an inside outdoor bbq

24/2/15

Oh the weather outside is frightful, (definately)

And the fire is so delightful, (we didn't have a fire)

And since we've no place to go (we did)

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow (please stop snowing!)

Oh it doesn't show signs of stopping (so true!)

And I've bought some corn for popping (I wish)

The lights are turned way down low (it was so white outside you couldn't see anything)

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow (Please please stop!!)

It was so snowy and foggy outside this morning that we decided to change the initial plans around.  We were supposed to be going on the Engstligenalp Hike day, instead we stayed at the Chalet and had a movie and snow fun day. We set the guests up with 101 Dalmatians on the projector in the Conference Room and then in the front yard with the igloo building things.

We had an indoor snow BBQ at 12 pm in the dinning room.  Bratwurst, rolls, salad, and Toblerone were all served from the dinning room table and we ate inside.  It was still really snowy and foggy outside but we headed up to Engstligen anyways.  Migue drove us to the bottom of the gondola in two separate groups, we didn't all fit in the van! I took the first group and Charlotte took the second.

It was so white on the top of Engstligen you couldn't see about 5 metres in front of your face.  It made snowtubing interesting!

 

At dinner, we swapped onto guest services.  We cleaned up after Alpine Mac (yay scrubbing dishes), whilst the guest services team swapped onto program and ran Swiss night.

After dinner we had wine and cheese night in Stockli.  Sarah did everyones make up, Migue wouldn't let us do his though!  It was the last time we would see Mara, as she was going on holiday to Finland.  She wrote us this poem to say thank you and good bye:

“I would like to thank you all,

who live within the Stöckli’s walls,

for this amazing winter season –

you are truly the greatest reason,

for my smiles and all the fun,

and so I’ll miss you when you’re gon’.

I hope your time here was great,

and I must say I cannot wait,

to meet you all again someday,

to sing and joke and just be gay.

Off you go, my dearest gals,

I hope we’ll always stay as pals.

Don’t forget the Chalet’s magic –

that would simply be too tragic.

Travel safely back to home,

whether it’s in Perth or Rome.

Now I must say näkemiin,

‘cause come next morning I won’t be seen.

Thank you, Gracias, Merci, Kiitos & Goodbye, Hasta Luego, Auf Wiedersehen, Näkemiin.”

fighting with hahnenmoos

21/2/15


This morning I was up and out by 8 am.  I was heading out skiing for the day by myself.  I walked, carrying my skis down to Oey, and from there caught the gondola up to the top of Silleren.  I skiied for about an hour and a half with no problems.  However that changed one run when I came down from Hahnenmoos heading to Giles.  I decided to pick a fight with the mountain.  I was unable to turn fast enough as I came up on the side of the run, and I plowed into the ice wall created when the run is pisted.  It was pretty spectacular and would have been really impressive if caught on film! But as with most fights people pick with mountains, I lost.  I lost one ski which remained on the run, on pole which went further down the mountain off the side of the run, one ski stayed on my foot and my other pole decided to join in the fight and punch me in the lip.  I subsequently have a lovely bruised and split lip.  Apart from that I was ok (this is why I bought a  helmet!!).  I managed to get up and get my gear back together, and as you know, once your on a run the only way down is in a stretcher or to ski down, so I managed to get to the bottom, but then decided to call it a day.  I headed back to Oey on the gondola and then walked up the hill (slowly and slightly painfully) to Our Chalet.

I spent the rest of the afternoon sitting on the couch watching movies and with a heat pack on my hip! I'm fine though, just going to have some lovely bruises and a nice fat lip for a couple of days! And it definitely hasn't put me off skiing!

Here are some of the pictures skiing I took before my fall:

 

 

A bridge and the freshly piste run I got to ski on

onsite day

16/2/15

After a night of not much sleep (thanks uni timetables! ) I was up and getting ready for program at 7 am.  I treated myself to fried eggs for breakfast because I had time spare after I had gotten dressed. 

  Because we have almost 60 guests, almost all of whom are doing program, this week we are running two different programs simultaneously.  Today Rachael and I were running Onsite Day today for the group of Girl Guides from the UK, whilst Ana and Sarah were running the Ensligenalp Hike for the Scout group we have.  Unfortunately Rachael wasn't feeling great, she seemed to have a head cold so she went back to bed and I headed off with the other peeps on program to morning meeting at 8.30.  Chloe stepped in for Rachael and to together we planned our day.

