Le Savoie Val d'Isère

... the week but on Saturday we leave for St Anton - apparently it's an 8 hour drive so up at 6AM.... when we get there we get to go to our permanent accommodation - we're living with the other couple and apparently our appartment has en suite bathrooms and a washing machine so sounds pretty good to us!

attached a couple of pics showing the view from our window when we arrived and the view now...

speak to you all soon!

Gemma and Dave

... a glimpse of a massive glacier on our way to the mountain and later got a great view from a peak further down the ridge. I saw a glacier this summer in Montana's Glacier Nat'l Park but I have to say that despite the parks breathtaking views, its glaciers were hardly impressive compared to Chamonix. This was a legit, man eating, climber scaling, cavernous abyss kind of glacier. We were able to take a gondola that ascended the peak parallel to the glacier some 12,000 feet. After nearly ...

... worn out.



Friday


< br>Friday turned out to be a
****** day and the clouds were hanging in the mountains just above
the city buildings, so therefore I knew that sightseeing would be
wasted effort. I got up lazily and went down to the reception to
read the International Herald Tribune and around noon headed downtown
to see what was happening. I did some shopping (it had to be dreary
out for me to do some shopping) and then was getting hungry ...

... 10 years. Great
to see he and Robin and their 2 boys. The next day on to Las Vegas
with 32 people, the tour was marred with a few problems and the group
was not as enjoyable as the one I just left. Upon returning from
Vegas, I had just 3 days to host a couple of buddies for the MSU
homecoming game and then on to Europe.



Monday 10-19



I left the house on Monday
morning for a noon flight to Detroit, Amsterdam and then on to
Geneva ...

... I guess we will be looking out for it at home! They already have Xmas stuff out in the Aldi store so Dan has picked up some Pfeffernuss and I have got some of the spiced biscuits..I am going to have to write to Clairol and a few other companies to complain about the hair colour range at home...everywhere here they have shades of the haircolour I prefer..might have to bring some home!
More traffic holdup going towards Bern, someone lost some gravel over the 100km freeway ...

... poorly marked. Half the streets in Europe are so narrow anyways; they all look like one ways. So this car pulls up behind up and blocks us in, sweet, it’s the cops. They tell us we went up a one way.... So we honestly tell them it was a mistake and we're trying to turn around. Then they ask us where we are coming from and how much have we had to drink? Here we go... We had 1 big bottle of beer each 2 hours ago, then split ...

... town of Seez. We must have taken some wrong turning around here, because the GPS went a bit mad. So we found a place to turn round (not easy on those roads) and went back until we could agree with the direction the GPS wanted to take.

We'd sent a text to Tom to say we'd arrive about 2 p.m, and could he arrange for some food to be left for us from the barbeque which had been arranged. He confirmed, and said he'd come down for us at that time.

... from 1250 to 2360 meters in the morning, and then walked all the way back down to Chamonix. Wonderful views, but we were shattered in the evening, so we treated ourselves to a fondue savoyarde, mmmhhh!!

The next day was slightly shorter, but we still walked for 5 hours. We even did a bit of 'trail running' when we realised we were half way up the mountain and had a train to catch to get back to Geneva!!

... of the last word) but it is pronounced meadie, then when u get to the top ur guide will find you and will take you on a 150 ish metre walk along a norrow part of the peak to a place where you will be able to put ur skis on and get on down the hill.
this run's length depends on how much snow they get. but it took my group about half the day.
I loved it. I stayed in a very confortable motel as well. everything was great.
Definately do it.

Christmas Dinner When Matt, Lisa and I got back, Sebastian and Chris had already planned surprises for us. (We prank each other all the time!). Well there was cellotape hanging from the ceiling with ham stuck to them so we would get slapped in the face with ham! (Who thinks of such crazy things?) and Matt and Lisa got their doors taped shut ...