We celebrated Christmas this year with some friends by taking a trip to Switzerland. Rob's friend Don joined us and our Amsterdam friends, Brent and Ruth, for a week of skiing in the mountain village of Engelberg.
After an adventuresome day that included hours of flight delays and a race to catch the last train to town while lugging skis and suitcases and relying on Rob's ever-declining command of the German language, we arrived at our rented apartment around one o'clock in the morning and crashed. Of course, all the travel induced stress was forgotten when we got our first view of the mountain:
Engleberg is not a large resort, but the runs are very long and there were enough of them to keep us busy. One of the big draws to this part of Switzerland are its many fantastic off-piste (off-trail) runs, and while we decided we weren't up to the challenge, we certainly contemplated it:
The weather was a little harsh this year and throughout the week different areas of the mountain were shut down due to insanely high winds. Still, we skied plenty and filled our time with other activities. There's always apré ski:
Or a night time, torchlit snowshoe trek on the mountain:
Or Swiss Fondue:
While Ruth and Erika wowed us with many delicious meals, we had Christmas dinner at a nice restaurant in town. We had a wonderful time and felt so thankful to be able to share such a memorable Christmas with friends.