First was opening ceremony for the three groups staying with us; a group of Scouts, and two groups of Guides, all from the UK.  Can you tell it's half term?!

The group of Guides we were running program for had lost their luggage on the way to the Chalet, as a result they had only the clothes they were wearing and no snow gear. This made onsite day a little hard! They had been told their luggage was on its way from Geneva and should arrive arrive at some point today, until then we had to be mindful!

In the morning we did swiss crafts.  Peg burning, Scissor cutting and snowflake making featured.  I did a scissor cutting of the Chalet and the mountains.  Between the three activities we kept them occupied until lunch time.

Whilst the group ate their packed lunch outside, staff had lunch inside... and what a surprise we had.leftovers!

After lunch it was campfire building and knives.  Rachael, feeling a little better joined us and we taught the group how to use knives and how to make fire wood and different sizes of kindling.  We also had a competition of who could build a fire and burn through a piece of string first.

 

We finished at about 2.45 pm and we were heading back to have a 15 min tea break when their luggage arrived! We decided to extend the tea break til 3.15.  This meant we could pack up and get the next activity ready without.rushing... sledging!

Sledging down Baby Chalet Hill turned out to be quite hard. The snow was quite deep and had not been compacted so you ended up sliding off your sled alot! After a while we decided to change activities and build igloos as well.  This ended in a competition between members of the group to build the tallest igloo. 

 

We finished off the day with dinner of Alpine Mac. After clean up Rachael and I had.some down time watching Downtown Abbey!

sunshine

11/2/15

Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows!

Today the temperature got to a top of 7 degrees, it was positively balmy! We were able to walk around in just short sleeve shirts.  Although, my mother did remind me that at home it was over 35 degrees, and if I thought 7 was hot, I was in for a rude awakening when I got home!

 

We spent the day cleaning and resetting rooms before having a break before lunch.  We had the windows open it was so warm, and Mara decided it would be a good idea to throw a snowball at the window.  She didn't think it would actually make it inside and hit Charlotte!

Dinner was Cottage Pie and Peaches and cream for dessert.  After dinner we had a language cafe, where we all played games and talked to each other in different languages!

onsite training day

9/2/15

After not getting home until late, unsurprisingly Charlotte and I went almost straight to bed and slept the whole night through.  This morning I was up at 7.45, as we had to be in the Helen Storrow room ready to go by 8:30.

Today was Onsite Program.  We were being trained in how to run the different onsite programs for the last two weeks of Feb.  All the past Onsite Days we had run with guests, had been with summer activities as there had been little or no snow!

First was orienteering and compass games.  We attempted to do the orienteering course set up around the Chalet, we split into two teams and raced against each other to see how many points each team could find.  However due to the amount of snow, we were unable to find most of the points!  Between us we did find enough to piece together the word we were supposed to spell out when we had found all the points 'Switzerland'.  The bonus points made a rough map of Switzerland.

 

Secondly, we tried our hand at campfires and knives.  Between the 6 vollies, we split into two teams again and raced against each other to see who could build a fire and burn through a piece of string first.  Danielle, Ana and I were on a team and together were able to build a fire and successfully burn through the string first.  I also completed another challenge off my Staff Challenge by lighting the fire with only natural materials and one match.  I thought this was quite impressive considering the amount of snow around though!  We also tried our hands at igloo building and snow activities.

  

LTS had organised lunch for us, we didn't even have to clean up! Afterwards we had a break until 1:30 pm. At that time we met in the Conference Room and we were doing a session of 'Free Being Me'.  Although we were participating in the session we were still learning how to run it in the future for groups at the Chalet. It also meant that we got a badge!

We trialed a new team challenge game Chloe had put together to finish off the afternoon session.  There were questions and challenges you had to do as a team and then the team either first or the best/closest got a point.  We were playing it to fine tune the games and challenges so it would run smoothly for guests.  

