Who needs a jersey in the Swiss Alps anyway?

December 2024: interviewing the philanthropist funding the world’s largest private scholarship fund, waitressing in Switzerland, and thoughts on solo traveling…

If this is your first time here :

I'm Lisha Lovely, a young South African who loves learning 🧠, people  🫶, and all things beautiful in life 🪸. These monthly newsletters are all about sharing my meandering journey to somewhere big ⛰ (as yet undefined), as I build a life of impact and meaning.

⚠️ Beware: you are going to see pictures of me in essentially the same outfit for the next eight months. The jeans are comfy, the jacket is warm, the hiking backpack has limited space, and washing machines exist…okay?

Piccie of the month 📸

Tomato soup, friends, and thankfulness for Christmas

Okay, let’s start off by explaining that smile on my face…jerseyless in the Swiss Alps…in December?! When the sun gets shining in Mürren, Switzerland, it gets warm. This photo reminds me a lot of the Afrikaans boys in my primary school who wore shorts and T-shirts when everyone else wore tracksuits, but it was warm, I promise. Just look at my goosebump-less arm.

This Christmas, I enjoyed the simple pleasures: soaking up a bit of sun, eating a yummy tomato soup lunch at the local bistro, getting to know my lovely colleagues a bit better, and making the hotel guests’ Christmas brekkies and dindins as enjoyable as possible.

I think the absence of all the overstimulation — food, presents, Christmas decor — allowed me to focus more fully on the birthday boy: Jesus. Perhaps Christmas has evolved to become a little too much about us, and a little too little about Him. What was cool about this year’s Christmas was the clear focus on who I was celebrating.

I won’t lie, I missed my family a LOT around Christmastime. I felt like crying every time I gave them a video call, and saw them all chatting and watching the sunset over the Knysna lagoon when it had been dark here for three hours. In addition to being my first winter Christmas, and my first Christmas alone, I was also struggling to get my uni applications done to a standard which I was proud of.

But then I remembered just how lucky I am. I work in genuinely one of the most beautiful places in the world, meet lovely people all the time, and get to apply to university 💗.

Mürren, Switzerland — “genuinely one of the most beautiful places in the world”

See? I wasn’t saying it just to say it…

First impressions of snow? 1) Minecraft was spot-on with the sound effects, and, 2) It’s a myth that you need anything more than Nike trainers to walk on it (okay, the compressed part of it).

Making the most of the outdoors is really important to me. I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about snow, but I love it! It has a beauty I didn’t know before now. I’ve been taking daily walks to soak up the incredible view, I’ve done some ice skating, and I will start ski lessons tomorrow (finally got paid hehe). Also, once I got over my fear of slipping, I started running to ski destination Winteregg — such a cool route:

Though I still wholeheartedly prefer summer, I feel like weather is what you make of it. Though I guess there’s a difference between wet, rainy, windy, cold and sunny, snowy, magnificent. Man, am I glad I landed up where I did for the winter ❄️.

Also, what makes me even happier is that my bosses gave us access to the Sports Center in Mürren as a New Year’s gift. I can now use the gym and pool there. Watch me come out this winter stronger and fitter than ever 🤪. Gosh, it’s amazing what endorphins can do for me.

So, what’s it like being a working woman?

Awesome.

Over Christmas and New Year’s, Hotel Eiger is full. That means three restaurants are running. And so are we.

My responsibilities are usually breakfast buffet (setting up, serving coffee, cleaning) and dinner (either working the pass or serving). I like it a lot, because it means I have the entire afternoon off to do what I please. And I even get to bed at a decent hour, normally about 11pm.

Now that there are fewer guests it’s soooo weird because at certain points I have nothing to do. In a way, I kind of miss the stress and frantic running about, because it makes the time pass by in a flash. But at the same time, I don’t, because it’s stressful and frantic.

What’s kind of funny is that I came to Switzerland expecting to practice my German…only to find I speak the best German on the service team. The team is very United World College (in a mainly European kind of way); my colleagues come from Sweden, the UK, Greece, Ecuador, Portugal, Poland, Germany and Spain. Though the hotel business in Switzerland is legendary, I guess not many Swiss people are keen on service.

Next month I’ll do a little ‘day in the life’ video, but for now, here’s what work looks like…cocktail-training, the gals, putting down some New Year’s menus (165 CHF / R3 300 per person 🫨):

The community in Mürren is great, too. For the weeks before Christmas, a different local business would host an apéro from 5-6pm every day, where you could get free glühwein, tasty treats, and meet some locals! On New Year’s Day, there was also a little concert next to the ice skating rink:

I’m still can’t quite believe I’m being paid to be in this beautiful place for 3.5 months. Seriously, if you’re ever looking for a gap year job, please try Hotel Eiger — amazing team, amazing accommodation, amazing view, amazing town, and amazing salary.

Although this is probably one of the best waitressing jobs on the planet, I’m very happy it’s not my long-term career plan. 3.5 months of repetitively taking orders, cleaning tables, setting tables is enough for me — I crave more variation, challenge, and mental stimulation. Again, I’m so grateful to be able to go to uni 💗.

2024 ❌ 2025 ✅

I think I saw more fireworks in this tiny town than during my whole life (fireworks aren’t allowed where we usually spend New Year’s). I only felt mildly in danger, knowing that our hyperactive barman had set them up, and relished in the celebration with a glass of champagne along with my colleagues and the guests we’d been serving all night.

What’s the plan for this next year? It’s anybody’s guess.

The plan for my European travels with my friends is ‘keep it spontaneous’.

