Sister Sister

My older sister Catherine has been here visiting and it has been such a treat to have her here! It has been great to catch up but also show her my life here. It has been great introducing her to special friends and sharing some of my Swiss adventure with her.

The first weekend, some of our friends from the UK and Germany joined us in Lausanne. We spent some time exploring the old city and lakeside in Lausanne, before heading out to Gruyères on Saturday morning for some "Swissness" - we spent some time walking around this picturesque village before climbing a little higher on the bus to do some sledging in Moléson-sur-Gruyères and finished off the day with some fondue. Sunday brought a trip to the bakery for fresh bread, croissants and pain au chocolat for a lazy brunch at my place. We then ventured off to the lakeside town of Lutry and walked the 5km back to Lausanne along the lake. Lunch was another typical Swiss meal of crepes followed by tea and chocolate at my place before we bid our visitors farewell!

Gruyères

Lakeside sights

I was at work Monday through Wednesday, but Catherine joined me for lunch on Tuesday and then went to France on Wednesday. Thursday we left for Zermatt for some snow and skiing! We stayed in Täsch, conveniently located 15min away from Zermatt by shuttle train. We spent Thursday afternoon figuring out skis for Catherine and getting ski passes and of course indulging in hot drinks and apple strudel! Friday we started the day early for some skiing. We had about an hour of sunshine and clear skies before the weather turned, but we were troopers and did some great skiing (apparently we skied a total of 108km over the two days - this is what my ski pass data told us...) Back at or hotel we made use of the sauna and jacuzzi (there is nothing better after a day in the snow) and then had raclette for dinner - another Swiss indulgence (and apparently a cheap one too) before heading to bed. Saturday we started the day early again for some more skiing, but we called it quits after about 3 hours - it was snowing quite hard and visibility was very poor. I'm proud of us SA girls for doing some hard skiing in tough conditions! Zermatt is a fantastic destination and offers a huge ski domain with many wonderful wide open runs and even at the end of the season - the snow was amazing! We then took our 3 hour train tip back to Lausanne.

View of Zermatt

Racelette dinner in a cellar

1 hour of blue ski at Gornegrat

Easter Sunday dawned with some sunshine and blue skies, a nice change from the grey and we went to church. We then had brunch with one of my sweet friends Ralu at L'esquisee which is a restaurant I had heard about but hadn't tried in one of my favourite spots of Lausanne, so I was happy to go there. We shared a lovely brunch together before having a relaxing afternoon at home.

It has been so wonderful to have Catherine here and spend time together - family is such a gift and being away from them all has made me appreciate them all so much more. Thank you for coming to visit me Catherine!