getting light out at least by now? If the phenomenon of jet-lag were to ever effect me, it would be because of that; living on the moons terms for a day, and maybe the sun’s for a night. I’m not yet at my final destination, but, j’ai déjà commencé à penser en français. Ca me fait du bien de savoir que je n'ai pas tout perdu.

Dec. 21, 12:00p.m., Montreux, Switzerland
I’ve made it to Montreux. After finishing my last entry, I got on the plane to Geneva. Half an hour after I sit down in the plane, the pilot gets on the intercom stating that the Paris airport just closed due to snow and we have a minimum of an hour to wait. Two hours delayed, we finally depart. One hour later, I pick up my suitcase and walk out to the streets of Geneva. After meeting up with my father, he tells me that we’re going to first eat lunch at the UN.

El Paso, flying to, El Paso

Once again I find myself writing about adventuring outside of the states. Has it really just been six months since Brazil? Maybe I should look into some kind of career for all of this.
It's currently 6:00p.m., December 18th. I am in the El Paso Airport; I have been for about fifteen hours. I still have eleven more hours to go before any kind of change in scenery. It's interesting living in an airport. Some aspects are kind of cool; I think it could make some good anthropological research… I find it amusing that people tend to have their family reunions here; you can't wait twenty more minutes to get everyone home? I can imagine the fear and insecurity of sending your boy off to the war but do you really need to welcome them back with twenty 10-to-16-year-old kids in the middle of an airport?
So so far, my journey has been uneventful. It started last night drinking and playing games. Because of the assumed time of departure, we stopped at around eleven and just sat down to watch some semi-boring TV show. Next thing I know, my alarm is going off. it's two in the morning and I'm slightly intoxicated, so i finish packing and wake up my roommate. We get to El Paso around 3:30a.m., say our farewells and I walk in. Uninhabitated by the usual chaos that is an airport, I see that I'm three hours early for the first flight of the day. I set my alarm for 4:30 and uncomfortably doze off to the sounds of pandora
4:30a.m.
open one eye, "still empty", reset alarm
5:30a.m.
open one eye, "what the hell?" open other eye.
The place is packed. Almost every airline company has a line of at least thirty people. I get up, get a drink, smoke a cigarette, and file into place awaiting my turn. When the time comes, I give the lady my passport, she swipes it, only to reveal that I am not on the roaster. I tell her my plans, I give her my info, nothing. Eventually, she finds me. Seems like i forgot to check to check the date change when Expedia sent me those emails. I had the time right, just the day wrong, I was 24 hours early. I proceed straight back to a chair and fall back asleep. At 7:00, I decide to find a much more comfy place to rest; carpeted ground in the back of the airport. By 10:00, the commotion of reuniting families becomes too much to sleep through so I get up and ready myself for the coming day. I spend a good seven hours surfing the web on my phone with the occasional cigarette and Starbucks breaks.

The airport population seems to be dissipating, maybe I can catch a few more hours of sleep. I see a girl next to me already taking over the floor.