On a whim, a few friends and I decided to go up a mountain for a bit of snowy fun. So yesterday saw us zooming up the 351 corners to reach Arosa. After having rented our sledges, up we went to the Weisshorn with the gondola.
We decided to do a bit of après-ski (or avant-sledge in our case) first, for a bit of Dutch courage.
The girls became highly animated and introduced me to weird drinks such as "Gsichtli" (meaning "face"; made out of peppermint tea with peach schnapps) and "Holderio" (elderflower tea with some kind of fruit schnapps) - both AWFUL! I stuck to my mulled wine (thank you very much!) and we happily sipped and slurped, enjoying the sun. Until we suddenly realised, that the sun had practically set and we had better get our butts down the slope pronto!
Grabbing our sledges we first didn't manage to open the lock and our cries of dismay send many suspicious glances in our direction. Eventually the lock sprung open and we set off down the sledge run. Faster and faster we flew, past dark trees and straggling pedestrians (who jumped to the side in a hurry). Then, a sharp corner and a weird sensation overtook me: I was flying! Straight for a tree! I managed to twist to the side and bumped myself roughly but avoided a head on collision, which would undoubtedly have been more painful for me than for the tree.
Always a trooper (or thanks to the alcohol dulling the pain) I got back on the angel of doom (= sledge) and got down without further mishap. At home I discovered that my toe had turned a nice shade of black and yellow. Luckily that was all the damage. But I cannot walk for two days, which means that nor can I finish my moving. What a drag.