I Want To Ride My Bicycle

After several previous attempts at planning to cycle to Frutigen with Carly, only to be cancelled because of awful weather, today it was dry and clear (occasionally even sunny!) and we were finally able to go. Going uphill was a slow struggle, but when we reached the downhill parts we flew down them so fast we had to hold onto the brakes the whole way! It's quite a distance to Frutigen and it took us about two hours of cycling to get there.

First we visited Tullenburg, an old stone tower on a hill in Frutigen. We explored the ruins, clambering on the walls and climbing the staircase to the top of the tower to look out across the town. We knew there was a geocache in the vicinity and after a long hunt we finally found it.

Cycling around town, we came upon a playpark..... the playpark of dreams! Neither Carly or I cared that we were the "wrong age" for playparks, and we rushed right in and swung on the swings, slid down the slide, climbed up the treehouse, went on the seesaw and zipped down the zipline. Epic. Big kids for life!

We went to look at the old Frutigen church, but it wasn't open so we were only able to see the outside, and wander the cemetery, which was full of flowers and well cared for. At 5pm we caught the bus back to Adelboden. I'm so glad we were finally able to do the Frutigen cycle, it was just as fun as I thought it would be!

Why Is A Raven Like A Writing Desk?

My day began very early this morning, as I rose at 3.45am to set off on a sunrise hike up Cheunisbargli. Putri, Karin and I began our trek in darkness, with our torches showing the way. It was snowing lightly, but we're hardcore explorers so we didn't mind! We made good progress and managed to make it to the top in about 2 hours, despite being slowed down by snow-covered paths as we reached higher altitudes. The sky was just beginning to brighten. Though it was too cloudy to actually see a proper sunrise, it was still pretty cool, and there was a great view of the valley below. Walking back was much easier and we arrived back at the Chalet just after 8am, whereby I promptly fell back into bed and didn't wake up until the bell rang for lunch at noon!

The afternoon was spent preparing my costume for the evening's event: an Alice in Wonderland 'Unbirthday Party' organised by Carly. I'd been looking forward to it all week! I was going as Alice, and I managed to whip up a pretty decent costume from what was available. I also put together a simple White Rabbit costume for Carly, as she was way too busy getting the teaparty ready and making delicious food to make one for herself.

All dressed up, 6 o' clock arrived and everyone assembled for the evening to begin! It was a fantastic sight. There were so many awesome outfits; the Queen of Hearts, the Mad Hatter, Dormouse in a teapot, Tweedledum & Tweedledee, a playing card, Cheshire Cat, White Rabbit and myself, Alice! As for the table, Carly did an amazing job of decorating, and the spread of food had everything from jam sandwiches, inside-out cupcakes and scones to chicken pastries and quesadillas!

The party was a huge success; we shared nonsense poems and jokes, and took lots of photos! I know I have a fondness for costume parties anyway, but it really was brilliant. One of the highlights of my time here!

Queen of the Dessert

On the 20th, we worked on our personal projects. Karin, Eve and I are focusing on revamping the WAGGGS room. Amongst other things, we want to make a Pen Pal wall, which is what we began working on. I started making a postbox from cardboard. In the evening, we had a special Dessert Night. Everyone had prepared a different dessert, and we set them all out and helped ourselves. Everything was delicious! I had made french macarons; a dish I've never attempted before, and which was pretty tricky, but turned out great! If only I'd had some food dye, they would have looked even prettier. On Saturday 21st I had a day off with Karin, and we set off on a Geocaching spree; managing to find 3 and hiking several miles in the process!

The next day, after the usual work, Putri and I ran a cultural evening programme for the staff. She taught us all about Singapore, and I shared some knowledge about Scotland with a presentation I had prepared. I also included a recital of Tam o' Shanter, a Scots language quiz, Scottish confectionary to try, and some lessons in Ceilidh dancing to end the evening.

We had a special 'Christoph Day' today. This meant spending the entire day outdoors doing chopping, sawing, shredding and de-branching fallen trees and logs with our resident Grounds and Maintenance man. I actually used a chainsaw!! We even stayed outdoors for meals, cooking both our lunch and dinner over a fire. Thank goodness it wasn't a wet day!

The Past Few Days...

