Osmond Wu

"The past two weeks may have been the two best weeks of my life. Despite witnessing the Northern Lights twice in the Arctic circle, spending Valentine’s Day in Paris with Daniel ❤️, and sharing incredibly precious bonding time with my boy Nolan during our quick trip in Geneva, Brig—a tiny ski town with only 12,000 people—emerged as the winner of all.

The people were what made this trip incredibly special. However, the perplexing thing is that the Briggerton lineup was pretty damn random. The lineup consisted of Dshiggy, Nolan, George, and Kirsten.

Daniel and Nolan are some of my closest friends, so it made sense that we were going to have an incredible time. The feeling of reuniting with my boys from college after a tough 2 months of adapting to a completely foreign environment, while constantly missing home, was borderline orgasmic. I felt so at ease and comfortable in my own skin with the people I trusted and loved.

But I dead-ass met George for the first time and barely knew Kirsten before this trip. Yet interacting with George felt like we’ve known each other forever. His curiosity, energy, and genuinity were literally oozing. Getting to know Kirsten better showed me how interesting, intelligent, goofy, and much of a straight-chiller she is.

Every moment of the 48 hours in Brig in itself was amazing. But here are a few that stood out to me:

1) playing the most peculiar game of categories with George and Kirsten: we literally played geographical, scientific, and mathematical games of categories for 2.5 hours😭. During that train ride, I realized how knowledgeable George is and how funny, vibey, and terrible Kirsten is at geography 🇲🇦

2) 1st night Kings Cup 👑: Kings Cup was so so so fun because we got to bond over some disgustingly cheesed wine. During the game, I got to experience the banter that I so miss with Daniel and Nolan. And I got to learn so much more about George and Kirsten in a rowdy and fun setting. I will forever remember the celebrations of the boys when Kirsten got the last King, which meant she had to sleep on the couch (ALLEZ ALLEZ ALLEZ!)— S.O to Kirsten for taking the loss like an absolute CHAMP.

3) getting flipped off and then out-skied by a literal 6 year old ⛷😱: Kirsten and I were chilling on top of a hill when the cutest Swiss kid came and started yapping to us in German. We couldn’t understand her so she started throwing snow at us. After a couple mins of snow fighting, she proceeds to shockingly flip me off and ski off the nastiest route. This was a comically beautiful moment that was the cherry of our beautiful ski session.

4) listening to space song by Beach House and seeing everyone else snow fight amidst the backdrop of a serene snowy sunset 🌅 🏔️ This was precisely the moment I realized how special the trip was. The incredible amounts of presence, genuinity, and fun were almost overwhelming. At that very moment, I realized how grateful I am to have these wonderful people around me — and how fortunate I am to have a healthy body and mind to experience such wonders. I lived a rare moment of pure happiness where I thought about absolutely nothing but the moment I was in.

This serendipitous concoction of friends made me realize how lucky I am to be surrounded by these amazing people. I have never been so present in my life as I have done in the past two weeks. Life really is an incredible gift. Despite society and our surroundings often clouding the simplicity of happiness, it’s moments like these–right before us—that truly illuminate its pure and uncomplicated essence.

written in Geneva, Switzerland

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A magical time in Brig