Work, Riding, and a bit of Traveling

It's been too long since my last post, and although my life hasn't been that exciting I have been doing my best to enjoy life over here. My weeks are long with a lot of work, but I've managed to get some play time in during the weekends.

Three weekends ago a group of us from school did a ride/race to Verbier. This is a famous ski town and has also been featured in the Tour De France. Myself along with 500 other riders went out for a 95km ride that include a 10km time trial up the mountain to Verbier. This is the first time in a LONG time that I've been involved in anything even remotely competitive. I managed to place 47th out of 87 riders in my age group. I was happy with that since I've only been riding in the mountain for a month. Plus I beat some of my colleagues that I've been attempting to catch up with since I moved here. Once at the top we had a pasta lunch, listened to some live jazz, and then headed home. With the ride back home I logged 150km for the day.

Just finishing the climb up to Verbier.

Trying to dry off and get some sun on my blinding, white body.

The group from school.

Being stupid.

Working at a boarding school, the staff members are the surrogate parents for the students. Here we have what's called "Faculty Family" where each faculty member has a small group of students that we meet with on a regular basis to eat dinner, go to the movies, hang out with, etc. My family consists of 3 guys and 2 girls. Three of them are from Mexico, one from Brazil, and one from Azerbaijan. We are a bit dysfunctional, but for the most part we're a good family. Two weekends ago I had a weekend trip with my family. I had arranged some plans, but due to the poor weather we bagged the initial plans and hopped on a train to Lausanne for Friday and Saturday. The students wanted to stay the night in a hostel, which was funny to hear since they normally live a life of luxury. So we booked a couple of rooms for the students and I stayed with strangers. The students slept well, but I did not. Anyways, we spent our time eating good food, doing a bit of shopping, walking along the waterfront, going to the cinema, and hanging out at the hostel. It was surprisingly a fun time.

The Darby Family.

And this past weekend I went to Paris. I went with four coworkers and our original reason for going to Paris was to see Mumford and Sons in concert. Things didn't go as planned, and our train was delayed for a while on Friday afternoon, therefore we were late to the concert and only heard four songs...but they were four good songs :) The remaining time was spent touring the city. Being there for two days only allowed me to get a taste of the city, so I will definitely go back a couple more times to visit the museums and some of the other sites that I missed.

Obvious what this is.

Arc De Triomphe

The concert group eating at "The Pharmacy."

Notre Dame

The only tough looking people in France...the riot Police.

October is another busy month, with work on every Saturday. So unfortunately I really won't be able to go on any weekend excursions. Damn the man. We already got our first snow here. I had to wear a winter coat today. I'm not ready for the cold weather, so hopefully this was just a fluke.

Up and Running

Although students have been here for 2 weeks, classes officially started this past week, and my college counseling classes will start tomorrow. Unfortunately I'm unable to coach or sponsor any outdoor activities here because my college counseling classes take place after school Monday - Thursday which is the same time as team practices and other activities. This will be a change for me as I've always coached a school sport, but I have to do my job and that includes these after school classes with groups of about 15 students each day. Thus far I've enjoyed the other people in the college counseling department. We get along well and laugh quite a bit.

This weekend was a good one. I ventured down the mountain to Lausanne in hopes of meeting some people outside of school. Lausanne has a large expat population with many people around my age. I went down there Friday night with two other coworkers and it ended up being quite fun. I managed to meet some people from England, Bulgaria, Lithuania, and Germany. Hopefully I'll have to chance to connect with these folks next time I head to Lausanne. Saturday was spent on my bicycle. A group of 6 of us (3 staff, 3 students) had planned on riding around Lake Geneva, which is a 110 mile ride. About 25 miles into the ride we encountered some construction near Evian, France, so our plan to go all around the lake was foiled. But we caught the ferry to a different point on the lake and started riding again from there. It was a picture-perfect day for riding and we ended up riding the northern part of Lake Geneva twice and logged 125 miles. I'm tired today.

I'm still adjusting to the smallness of the community in which I live and work. Swiss business hours are awful if you're trying to go to the bank or buy groceries. Most shops close at 6pm, even vending machines...and that makes no sense whatsoever. Also, business hours change unexpectedly. If you visit a shop on Monday at 4pm, there's no guarantee that if you visit it again at that day and time that it will be open. Business owners do whatever they want, which is great for them, but at times can be frustrating for others.

The beauty here continues to amaze me. I hope it never gets old!


Looking down on what I rode up.


The group of us on the ferry while out on a ride.


My back yard.


My back yard again.