Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Dreaming of a White Christmas


Every day up until Christmas I was praying for snow. I seemed to gain a slight obsession with mother nature and began researching about when you can tell it is about to snow so i would be prepared... werid i know.

I was spending Christmas in a small Swiss village near St Galland in Appenzel (where the cheese comes from). Excited by Robbi (my cousin in laws predictions) of the ground being covered in snow, I couldn't wait and felt like a kid again. I was worried that it was too warm as it was about 3 degrees in Zug.

On Christmas eve we left Jen''s for the two hour journey and the scenery was amazing; mountains; lakes and snow covered trees were in abundance and I was well and truly in fairy land.

We were joined by some other cousins- Caroline and Pino (from Bondi) and their two gorgeous girls Isabella and Claudia and it was so wonderful to be around family again. Caroline and the girls had just spent a year living in iskia (off the Italian coast) and the girls had learnt to speak Italian and brought so much fun to our Christmas adventure.

Christmas was incredibly luxurious, on arrival at the village that was entirely white we went for a scenic walk and played in the snow. It was an previously unseen beauty, the type that takes your breath away (maybe that was because it was so cold). Next we had a sauna, which involved getting really hot and running into the cold pool, drinking a beer and repeating the process. Finally we sat down to a never ending feast of fish, caviar, ham, potatoes and loads of other yummy treats.

Next it was time for presents and i was spoilt rotten, considering I was away from home. That night i spoke to my family and my my brother got my nieces and nephews to sing me jingle bells down the phone- i couldn't hold back the tears and their cute little cartoony voices made my Christmas unforgettable.

The next morning, after one of the nicest breakfasts in the history of breakfast where i even ate reindeer from Lapland we set off on our drive to St Anton an Austrian ski resort in the alps.

When we got there, we loaded the luggage into the chalet and set about cooking our Australian meal. We had roast turkey and veggies followed by Australian delights including caramello koalas and tim tams.

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