Here's a quick run down of the past few days events.

On Saturday the 14th, we took photos of Flat Stanley's (If you don't know what it is, google it!) which had been posted to the Chalet from America. We took a photo of each Flat Stanley doing something fun, and we wrote replies to the girls about the adventures their Stanley had been on.

On Sunday, Catt "fell out" with me because apparently I have never yet mentioned her in this blog! Whoops! So here you go Catt: Catt is a crazy, awesome, fellow-orange, McFly lovin', English chick who is obsessed with coleslaw. YEAHHHH. Catt Catt Catt!

Monday 16th was my first ever day off with my lovely room-mate Eve, so we decided to do something fun. Together with Putri, we took a bus and a train for a day trip to Thun. We browsed the shops (Putri went wild in a chinese supermarket), explored the old church and then Thun Castle up on top of the hill. Thun is a very pretty place, with amazingly clear water in their canals I might add! Back at the Chalet in the evening, Stef and I baked a chocolatey birthday cake for Putri, with a marshmallowy frosting.

The 17th of April was Putri's 22nd birthday! Yaaaay! I was off with her, and she decided she'd like to go geocaching so off we went on a hike in the sunshine, to look for one nearby. Despite our best efforts, it evaded us that day, but it was still a lovely walk. We also found a new route up to town as well. It's quite a steep path, but it goes through the woods and it very pretty. It's nice to have a change from the same old route. Later on there was spicy food and birthday cake to be had, and we sang to Putri in many different languages, whilst wearing tea-cosies on our heads....I don't know why either!

Go Your Own Way

So Carly and I had planned to cycle to Frutigen on Wednesday, but our plans were foiled by the weather. I opened my curtains this morning to see falling snow, and so we had a lazy morning at the Chalet instead... but by afternoon I was bored and desperate to get out and do something! Although the weather was still very downcast, it had at least stopped snowing and we agreed to go out on a shorter cycle trip within Adelboden to find a Geocache (I think we are all fans now!). Freeriding all the way down the hill from the Chalet was awesome, but the joy didn't last because once at the base of the valley we knew it was all uphill from there! As the altitude got higher, we eventually reached a point where we could no longer ride/push the bikes because of snow on the ground, so we left the bikes out of the way and continued on foot. We were on a path which wound steadily uphill and gave us some spectacular views across Adelboden. At times we passed through the woods; and with the trees all freshly frosted by the earlier snowfall it looked quite magical. Eventually we reached the place were the Geocache was hidden, and after a bit of searching Carly was the one to finally spot it. Hurrah!! Reunited with our bikes, we freewheeled all the way down the hill again... only to have to drag ourselves up the other side of the valley again to get home.

The following day Carly and I had even more exciting plans. We headed up to the ski slopes on Silleran for one final skiing sesh before all the pistes close for the end of season. We had a fantastic time, and my skiing is definitely much better. We did some challenging blues, braved some difficult reds, and basically zoomed about all over the mountain. We were meant to be doing some tobogganing up there too, but Catt cancelled on us and she was the one who was meant to bring the sleds! Never mind though, we had the best time skiing all afternoon. Not to mention the off-piste bum sledging from one run over to another hahaha! "Gotta go your own way"!

Today I was working again, and I was kitchen co-ordinator. It was just us Vollies for dinner, so I made sweet chilli chicken stirfry with noodles, which proved to be very popular with everyone - especially Putri, who misses the spicy dishes back in Singapore. We also found an amazing video on Youtube today, of a guy performing 'Party in the USA - Miley Cyrus' in American Sign Language. Since 'Project Single Ladies' is now complete.... guess what we've decided our new project will be!

All The Single Ladles!

Today - April 10th 2011 - as the 100th day of the year, marked the final day of the WAGGGS centenary celebrations. At Our Chalet, we were of course planning to party in style! First off, us Vollies prepared a tasty cooked breakfast for all the staff. Stef next helped us find out our 'True Colours'; which was a sort of personality test which highlights the characteristics you have and your leadership style. I'm Orange type, closely followed by Blue. Look it up if your interested, it's fun!

