A Swiss Alps weekend

Switzerland was fabulous. Nicole met me in Geneva after my night train from Hendaye or the Spanish-French border and we headed up to Lausanne and visited the Olympic Museum for Vancouvers inauguration. We met some used-ski equipment artists, practiced bob-sledding, bizarrely some some local art from the Vancouver region (being on the other side of the world and seeing things from home at a museum felt ironic for me), and got pins for our curling competition with some young children. After a picnic in Lausanne we headed up to meet Desiree in Evionnaz, which was a small town in the Swiss Alps. We couch-surfed their attic which was adorable and had the most lovely Swiss dinner of fondue and good bread. Nicole worked hard on her bread brading skills thanks to M. Lauper who was a character and shared his antique car collection with us. It made me miss home. Desiree, Nicole and I went "sledging" or sledding the next day on a seven kilometer sledge run. We rode the ski-lift up the mountain and enjoyed a scenic 7 km run down. I ran into the side netting on several curves and entertained some onlookers but mostly it was incredible scenery that sledging allows for better than skiing, at least with my level of skiing and always falling. We were really warmly welcomed by Desiree and her family and felt so fortunate for the authentic experience in the Swiss mountains for a weekend. After sledging, Nicole and I stopped by the spa, or thermal baths, before going back to Geneva. It just so happened to be Valentine's day and you might imagine the spa was packed full of couples. It was a lovely spa though and are favorite place was the female turkish bath, which was an herbal hot steam room. After spa-ing, we put back on all our luggage and hauled a half an hour to the train station. It was entertaining.
The second picture above was the view from the bathroom on the top of the mountains. We took the MontBlanc express from Martigny up the mountain but I can't remember the name of the slope. It was great.
Also it was Carnaval weekend. While Nicole and I were waiting to take the bus to the baths from the train station, some men came and asked her something. She said, "Pardon?" and then he threw confetti in her face. We both ended up covered in confetti that we even brought some with us (even after being at the spa) to Geneva.