Happy New Year!!!!

So nothing super interesting happened over the past 2 weeks but I have some cool pictures to post!! The first is of me eating yogurt on top of one of the mountains in Chamonix!!!

While nothing super interesting has happened, I'll post a small recap for those people who like to read about my life. I was in Chamonix (aka Mont Blanc), the epitome of ski resort village (they actually designed Vail and some of those places after it). I had a really great time. It was so open; like nothing I've ever seen and you could ski almost anywhere. They had the most snow they've had for Christmas in 30 years so that was pretty great!!! At first I was nervous about skiing alone but by the second day I almost came to prefer it. There was something so liberating about being up there alone and being able to do whatever I wanted. This video is of the wierdest Christmas parade ever in Chamonix.

After Chamonix, I took the train to Mirabel and checked into the hotel I shared with my friend Marion and her boyfriend Kevin. I immediately took advantage of the fact that I had a warm shower that was in my room and tried to do the same from the TV but it took a day for me to discover how it worked. (It was pretty exciting when I did though!!) Marion and Kevin arrived after a long trip and we all went out and got some pizza and beer. It was so nice after being forced into the demi-pension thing at my hostel and eating rich French dinners every night; I'm just not cut out for those! I only did about half a day of skiing in Mirabel due to the fact that I did a little something to my knee my last day in Chamonix and instead I tried to explore a little bit of the town we were staying in. Unfortunately, aside from a ger (yes the Mongolian house tent) there was not a whole lot there for me to see for free. It was quite a change from being in Chamonix and being able to hike to places like the mer de glace but I was with Marion and 2 of her and Kevin's friends from Germany so it was a different kind of fun.

After the Alps excursion, we drove back to Dijon and proceeded to leave the next day to do my field work. Marion and Kevin came with plenty of goodies including microwave popcorn, sample bottles, filters and the icing on the cake, a peristaltic pump!!! This last item was quite magical and made sampling seem relatively easy. All of the lakes were frozen over which presented a small problem but it could have been worse. Kevin was forced by the local farmer (who called Kevin Mr. Big Arms) to pull both Marion and I (the farmer thought it would be funnier to make Marion come on the boat too) across the lake and the three of us formed an icebreaker!!!

Until next time....