May 1997 Our second trip took us to the little village of Saas-Fee only because it is one of the biggest glacier-skiing areas in Europe. Flew into Zurich and installed ourselves into a hire car. As Malin had this idea that the best exchange rate is achieved in the country ofthe currency, no Swiss moneywas bought before our arrival and as we got there somehow we just ended up on the road. So, we had no money and in Switzerland there are no cash machines at the servicestations along the motorway.  It took until about six a'clock until we got even the smallest amount of nourishment into our empty stomachs. Lovely country, but we soon realised what the Swiss do when they get bored. Dig tunnels. And we took one in the form as a car-train-tunnel under the Gasterntalmountains. We arrived in Saas-fee late at night and found ourselves a roof over our heads. The car had to stay in a garage at the entrance of the resort. Later on in the evening as we walked around the village to fill our exhaust-fume filled lungs with fresh crisp mountain air we noticed that it was very quiet. But wasn't it a bit too quiet? The following morning we realised that the winter season had ended just a few days before our arrival and the resort had all but closed down to gain new energy for a new season.The aim for the trip was to turn Malin into a snowboarder-chick but it ended in total failure, not because the teacher was not good enough, Steve, but more because to a total beginner a draglift is one of the most scariest things on Earth and the only lifts open were drags, in all meanings. Eventhough wearing comfortable snowboard boots, trodding up the slopes at 3,000 meters above sea level is a mission of its own and after only a few times we where both completely shattered. The next couple ofdays were spent, in Malin's case, on two planks rather than one, so Steve could not go home with a trendy boarder chick. Never mind. The slopes were uncrowded for the first couple of days until the local snowboarder kids turned up for the weekend.They where d*m good. Even though the sun was beating down on the mountain every day, the snow conditions were kept gorgoeus at the glacier covered top of the mountain. Though inthe rest of the valley, snow had been exchanged for spring flowers.  We left Saas Fee with an ambition to return soon and headed back to Zurich, stopping off at a lovely little town called Zug, on the edge of the Zuger See (lake Zuger). And waived our goodbyes for this time.