The U.S. national women's hockey team plays Switzerland on Saturday in the World Championships semifinal. Chu checked in with espnW to tell how the team was doing during the tournament.

After being in Zurich for a week and the weather being in the 70s and sunny every day, I'm ready to move my training location to Florida or California. That may be wishful thinking, but even so for the time being, we are taking full advantage of the great weather.

On off days, we spend a bit of time soaking up the rays and perhaps, my fair skinned friends have turned a few shades of red, but we are all still loving the Vitamin D.

We had a full day off Thursday and spent an incredible day in Lucerne. It was beautiful there, as the city has a river running through it and a lake at the end of it. We got a chance to see the sights of downtown for a bit, and then many of us met up with our families to share the experience with them.

A group of us decided to head to Mount Pilatus, which is a peak on top of one of the Swiss Alps. After a 40 minute gondola ride up the mountain, we stepped out to a breathtaking view. It was unbelievable at the top of the world. And maybe it wasn't Mt. Everest, but it was still spectacular there and we couldn't help but pinch ourselves to make sure we were actually sharing this incredible moment together.

Our day off in Lucerne was one we will not soon forget. We were able to recharge our mental and physical batteries as we continue to prepare for the semifinal game on Saturday.

One of the great benefits we have to this tournament is the presence of so many of our friends and family. I believe we have nearly 50 fans from home that have made the trek to see us play. That may not seem like many, but it really is considering the costs that are involved in traveling to Switzerland as well as the time off from work and school everyone has had to take.

We look up into the stands, and see our families donning the red, white and blue and cheering until they are hoarse. We are all so grateful for their support and love. I'm pretty sure if you ask any of my teammates, we would all say that we would never be able to be where we are today without our families.

Having them all around and being able to share our National team journey with them is incredible and means the world to us!