That afternoon all the Vollies, plus Katie and Rhianna, set out on a Geocaching adventure. We drove to our starting location and set off on a hike to find two different caches. In the process we crossed the longest pedestrian suspension bridge in Europe; a somewhat scary experience! We later also crossed a rushing river on a bridge made of two logs and some wooden slats; also pretty scary! It was a very pretty hike, and we managed to find both of our caches, where we left behind some centenary badges for the next cacher.

That evening, Stef and I donned our costumes, poufed our hair and put on our stage makeup. All in preparation for the evening's centenary entertainment: our highly anticipated debut performance of Beyonce's 'Single Ladies' routine!! Yes, after many rehearsals we were finally ready to present our Sasha Fierce selves. The staff gathered in the conference room and took their seats. Stef and I took our places, the music began.....and off we went! Somehow, it went extremely well. It was definitely the best we'd ever done it; no mistakes at all, and I'd like to think we had some bootylicious attitude thrown in there too! We topped off a great day with a tasty dinner cooked by our new kitchen co-ordinater Katy, followed by a cosy film night watching the Inbetweeners movie.

Ready for our performance ....then washing dishes later with our 'single ladles' hahaha!

"My Plan with the Pyjamas is Working..."

My working day began by giving a tour to some visiting Derbyshire Girl Guides, and I also finally received my training in the shop which was really put to the test by the Derbyshire girls' spending power! A fairly average day of working in the kitchen and cleaning around the chalet ensued. However, after checking my progress towards my Staff Challenge and deciding I needed to take more action, I suggested to the other Vollies that we spend the night sleeping in the campfire tent. Not content with just that, I also hiked all the way to town and back at midnight by myself. 7 more points earned? Oh yeah!

Once back from my hike, I headed to the tent with the others... The experience of sleeping there was horrible! I got barely any sleep, and despite piling all the blankets we could find on top of our sleeping bags, it got really cold. My feet were like blocks of ice in the morning!

I'm Dreaming of a White Easter?

Happy Easter everyone! I awoke early this morning to find a sparkling snow-covered scene outside my window. It honestly felt more like Christmas! The local Heilsarmee band arrived with their brass instruments at 7am to perform on the hill and welcome the Easter morning. Afterwards they joined us for an Easter breakfast feast.

Now, Easter wouldn't be complete without a visit from the Easter Bunny, and sure enough he'd stopped by Our Chalet and hidden a little bag of chocolate treats for each of us. The hunt began and lasted at least an hour, as the Bunny had been devious with his hiding places! Armed with the egg-hunting skills I've honed over the years (My dad is a master hider), I was able to do a thorough search and found my Easter surprise hidden in the American Room, inside a drawer in the bureau. Yummy!

The afternoon brought more egg-citement (haha, couldn't resist!) with egg painting, and also egg dyeing - something I've never tried before but really liked doing.

Later we held an egg rolling competition, and rolled them down an improvised ramp (too much snow to do it outside unfortunately); and my egg didn't let me down as it rolled all the way across the room! Go 'Scotch Egg'! We also held a three-legged obstacle course race, and finally a pub quiz prepared by moi.

"Jeg er Mæt."

The Green Girl Guides came with Rhianna and I up to Engstligenalp today, to try a bit of cross-country skiing! Since I've only done it once before myself, it was a bit difficult for me to start trying to teach other people, but I think I did an alright job - and Rhianna's a pro anyway so it was fine. After doing a bit of 'proper' cross-country skiing around the track, we had some fun riding up and down on the drag lift; with skies on, with one ski, even with no skies....! There were also some snowball fights and a game of 'one ski tag'.

At dinner I learned some Danish: "Jeg er mæt", meaning "I'm full". An essential phrase which will definitely help me if I ever travel to Denmark. Than later in the evening we held some Easter themed celebrations for the girls. There were a few different activities and crafts, and I had hidden little baby chicks all around the chalet for the girls to hunt for!

Whoosh, Boi-ing!

All the Vollies and our lovely Danish Girl Scout group hiked to the Woodcarver's today. We were also having a bit of a centenary celebration as it's the WAGGGS 100th birthday on 10/4/2012, so we decorated our bags with balloons of every colour! The hike was easygoing, and we had regular stops for games like Samurai, Zip Zap and the epic 'Cereal Box game'. Carly and I are proud to say that we managed to pick up that cereal box from very low down, though we were eventually defeated by two scarily flexible Danish Girl Scouts.

