Happy Birthday TTTTTTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

thirty-five years young right??????????????? hehehehe...

Great Eats Swiss-Style (and fresh too…literally!)

So, I wanted to post a separate blog here about the food and service in Zermatt...because it deserves its own posting...it was great...really great...granted, we couldn't find a restaurant that was even close to average priced...average price there is expensive everywhere else...and expensive there is ridiculously expensive everywhere else...

anyways, we bucked up, and just ate well...and it was great...the service was always really good...it was the kind of service where they treated you like you were a guest in their house...and just catered to you and tried to anticipate what else you wanted...good stuff...

for our last night, we ate at this restaurant...Chez Max Julen...that we couldn't get into the night before cause its always packed...so, i wanted to eat seafood cause we hit the red meats pretty hard the other nights...

so, i see trout on the menu...which i would say is rare (you always see bass, cod, salmon, tuna, etc. etc.)...anyways, i tell the waitress that i wanted trout...and she says "you can pick it yourself or i can pick it for you"...at that point, i didn't understand what was going on and just nodded my head and said you can pick it i guess...i thought it was just something lost in translation or something...

we were by one of the windows...i was facing the window and m was against the window facing the restaurant...anyways, behind me, m sees the waitress take out this big ol' net...m was like "what is going on"...i turn back to check it out, and see the waitress dip the net into this big ol' tank (which i didn't even notice at all when we walked in the restaurant) and yank out my TROUT!...i was like "holy shhhhh"...that is going to be really fresh fish!!!

here is the view of the fish tank from where we were sitting...those things are huge...
and...20 minutes later...the fish is on my plate...the waitress deboned it in front of me and everything...tasted spectacular...

an addendum to waterloo's march 24th 1:50pm CST post

...i'm seriously not that afraid of heights, even though the pictures appear differently to all of you. but waterloo and i routinely make the *quivering lip* face whenever we are fake-sad, or fake-scared, or maybe even really sad (ie: whenever we leave gus) or really scared (ie: whenever waterloo is high up in the air). we try to make things into a bigger deal than they are, and it helps take the sadness/scared-ness away.

so the pictures below are just of me imitating how waterloo was really feeling deep inside, but didn't want to show everyone. good ole fear. he's a wimp!

and he's not kidding when he says his hands sweat just thinking about it. it's gross.

Fear of Heights!

Okay…despite all the boarding I have done over the last five or so years…I still can’t ever shake my fear of heights…and being in Zermatt is as freaky a place as any to reinforce my fear…most of the time, we rode on gondolas and sky trams…which can go much much higher than a regular chair lift and usually bridge gaps through these big valleys and crevices (as I type this, my hands just started sweating profusely even thinking about how high we got)…the key is to really just look out in the distance to enjoy the view…but obviously, I always decide to just look straight down every minute or so, at which point my knees buckle a bit, my sweat glands work over time, and I try to figure out my escape route if the darn thing just snaps and falls to the ground (how do I save M? how do I save myself? Do we try to cushion the blow by trying to crowd against the fattest person on the tram? Should I cover my head? Should we use our boards as a sort of shield? If we fall, I hope we fall on a down slope or a place without jagged rocks…maybe a powder stack?)…anyways, this scenario plays itself out at least five times during every lift ride…

So, here are a couple of funny pics of m freaking out on a couple of the lifts…m isn’t generally afraid of heights, but this trip was an exception cause I definitely smelled fear…these pics are ABSOLUTELY HILARIOUS!

Zermatt, Switzerland (and Cervinia, Italy too)

As I stated in the previous blog, Zermatt is basically your picturesque swiss ski town at the end of this amazing valley…surrounded by the mammoth alps…the valley that ends with the Matterhorn...on the other side of the Matterhorn is the Italian side which I discuss later...

Zermatt is an interesting little town because I can't quite figure out what a "local" really is...since Zermatt is basically on the border of Switzerland and Italy, you constantly here Swiss-German and Italian being spoken (with multi-lingual signs everywhere as well)...additionally, the southeastern tip of Switzerland is heavily French speaking also...so, you can add that language to the mix...so, we heard every form of hello, goodbye and thank you...so, i just stuck with english because i didn't know if i was saying ciao to a German or a French dude...or danke schoen to an Italian guy...

So, its Saturday night 21 March as I write this…I’m in the hotel room here in Zermatt…I may as well write about our time here to keep the posts going on the blog…even though I won’t upload this until we get back on Monday night…so, here’s the first three days of the trip…

Thursday the 19th

This whole day was dedicated to travel as it takes a while to get over here to Zermatt…it was seriously planes trains and automobiles…we got up at 4am as we had an 8am flight, but still needed to make it all the way to Gatwick…so, we had a car service pick us up at 5am sharp to get us to Victoria station…from there, we took the 530 Gatwick Xpress which was a quick 30 minute train ride…then we loaded into the long long long long line for EasyJet customers…flights are cheap, but when they say no frills…it really is no frills…anyways, our flight ended up being an hour delayed, which was annoying…but oh well, they smell…

So, we landed in Geneva…it was about a 90 minute flight I think…from there, we picked up our luggage and took a few escalators to get to the train station…Geneva is about a four hour train ride to Zermatt…it isn’t a high speed ride or anything…it makes a bunch of stops…but its pretty sweet… swiss trains are well known around the world…so, we bucked up and paid for first class round trip tix…it was a great scenic train ride…Geneva is on the southeast tip of Lake Geneva, so we ended up riding the length of the lakeside (which was at least an hour, maybe more)…with the big ol’ lake in front of us, and the mountains behind it, it was sweet…after the lake, it was of course the mountains…so, we had to connect at Visp…which was 3 hours in…then took the last hour on this old school train…it was really nice…it went very slow because it was winding through the valley…took about 4 stops before it ended up at Zermatt, which was the very end of the valley…it was definitely worth the full day trip…we ended up getting to Zermatt before 5ish…

