Chamonix with Dad

We took a high-speed train at the wonderful hour of 4:30AM from Munich bound to Geneva (with a few transfers).

It was a long ride, but my Mom had sent me a Nintendo 3DS for Christmas, so I was entertained.

The landscape in Switzerland was breathtaking, so I spent a lot of time just gazing out the window as well.

Look at that landscape. Freaking gorgeous. There was even a damn rainbow.

After a long time on the train and in the airport waiting for our charter bus up to Chamonix, we got our first look at Mont Blanc.

We stayed at a Chalet that my cousin Michelle co-runs with her boyfriend Phil. It was really cozy and welcoming, and reminded me a lot of the cabins one would typically see in the Rockies. The next morning we were welcomed with a surprising view.

Chamonix valley is absolutely breathtaking. I had never seen mountains so beautiful. Mont Blanc is over 15,000 feet, which is around the same height as many of the mountains in the Rockies but the ground around the mountains is much higher, so you don’t get nearly as much of a sense of how towering they are like you do in Chamonix.

For New Year’s we had a delicious Italian dinner at a nice restaurant with some friends of Michelle and Phil’s.

The skiing was absolutely amazing, of course. Much of it was the wonderful environment you were in, but the runs were great as well.

We also got a chance to spend some time in the town itself. It was interesting because in many ways it felt just like any skiing town in the Rockies, but it was in France so it was quite different.

One thing that surprised me in Chamonix was how frustrating it was for me to not be able to speak French. I hadn’t realized that despite not being fluent in German, I actually had quite a good grasp of it and was quite capable at getting around and getting things I needed. I felt homesick for Germany for the first time. That, combined with how capable I was in Germany in contrast to my dad helped me more with my homesickness more than I ever expected. It made me realize that I do feel quite at home in Germany, and despite how much I miss Colorado sometimes, I’m going to miss Germany a lot now too, maybe for the rest of my life. And that really just made my homesickness melt away.