Simpsons | schwingeninswitzerland

When we were in Prague’s Jewish Quarter, we saw the Old-New Synagogue. I got very excited and started yammering on about the Golem of Prague. Someone asked, “wasn’t he in Lord of the Rings?”

Nope, that’s Gollum, although Tolkien may have been making an allusion to the Golem (which becomes dangerous and makes bad decisions when it gets a soul). I realized not everyone knows about the Golem, so here it goes.

The Golem is a character in Jewish folklore that is artificially created and endowed with life. Huh? In other words, it is an animated anthropomorphic being created entirely from inanimate matter. Say what?

You know how Frosty the Snowman came to life one day. It’s like that.

In the late 16th century, to protect Prague’s Jews from anti-semitic attacks, Rabbi Loew of Prague created The Golem. He took clay from the banks of the Valta River, fashioned a man from it and said incantations to bring it to life. Initially, the Golem was a big help, kind of like your own personal robot.

Unfortunately, the Golem could only follow orders. This led to some strange outcomes as he would continue doing what he’d been asked to do until he was told to stop. You can see how this could become problematic. Eventually, the Golem ran amok and had to be deactivated.

The Golem has appeared in a vast array of works including: the Simpsons (Bart finds the Golem), Michael Chabon’s novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavailer and Clay (a great read) and in various editions of Dungeons and Dragons. It even served as inspiration for Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (which she started writing in Switzerland, not far from where we live). The above statue of the Golem, looking astonishingly like Darth Vader.

We’d planned to go skiing over new year’s, but stayed home since we were sick. The following weekend, we went skiing. Let’s just say it wasn’t pretty, but it was a heck of a lot of fun.

Four couples piled into two cars and headed off to France. Since we were surrounded by mountains, we had many choices. We chose La Clusaz. La Clusaz is a pretty town with a traditional village feel, skiing for a variety of levels and a lot of runs. As you can see from the maps, it is not far from Geneva.*

It only took about an hour to get there. Unfortunately, it took a bit longer when we got into town because everyone had the same idea.

Ski rental is quite reasonable. Since we went in France, we got to pay in Euros too. We rendezvoused with the other couples on the mountain and got a quick pic before someone broke something. Thanks to the Hughes‘ for the picture. Please note how it was easier for me to twist my body to face the camera than turn around and go the right way.

We have skied before, it’s just been awhile. A long while. The last time we were on skis was about 15 years ago. Full disclosure: he’s skied once in the intervening years…in North Carolina (so it doesn’t really count as skiing).

The mountains are a little larger than they are in Michigan and I had to screw up my courage. I told myself that I’m not going to spend the winters inside and alone because I live in Switzerland and don’t ski. If I’m going to ski, there has to be a first time and there is no time like the present.

This is how I looked on my first run down the mountain. Thank goodness Wildcat was there encouraging me. She was very kind not to point like Nelson from The Simpsons and do the “ha ha”.

I was so excited to go skiing that I didn’t really notice the length of my skis at the rental place. I’m not sure if you can tell from the above photo, but my skis were just about as tall as I was. Oops. I was going a little too fast for my skill set. Once I got to the bottom, I exchanged my skis for some smaller (kid sized ones). After that, things went a bit more smoothly and I didn’t fall quite as much (although Wildcat did put up some good wipeout video on the Hughes’).

The great thing about going skiing with a bunch of foodies is that stopping for a wonderful lunch is mandatory. Just in case our 5 million burgers while we were home during the holidays weren’t enough, both of us ordered “le burger.” Quels américaines!

My legs got a bit tired part of the way through the afternoon. I’d “wisely” switched my long training run for the week from Saturday to Friday. Us ladies were embarrassed because our ski apparel wasn’t as fly as the ladies from Hot Tub Time Machine.

The guys did a few more runs and our brave friend did the blacks on snowboard! We slinked off the slopes to where we could really shine, the ice rink.