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Sledding

Wow, sledding in Switzerland sure isn't like sledding like we used to at "our old house." For those of you who don't know, we used to live in the Johannes Edition in Columbus (did I spell that right mom?). In our back yard was some farm land and on the other side of that was the canal with a good sized hill. During the winter, we would go sledding down this hill. It sure was fun! Then we would have to haul our plastic sled all the way up that hill to do it again.

Well, today we went sledding at the Gringewald.
http://www.grindelwald.net/skiingskifahrensleding.php?userlang

We took a bus all the way up the mountain. It's a one lane road with not a lot of extra room for other cars, pedestrians and sledders. It was kind of interesting when our bus met another bus and had to reverse back down a little ways. Anyways, once we got to the top, we rented sleds and then started going down. We sled down the actual road, which had a lot of sharp turns. It was kind of tricky figuring out how to turn but I got it after a while. Some of the turns were scary because if you didn't make the turn, you would fly off the road! After about 15-20 minutes, we were half way down the mountain! Luckily, there was a bus waiting to take us right back up.

The second time down, was a little easier and faster. I started to get the hang of the turning and I wasn't so scared because I knew what to expect. This time when we made it to the half way point, we stopped at the outside restaurant and had some lunch. I even had some gluwein (the hot wine).

We waited for one more bus to take us back up. This time it was a lot more cold and more foggy. I was ready to be done when I couldn't feel my fingers anymore. All of my ski gear is at the Holiday House so I had borrow snow pants from Yvonne, Thomas' sister, and use my cotton gloves that really do not offer much warmth. This time, when we got to the half-way point, we kept on going down with our sleds. We had to be very careful at this point because cars could be going up the one lane road at any time. (When we went from the top to the middle, we only had to watch out for the buses, which would honk their horns to let sledders know they were coming.)

We finally made it down the mountain, turned in our sleds and then headed for home. It was A LOT of fun, expensive but fun. Each bus ride was about 16 Francs per person. Add that to the lunch and the sled rental and we easily spent 200 Francs between the two of us. Gulp!

I wasn't able to take too many pictures while we were actually sledding. I was just going too fast to get out the camera. Plus, I was a little afraid that I would fly off the road and into some trees.

Enjoy More

Take care and if you ever come in the winter, we should do this!!