At the Woodcarver's, the girls bought some of the creations for sale. The ceiling there is covered with Guide badges from visiting groups, and after some searching I managed to spot the badge we had donated during our unit trip back in 2008! I also had a chat with Carl, the Woodcarver's son who also works in the family business, and he gave me some snowboarding tips complete with demonstrations in the middle of the shop haha!
Outside in the sun, the Vollies did spontaneous barn dancing to Yodelling music and took a few random photos, before joining the girls for lunch and yummy lemon cake at the cafe nextdoor.

In the evening the centenary celebrations continued. Stef and I ran activities to teach the Danish group a little more about what WAGGGS actually is; and then we all drew around our hands on paper, cut them out and wrote on it what the most special thing about Guiding is to us. By now it was dark outside, so we went out and gathered around the flagpole for a candlelight ceremony. We passed around a flame to light each candle, and then in turn we each shared the words we had written on our 'hands'. Finally, we sang One Voice together followed by Taps to close the night.

The Never Ending Day

As the only two on Guest Services today, Stef and I knew we had our work cut out for us. We set to it, doing everything from setting rooms, washing out recycling bins to cleaning bathrooms and prepping lunch. After lunch clear up, we had a short break. Deciding to make the most of it, Stef and I got our dancing gear on and dashed to the conference room for some Single Ladies rehearsals. We'd worked on it a bit last night and were very close to completing it, and then today we finally learned the last steps!!! So we know it all, and the challenge now is to actually make it look good! No pressure.

Back to work, we began making dinner: Sweet and Sour Chicken, and Bread and Butter Pudding for dessert. This turned out to be a LOT of work for just two people!! I took on the dessert project whilst Stef battled with the main. The clock ticked closer and closer to 6pm, and we were both literally dashing around the kitchen trying get it all ready in time. We just made it, but you should have seen the state of the kitchen by this point. Normally we tidy as we go, but this time we couldn't, so when we came back afterwards to wash up it truly seemed like a mountainous task. Not only that, but as part of the day's kitchen duties we had to deep clean the fridges as well!! We thought we were going to be there all night. It did take a long time, but eventually some of the Vollies who were on Programme duties took pity on us, and helped out a little. Eve and Putri also cheered us up by bringing over homemade chocolate chip cookies and an iPod with Glee music on it. Lifesavers!

The whiteboard listing all our jobs for the day!

Wake Up and Smell the Tortillas

I've been busy, busy, busy working the last few days.

On Friday, Carly, Stef and I deep cleaned the cabinet in the dining room. We washed every single dish, glass and item of cutlery and took an inventory. My main job involved drying and counting!
That evening I had agreed to cook dinner on my own as part of my staff challenge. Thankfully it was only staff in, so I didn't have to cook for the masses. I'd decided to make chicken fajitas, but it was going to be a tougher challenge than usual as we don't have any tortillas or salsa in the storeroom, which meant I had to make my own from scratch. The salsa wasn't too intimidating, but I've certainly never made tortillas before! The recipe was easy enough I have to say, the hardest part was rolling them out to the right size and thickness. I ended up having to make two batches because I wasn't able to get enough tortillas out of my first batch of dough. With there being a lot of different elements to chicken fajitas, and many things to prepare, it did take me a long time as I was on my own. I began cooking at about 3pm and dinner was finally ready at 7! It was worth all the effort though, as they seemed popular with my diners - and I thought they tasted pretty great too!


Yesterday morning I wrote the staff blog for the Our Chalet website; you can read it here. Then I had a fabulous time deep cleaning the kitchen with Karin and Putri. In the evening Stef and I did a bit more Single Ladies practice - it's coming together now, we know about 2/3 of the routine.

Today all the vollies helped to scrub the dining room floor. With all 6 of us there, we did it in record time and now it looks lovely and clean. Afternoon arrived, along with a new group of Danish Girl Scouts who will be staying here for most of the week. Eve and I were the lucky ones who got to give them the presentation of the centre's history and then a tour of the buildings. This was our first time giving the tour so we were a little nervous, but it went very well. The Danish girls seem a lovely group.