Aside from not having any new snow in well over a week now, the Alps have welcomed me gratiously with warm places and friendly faces, fast trains and helpful strangers. Cheese, cheese and more cheese please... Dan and Kathlyn, I think of you often as i tear baguettes and spread cheeses filled with truffle and nuts...mmm, lunch, and so easy too.

Marilyn's boyfriend Jerome is a high mountain guide...he skies backcountry, snow camps, teaches avalanche safety in the winter and rock climbs in the summer...nice. He also has a climbing wall IN his house which we enjoyed on Thursday evening, followed by dinner. I am slowly learning French and Marilyn has been really helpful incorporating me with conversations when reasonable, she is quickly becoming a really great friend. We bought a French-English dictionary and luckily her English is really good and we have very few communication issues, mainly when i am tired and/or speak to fast. She is very patient in explaining what she wants so that i understand and we are getting to know each other really fast.

We met last year in Chamonix, I stayed at the same hostel as Marilyn, David, Emelie, Pamela, and Chris ("from Australia" as they refer to Chris), and we rode together one afternoon, taking in an apres drink, and saying goodbye with wishes to ride with each other again next year, knowing that i would be back this year for the real deal...20 months around the world. They were fired up on my story and willing to help me out. And so they have, and i have been very lucky and very grateful.

Marilyn and I took the train on Saturday morning to Crans-Montana, a 1.5 hour train and 0.5 hour bus from Lausanne. Blue Bird skies and icey conditions, we had a few warm ups on piste and then headed for the sno park to meet Pamela, Marilyn's best friend, who works for the hip local snowboard-ski shop's run ski school, killer job, incredible office, great benefits kinda deal. Working our way across the mountain took a gondola and 2 lifts...but when we got to the top of the 2nd lift, under the rope on the north face were fresh powder lines converging on the top of a rocky chute with unknown exit. Marilyn had been down to the valley below and gotten out, but from around the south side of the large rock on which the restaurant was built...It must connect and be skiable because there were about 30 lines into the chute already, but the far edges of the bowl were clean and hikable to higher fresh lines. We went down to the park to meet Pamela before she had to go to work and teach a lesson.

Back to the top of the lift and scored this off piste line 4 times. Arriving the gondola at the bottom for the first time to find the oldest gondola i have ever ridden...hands down.

The Aminona side of the mountain was cool too because there is a top to bottom tobaggan run, there are people walking up the cat tracks with baby strollers, snowmobilers going to houses up on the mountain, hikers, snowshoers, nordic skiers, just every imaginable type and style of enjoying the mountains was represented. The guy running the gondola had either seen a lot of sun in his 50 odd years or a lot of wine, or both...I'm thinking both.

Marilyn and i had dinner together as Pamela was getting the "boyfriend's parents are in town dinner" treatment. She got to choose the wine, Syrah, and have a steak, a "one per month treat" she described it as (it does not pay to work at European resorts either...) She was very full, drunk and happy when we found her at the Bar Amadeus. And the bar was rocking, so much fun, a great DJ and i even met a few people to talk to in English.

Back to Lausanne sunday night on the train, beers and nuts for the ride with white wine and cheese for fondue at the house...oh so good. Crashed out like a light and slept right through the alarm this morning...Wanted to wake at 7 to make the 8:45 train to safely arrive Bern by 10 to get pages added to my passport at the US embassy that is open from 9_11:30, but woke at 9 instead. I was groggy eyed and looking out the window at the sunshine knowing my timing was bad. I tried this on Thursday and Friday too, but did not rise in time, waking on Thursday at noon and Friday at 9:30, Though, i did not set an alarm either of those days to let myself sleep off the jetlag, so i had that going for me, which was nice.

I decided to make a break for it, it was exactly 4 minutes to 9 am, i had 49 minutes to get myself on to the train at track 1, and that should give me 34 minutes to get to the gates of the embassy. And that IS exact, cause this IS Switzerland and everything is right on time; this place is transportation utopia, this system needs to be cloned and installed around the world.

Headed for Chamonix tomorrow on the train, taking a new route to Chamonix this year, approaching from the East, I am very excited to go back there.