  

 

 

Victoria managed to catch us just as we were leaving Main Chalet to have a break before dinner for a Thinking Day photo.  We had to stand/crouch together and put our hands around the sun, 'our guiding light'.  Whilst trying to do this the fire alarm went off.  It took us a few minutes to realize what the noise was but then we all headed down to the Stockli carpark to assemble for checking off.  Thankfully it was only a false alarm, but it did mean that we had lost the light to take photos.  

Chloe had made dinner all by herself as a part of her Staff Challenge.  She had combined it with cooking a traditional dish from her country - Toad in the Hole (UK).  This meant yorkshire pudding, sausages, home made mash potatoes, baby carrots and gravy!  She had also made dessert - Sticky toffee pudding with caramel sauce and custard! Best dinner ever!!

skiing with chloe

3/2/15

When I woke up this morning, Chloe had already left for skiing, and all working were still asleep.  I was up and dressed by 8:30 and ready to go by 8:45, though I didn't have to leave until 9.  I planned to walk down the hill, Mara had offered to take my skis in her parents car.  I got to the bottom of the Our Chalet hill, where the silver bins are and a Swiss lady offered me a lift to the gondola station.  The only place in the world I would accept a lift from a random person!
























I met Chloe at the top of Silleren just after ten am, after spending a considerable amount of time trying to put my boots on.  We skied, well I skied, Chloe snowboarded, for most of the day, stopping for lunch and breaks.  I left Chloe at 2:30 to catch the bus back to catch the gondola down to Oey.
 

I walked up the hill to the Chalet, carrying my skis.  It was a feat to be bragged about!!

boris

29/1/15

If you didn't gather by how excited I got when I named the linen cupboard after myself,  everything at the Chalet has a name.  Boris, as I am sure you are all wondering, is the snow plow of the Chalet. At morning meeting we were told that there would be an opportunity to learn to drive Boris that afternoon.  We were also given our daily tasks and cleaning duties.The main task was deep cleaning the kitchen again.  

This morning we tried a new thing called the 'joy jar' - a collection of paper slips are in a plastic jack-o-lantern pumpkin (it was as close to a jar as we could get).  We had to pick one each out of the jar and read it silently, before returning it to the 'jar'.  They all read different little things we could do to bring joy to other staff members days.  Mine was to randomly stick post-it-notes around the place with happy things on them.  I wrote things like 'Born Free, now expensive', 'when I count my blessings, I count you twice'.

  Scenic pic of the day: Our Chalet with Snow!

Whilst having a break in the T-Bar Filming, Rachael and I decided to do some more filming for our video.  It was the 'fake relaxing scene', where we were all sitting relaxing and we all cross our legs at the same time and drink tea (from empty cups) at the same time!

That afternoon Migue had planned to teach 2 of us, Ana and I, how to drive Boris, Sarah was finishing her run and joined along the way.  We got to earn an extra point on our Staff Challenge, by shoveling the snow off the car park bitumen.

 

 

At 3 pm we had a date Skyping the volunteers at Paxlodge, Bethany from Australia, Susanna from Columbia, Aubrey from New Jersey, USA, Amelia from Canada and Paty from Brazil.  

We talk and were taken on  a virtual tour of Paxlodge (though the internet didn't work very well!), then we took them on a mini tour of the Chalet and the new found snow! Susanna got very excited about the snow!

If you would like to follow the travels of Paxlodge's volunteers, Aubrey is blogging her adventures on Facebook underneath the page "A Girl Scout in London".

Here is a link: https://www.facebook.com/aGirlScoutinLondon?ref=ts&fref=ts

Dinner was Rostti and Ratatouille and dessert mini doughnuts.  After dinner we had 'Chloe's Game Night'.  We played games such as Over and Under with a balloon....  

Relay's by pushing the balloon with your nose up to the end of the dinning hall and back again... 

  

The weirdest of them all - Picking up the cereal box with your mouth, without anything but your feet touching the floor. There were some interesting techniques! I got all the way to the finals before I fell over, I couldn't pick up the flat piece of cardboard off the floor!

 

And 'Shark' - everyone sits in a circle around the parachute, one person is the life guard who runs around the outside and the other is the shark underneath the parachute.  The shark attempts to pull people under the parachute and 'kill' them, the life guard attempts to hold them above the parachute.  if the life guard manages to hold on and save the 'drowning' person they survive to stay on the edge of the parachute, if the shark wins the person 'dies' and becomes another shark.