Ali- It all began on Thursday evening when we went to dinner at my Collegue’s house. Andreas Serra is the nephrologist who pays most of my salary here and runs a boutique clinic for autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease patients. We were chatting over dinner about Sportferien plans (Sportferien being the 2 week school holiday in Feb whose sole purpose is to assure Swiss kids get in a decent amount of skiing) and I mentioned that I had an interest in checking out the White Turf races in St. Moritz. I had read about these crazy horse races on a frozen lake including the unbelievable skijoring event where people actually ski behind running horses and said to myself, “well how the heck could we not go see that???” Next thing we know, Andreas is slapping keys down on the table and saying we should stay at his house in Latsch, as it is a mere 45 minutes from St Moritz. A computer comes out and he shows me several pictures of a nondescript Swiss chalet covered in snow and wrote down a bunch of vague instructions about going to Bergün and calling for a bus.
Realizing the supplied information was going to be woefully insufficient, I asked for an address. Andreas looked at me and said, “Oh there are no addresses; just ask for House Serra!” Err ok. I looked down at the keyring, which held about 10 keys and asked which one we needed and he said,”I’m not really sure;try them all!” Err ok.
Any further querries or second thoughts were cut short as we realized we had to make haste to catch the train back to our place as Maya had her last day of school before Sportferien in the morning. So with keys and vague instructions in hand, we were committed to a weekend adventure.
Saturday morning we headed for the train to Bergün. Andreas had emailed that morning to make sure we made the 9:37 train so we could catch the bus to Latsch. It was now 10:30 and we were clearly not catching that bus. We arrive in Bergün, a cute winter wonderland, to the scene of children and adults hauling sleds and skis all over town. A quick google mapping told us that Latsch was straight up at the top of a 45 minute switchback trail looking down on Bergün. We were willing to make the hike but realized we had zero idea where we were going and decided to trust to the local knowledge of a taxi driver. After a 10 minute race up a snow covered mountain road we reached Latsch. Our driver, who didn’t know House Serra, was surprisingly game to play help the tourists break into a random house in Latsch. He proceeded to take us by several potentials and played lookout and get-away driver while I nervously tried all 10 keys. Finally a local Latschian apparently gave him some directions and we found ourselves in front of a house …house 18 to be exact, which seems a heck of a lot like a house with an address. 
The second key worked and we were in. We paid our taxi driver his 30 CHF fare, which frankly seemed appropriate for the ride and the assisted break-ins. The Chalet was fantastic, with at least a 10 degree slope to the floors and ponderously huge pieces of ancient furniture. 
We settled in for a moment and then headed back off to find the foot trail back down to Bergün to check out options for winter activities.
The foot path was a snow and ice covered trail about 2 feet wide that hung on the side of the mountain. It provided spectacular views of the town and surroundings alps.
After about 20 minutes we had slid and stumbled back into Bergün and found one of the local sport rental shops. After we butchered the German language a bit telling the rental folk about our interests in activities, a delightful British lady switched into English to provide a detailed itinerary for our weekend: Sunday morning at 9 am we would go Langlaufen (cross country skiing); then we would catch the 12:15 train to St Moritz to catch the Skijoring; then take the train back to the next town up- Preda- and rent schlitten (sleds) that we would ride back to Bergün. Boom. Done.
Sunday morning we take off from the rental place, cross country skis in hand to find the local track. It was Maya’s first time on cross country skis and she exhibited some nervousness. Joe and I hadn’t been on cross country skis in about 10 years either but I had yet to hear of tragic cross country skiing accident so had high confidence that we would all survive. The Swiss are pretty serious about their Langlaufen and have some pretty well groomed tracks. Maya picked it up remarkably fast though of course I took pictures mostly during the moments when she was stuck like an upside down turtle in the snow.
Cross country skiing is apparently the perfect cardiovascular activity and we had stripped down to minimal gear by the time we called it quits but ordered hot drinks anyway at the local bakery to go with our well-deserved pastries.
We arrived in St Moritz, having spent the whole ride joking about all the Russians in fur we were going to be hanging out with. After all, according to the Switzerland Second promotional video, St. Moritz is a town built entirely for Russians. I have to say we weren’t disappointed. Here is a picture of Joe pointing at the guy with ‘Russia’ written across his back, as if the fur covered woman and the small dog in the bag weren’t enough to clue people in. I had to take a picture of the James Bond From Russia with Love bad guy stand in as well. 
So I’m not much for horse racing in general but I was super excited to see someone try to ski behind a racing horse. But alas we arrived just as the race was starting and missed the action. Here you can just see one of the racers in the background probably trying to scrape the horse poo off his skis. 
We stayed to watch a couple other less Swiss type events and enjoyed the amazing scenery as well as the interesting experience of knowing we were in the bottom 1% of the income distribution of everyone within 100 meters. Luckily being Switzerland there was still a Wurst stand within sight despite more of a caviar ambiance. 
Maya was soon bored of horses and Russians and we headed back to Preda. Sure enough, a sled rental place was located right at the train station and we got three very traditional looking sleds. This was my first Swiss sledding experience, though Maya had already had a sledding ausflug (all purpose Swiss term for a team outing) with her class so knew the basics of steering. However after careening down an icy sled route for 20 minutes I got the hang of it. Its all about hovering your feet out in front of you above the ground as you plummet down the hill and then applying gentle dragging of a foot on the side to which you want to turn when the need arises. 
For me this was the highlight (sorry Russians). There are no brakes on the sled and you can attain impressive speed. The trail, which goes between towns, takes about 40 minutes or so, which is more durable fun than a lot of activities and something you just wouldn’t find in the States.
So we got back to Zurich around 7pm and declared the whole seat-of-our-pants weekend a success. If nothing else, Switzerland has taught us that firm plans and addresses are hardly needed to find fun.
