Skiing in the Alps and a drug deal gone awry

Our weekend trip was lots of fun and the skiing was fantastic! Even
Nico hit the slopes (the nursery slope anyway) with his pint sized
skis, boots and helmet (which he referred to as his "special boots and
special hat". I was worried that he’d do the same thing that he did
when we tried to take him ice-skating and scream "Don’t hurt me Mommy!"
at the top of his lungs. Luckily for us, there was a moving walk-way to
take kids up to the top of the nursery slope and if there’s anything in
this life that Nico adores more than moving walk-ways, I’m not sure
what it is. Another fortunate thing was that Nico decided that his
silver helmet looked like either a motorcycle helmet or a knight’s
helmet and since knights and motorcycle riders are seriously cool in
Nico’s book, he was more than willing to wear it. When he first put it
on he decided that actually we should just bag the whole skiing notion
and instead "go riding on a motorcycle with Mommy"! He loved his ski
boots as well and contrary to my fears that he’d never put them on, the
problem was actually that he never wanted to take them off.

After two days Nico was able to ski several meters on his own as
long as he was allowed to hold his special stuffed "doggy" at the same
time. A triumph in my book! The only downside to the weekend was when I
got the idea that it’d be fun to go down the mountain on a sled with
Nico. Despite the fact that my sledding experience is limited to the
neighborhood park, I figured it’d be a piece of cake. Little did I know
that the brand of suicidal sledding practiced by the Swiss is a far cry
from anything that I’m familiar with. My sled had no brakes and no way
of steering and by the time Nico and I were halfway down the run, we
were both sobbing hysterically. At the first lift I saw, I charged into
the booth and declared to the German-only speaking patrol guy that I
wouldn’t go another inch on their demented sled. In the end we had to
be rescued and driven back up to the top of the mountain on a snow
mobile which in Nico’s eyes was just a giant motorcycle on skis. The
next day he asked if we could do it again.

On the way home we witnessed a drug sale taking place in the kid’s
car of our train. A strung out looking girl bought drugs from a wired
guy who kept his stash in his sneakers. He took her money, stuffed the
pills under a newspaper and then they both got off the train, leaving
the drugs behind (a really bad day for an addict I’d say). We examined
them for several minutes and then ended up throwing them in the
garbage. A thrilling weekend in general.