The plan for uni is ‘let’s see who lets me in the the US…and if nobody does I’ll just study for free in Germany’. On that note, I enjoyed visiting Freiburg. This German student town seems like a really cool place to study:

In the heart of the Black Forest, more bicycles than cars, and a super cute ‘old city’ centre with little waterways and weekly markets on the church square, the place just has a really great vibe. My theory is, if I like a place in winter, then surely I’ll love it in summer…?

Also on the uni note…

Of course, my first rejection letter came with that sinking feeling, some disbelief, and, naturally, disappointment. Guess what? Getting rejected from your first choice sucks. But it sucks less than I thought it would.

I took the time before receiving the decision to do a bit of journaling (shocker 😲), and I’m really glad I did. No matter the outcome, I decided to accept it with grace, trusting that the Lord has perfect plans for me, and knowing that anywhere I end up is His gift.

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

Jeremiah 29:11

Okay, so basically the moral of the story is that nothing much is certain this year — and that’s fine! What I do know is that this is one of the rare times in my life that I don’t have deadlines or a hectic work schedule, and I really want to make the most of that to get reflective (so not Lisha, lol) and ask life’s biggest questions.

Every month, I want to tackle a grey area I have, from a Christian standpoint. Starting with work, money and giving, because that’s suddenly become super relevant now that I’m working my first proper job.

So far, I’ve started seeking answers to my questions like ‘what sets philanthropic and Christian giving apart?’ and ‘does God want us to be perfectly altruistic?’, and I’m busy reading Timothy Keller’s book about work ‘Every Good Endeavor’.

I think it’s really important to examine my faith and seek satisfying answers to the big questions, really taking lots of time over it.

I’m hoping to distill my findings, revelations, and thoughts r.e. each question in a written or audio format starting next month. Maybe it’ll be helpful to you, too.

Solo traveling 🧍‍♀️

Before starting work in Switzerland, I traveled around Southern Germany a bit.

Here’s me (looking extremely sexy, I know) mid-mouthful of a Lovely-family speciality — banana in a bread roll — on the bank of the River Danube in Ulm.

Traveling alone on a budget in Europe in winter is kinda tricky. Activities like riverside picnics don’t slap as hard on a wet bench in 0 degrees as they do in summer sunshine. To stay warm you’ve got to keep moving or get inside.

It’s wonderful to walk around the towns and get a feel for the place; in Ulm, for example, I walked around the old fisherman’s quarters, toured the church with the highest dome in the world, and followed the old city wall. That only took a couple of hours, though. What then?

What struck me is this feeling that I should be spending money to fully enjoy myself. The smell of bratwurst rolls drifted through the air at the Christmas markets, coffee shops offered a warm place to sit, the Ulm Minster’s dome begged to be climbed, museums promised cool art displays, and the Main Street offered all the shops you could dream of. Resisting spending is hard, but less so when you’ve earned no money yet and have to carry all your possessions in a backpack.

So, I just went back to my hostel, which, mind you, was in the center of everything and the sort of luxury I so did not expect from a hostel (#TryHenrietta’sSleeping)…

Sadly, save for one girl who quickly popped in, the hostel was empty. Nonetheless, I’m excited about sharing these spaces with other travelers when I start traveling in earnest in April — such an awesome place to make friends and memories.

Though solo traveling offers a great opportunity for reflection and connecting closely with one’s hosts, I’m so very glad to be traveling with friends in April and beyond. There’s something special about a shared experience: having someone to marvel at the sights with, cracking a joke when looking at a statue, pulling up shared memories years later.

Interviewing Shelby Davis 🫢

After months of what must have been extremely annoying, but also effective, emails, my brother and I got the chance to conduct a written interview with Shelby Davis.

You know, the retired investor whose fund manages over $40 billion. And, very pertinently, the guy who has sent over 10 000 UWC graduates to US colleges and universities to date…I’ll soon be one of them!

Here are my key takeaways from the interview:

If you want to have money, start saving money.

💰 Save what you can: Davis encourages us to save whatever money we receive, and do so for the long-term. When he started investing, he admits he was too aggressive and speculating. When you invest what you save, realize that the process of compounding will take years, decades — and that’s why now is a great time to start!

So…does this mean we should live frugally?

I did not get the shopping habit.

🛒 Spend not, want not: Davis was born into the era of World War II and the depression that preceded it; people could not, or did not, shop. Shopping — buying stuff we want, but don’t need — is a habit. And habits can be broken 😉.

Davis himself lived in New York, but he did not buy a car, and rented on weekends. He also rented rather than purchased an apartment for at least 10 years after college.

Giving back is the best thing to do as you realize that you have been very fortunate to live in a country like ours where amazing successes are possible.

🫶 Give generously: So, once you make a bunch of money by not spending, it’s time to go crazyyyy on the spending…but not in the way you might think.

The Davises have a life philosophy that is learn, earn, return: focus the first 30 years of your life on learning, the next 30 on earning, and the last 30 (or so) on returning.

Shelby Davis is very aware that, besides hard work, there is a lot of good fortune that went into his success. He, in turn, injects a dose of good fortune into the life of every UWC graduate: the Davis UWC Scholars Program opens up the doors of US universities, and many more doors beyond. Davis hopes that we, too, are successful in the extreme and develop the habit of giving back to those who made it possible to happen, including our educational institutions. Through this behavior, we can, in turn, help enable the success of others.

I feel this responsibility deeply, and though I know I’ll probably have the most impact in my last thirty years, I want to ingrain the habit of giving back at every stage of my life. Right now, giving time for grassroots initiatives is probably more valuable than the piddly sums I could donate. What can you do to cement the habit of giving over spending?