Hello everyone, sorry for a bit of delay between this post and last. Been busy. Have classwork, a test next week, need to keep typing my thesis, doing homework, doing my analysis work, and remove the wallpaper from my room because my landlady wants me to paint it. I'm sure there will be a post on my painting adventures, especially since I anticipate it will be amazingly cold in the room since I don't want to use wallpaper remover in a sealed environment.
It has been cold here. Obnoxiously cold. Just cold enough that it's unpleasant to go outside, but not really cold enough to justify avoiding it. The up side is, I went with a few friends (Morag, Laurel, Polly, and Polly's boyfriend Panos who was visiting) to an indoor/outdoor warm water spa. The place warranted many misapplied uses of the word delicious owing to how not cold we were (except when we had to go from warm pool to warm pool outside in the -8 C weather).
The place was about an hour and a half drive around lake Geneva, and Polly kindly offered to drive. Aside from an accident that turned it into a two and a half hour drive because apparently everyone and their mother was out on that road for reasons unknown. Probably all the ski resorts in the alps. We stopped for lunch at what amounts to a swiss truck stop, which means it included a buffet, sandwich stand, and kwik-e-mart. They were getting good business owing to the traffic on the road.
The resort itself is in Val-d'Illiez, which I had never heard of, and is located not far from some nice ski slopes. Morag had found a deal where two people got 5 hours for 30 CHF, so we got 3 vouchers and enjoyed a niiice loooong soak in the pool sized bathtub. There was also a steam room, sauna, and a sort of in between thing that I can't remember the name of. The steam room was my favorite. There was a pool outside as well (leading inside so you didn't have to be out of the water in the cold if you didn't want to) that was also heated nicely (all the pools were at 35 C, I can't really be bothered with the conversion, but somewhere around 80 F).
The bushes around the pool outside were awesome as well. Steam from the pool blew into them continually and formed massive inches thick frost formations. We occasionally threw frost balls at each other because it amused us.
There was also a natural hot spring feeding a man made river that was 10 degrees colder than the pool and smelled of sulfur to boot. However to get to the hot tub down river, one had to go in the river (or walk in the freezing air). The other hot tub was about the same as the pool, but less crowded. All places had shallow spots where bubbles rose up periodically forming a nice tickling massage, and here and there were spouts that alternated shooting water at high velocity. These last ones were a favorite for all, except Polly who was literally (and hilariously) blown away by the spout any time she tried to get under it. Made for a good neck massage if you could stay under it (admittedly difficult).
We spent a far chunk of the day in the pools, but we also spent time in the steam room and sauna, alternating between that and the ice bath... The ice bath was more a manly test of endurance between Panos and I than anything else, except for Morag and Laurel who just went in nonchalantly to show us up. We never could get Polly in. Unpleasant as dunking yourself in ice water is, it does feel good after a few seconds once you get out (in much the same way that running a marathon feels so good when you stop), especially if your core temperature has risen from steam rooms.
We had a good time and may go back. 5 hours was a little much and the 3 hour tickets weren't too expensive for a once in a while thing. Next weekend, however, we are going skiing! I'm excited as I love skiing very very much.
Hope everyone is well!
Ciao
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