white friday

so, i was scheduled to go to vevey, switzerland yesterday for a holiday lunch, which i was quite looking forward to. however, the day before we were supposed to got, the weather forecast predicted snow for london AND the rest of europe. the alarm went off at 3:55 am on friday morning and london was clear, so our team headed out to heathrow to await our 7 am flight to geneva. there was no sign of delay, but 7 am came and went and the airport staff announced that geneva airport was closed until 9 am (8 am UK time). we called the people we were supposed to meet for lunch, who assured us that while it was indeed snowing in switzerland it wasn't a "disaster" and that we should plan to fly in whenever the airport opened. our team had a spirited debate about whether we should go or not, since we had to fly BACK to london that night, and in the end decided to roll the dice and fly out for lunch as planned.

we landed in geneva to a white-out situation and found ourselves wondering if we were crazy for flying out of a perfectly snow-free city into a winter wonderland. but, the trains were still running fine so on we went to vevey! once we started to get around lake geneva, the weather cleared a little and it was a really pretty ride. vevey was very snowy and it made it look like a little postcard town:



however, as we ate lunch, it started snowing again. hard. by the time we came out of the restaurant, it was hard to see the lake that was only a few feet away:





yikies. we piled BACK onto the train to geneva and i got a text with this picture of london from adam:



london absolutely cannot deal with snow, so this was more alarming than the snow in geneva. luckily we were flying to heathrow and not city, which closes at the first sign of heavy rain. however, our flight was slightly delayed anyway because heathrow had a backlog from having to clear its runways! but, i think we were lucky to get out of geneva at all because a lot of flights were either really severely delayed or cancelled. we were only an hour late, which is pretty good given the weather on both sides.

fifteen hours after my 3:55 am wakeup call, two planes, two trains, and two cab rides later, i was back in my warm and cozy room snuggled up next to my little christmas tree. adam brought curry takeaway over, which i ate...in bed. :-) not a bad day overall albeit exhausting!



merry Christmas from london!