The Travelling Life of Silvan Colani
February 2003 - St. Moritz, Switzerland
A ski weekend in St. Moritz? Sounds reasonable if you live in Zurich. But if you live in Hong Kong? Insane? Probably.
But here's the story: it was my mother's 60th birthday and, well, I guess that doesn't happen too often. I thus decided to hop on a Swiss plane on Friday night, arrive Zurich on Saturday morning, spend two gorgeous days skiing with her and hop back on the plane on Sunday night. It actually worked surprisingly well - apart from the fact that my mum waited for me at the wrong terminal! But if the costs weren't somewhat prohibitive, I could easily do this more often!
The skiing was incredible - and so was the weather. There were tons of snow, blue skies devoid of a single cloud and a mountain panorama to die for. I haven't skied in quite a while (one day in over nine years!) but it came back quick and easily. I guess it's like riding a bike (which I also haven't done in over nine years), i.e. once you learned it you never forget it. These so-called carving skis are super easy to get used to, and we skied almost non-stop the entire weekend.
St. Moritz, it must be said, (as well as the entire Engadin valley) is undoubtedly the most fantastic ski resort in the world - at least according to my humble opinion. The facilities are top notch, with some chair lifts carrying six (!) people at the time, thus moving up to 2,800 ski addicts up the white slopes every hour. The days of queuing for an hour in freezing temperatures to get onto a rackety old T-bar - only to drop out half way up the mountain because the idiot next to you could not keep his balance - are long gone. In fact, there is not a single T-bar left in St. Moritz.
When I was small, we went skiing in St. Moritz every winter. Coming back almost a decade after my last downhill run was actually a lot of fun. The mountains and the slopes are obviously all the same and I very much enjoyed racing down all my old routes - from the easy stuff to sheer vertical!
I would also like to dispel the notion of St. Moritz being a snobbish and expensive resort for celebrities only. That's a lot of nonsense. Of course it isn't cheap, but neither is any other notable ski resort in Switzerland. Sure, there's the Palace Hotel, the White Turf (horse racing on the frozen lake) and the Cresta Run (suicidal headfirst bobsledding for rich adrenaline junkies), but there are also lot's of down-to-earth places for commoners like ourselves.
I cannot sign off without making some disparaging remarks about "Swiss", the airline re-born out of the bankrupt Swissair. Many of you will know that I would rather walk than fly Swiss, but in this instance there wasn't much choice. I must give credit to their Hong Kong sales staff who were very helpful and who sold me an economy class ticket for HKD 7000 - not too bad. However, step on the plane and you instantly feel at home in hell. A bit like taking a taxi ride in Manila. Personal TVs in economy class, a standard feature on any decent airline these days, are nowhere to be found and much of the in-flight "entertainment" consists of watching the cabin crew (average age: 65) trade insults with their hapless passengers. The idea of "friendly service" is as remote to the Swiss as the notion of world peace must be to George W. Bush.
But there's a Happy Ending: departing from Zurich airport with only SFr. 3.50 left in my pocket, I noticed that a Carlsberg draft costs SFr. 4.70 at a gate-side bar. Having to wait for the boarding announcement, I approach the bartender and ask him if I could get half a glass with my spare coins. He smiles, takes my money and pours a FULL glass! He gets my award for "Best Attitude and Service in all of Switzerland". He wasn't Swiss, of course...
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