So, we roll into the station at Zermatt…and the thing about Zermatt is that its a car-free town…no gas cars at all…they only have these cabs which are electric…and the cabs are really tiny…really thin and stiff passenger cars which may fit 6 if your lucky and ride like golf carts…the wing span of my arms is definitely longer than the width of these cars…so, there’s probably 100 total cars in the whole village…most of them are really just owned by the hotels for shuttling guests back and forth to the station…so, no stop signs…no stop lights…

We went to get our rental gear…we went to the first shop and they just had mid-tier burton gear…I can’t have that…so, we found the most popular place in Zermatt for boarders…it was a bit of a walk…but worth it…I ended up with a brand new twin tip Burton Dominant (same board I road in Ischgl) with Cartel bindings…when I say brand new, I mean that they ran out of rental Dominants, and the guy just went to the sales rack and pulled a new dominant out…ripped of the stickers, and gave it to me…m ended up with a sweet kit as well…she got a burton lex…good board, but she liked the fact that it was purple and white and her bindings were white…and since her jacket was white…and her goggles were purple and white, then it was a win win win win for her…she was excited…what a loser…

Friday the 20th

Ok…so, we have breakfast at the hotel cause its included…typical European breakfast…different cold meats including salmon, fruit, lots of cheese (lactose heart attack), lots of different breads and spread…the one thing I liked was the honey, which I just had with a couple of croissants…the honey was in this old school wooden tub…it looked like a hollowed out tree stump…anyways, you dipped the spoon into the tub and it was the thickest honey ever…it was definitely very rich…so I needed the croissants to dilute it…as I couldn’t just eat it straight which is what I’ve been known to do…hehehehe…

The hotel is about 50 yards from the main gondola…so, very close…we walked over and got our 3 day “International” pass…International is because the actual ski area is about half on the Swiss side and half on the Italian side…but since it was our first day, we just stuck to the Swiss side because that was more than enough for us…

As I mentioned in a previous blog, Europeans definitely love their snow sports and Switzerland is no different…the lifts were world class…most of the time, we were riding in different gondolas…then we rode a couple of trams…and then this weird funnel train or whatever it is (basically this slanted 45 degree angle train that just goes straight through the inside of the mountain)…the most picturesque part of the swiss side though was that this regular ol’ choo choo train went from the bottom to almost the top of the mountain…never seen that before…it must be one of the highest trains in the world…we were probably near 10,000 feet up when we got on the train to get back down to the village (since M didn’t want to ride down…it would have taken us forever to get down…probably a 3-4 mile run from there)…anyways, it was just pure railroad tracks winding down the mountain…so, if you don’t like heights, you can seriously just get on a freakin’ train to ride the slopes…crazy…

The snow was okay…it was basically hard pack…but at least it too icey…but you could definitely still hear the grinding…but everything was so well groomed that it was smooth riding…we had to stay on the piste though…because off piste was treacherous…it was basically concrete…apparently, they’ve had the most snow this season in years and years…and when the powder hit, everyone hit it…the issue was, when it got cold, everything froze off piste…so, if you went off the beaten path, then you had issues with such uneven terrain…and it was hard hard hard…

Although there is no snow forecast while we are here…the huge positive side was that its forecast to be completely sunny…so, our first day was completely sunny, just a couple of lazy clouds…and tomorrow (which is actually today as I write this) was even better…not one cloud in the sky at all…so, the sun was beating down despite it being cold…the issue was that we had to watch out for sunburn and the dreaded raccoon face…we’ve seen some very very bad raccoon faces since we’ve been here…and everyone seems to be completely burnt...we definitely got burnt so far, but were able to at least keep our faces an even color for now at least…

Saturday the 21st

Okay…so, today was the second day of riding…and it was a cloudless sky…absolutely beautiful…we ventured off to ride on the Italian side of the ski area…anyways, the ski area is absolutely massive…it dwarfs every ski resort I’ve ever been too…I swear that its bigger than park city, vail, heavenly, and mt. hood combined…

In order to get to the Italian side which is called Cervinia…we had to cross over to the other side of the Matterhorn…first we had to take the gondola through two mid stations…then got off to board a sky tram to a second midway point…then got off that to board another sky tram to the very highest lift in the ski area…12,736 feet up…yikes…apparently, it’s the highest lift in all of Europe which says quite a lot…here is a pic of the sign...So, the journey continues in that we had to board down from there to get to this other peak…where we got on another sky tram to ride down the Cervinia side (we could have ridden all the way down, but it would have been very challenging for M)…the sky tram led us to this last and final gondola, where we road it down to an area where we could finally finally board down a reasonable run…so, from the start to the finish here, it took probably 90 minutes to even begin to board…so, it was more of a scenic tour rather than riding…

Anyways, the Cervinia side was absolutely lovely because we found this run that was easy enough for M to hit and was picturesque in that you rode down through the valley to the town…it was sweet and we hit that run a couple of times…

Now, getting back to Zermatt from Cervinia was definitely much harder…because we had to take a little different route…and ride through this valley at the top where the wind was ridiculous and it was much colder (imagine little pellets of ice being shot at you with 30-40 mph winds…it hurts)…additionally, the run flattened out in parts, so m had a difficult time gaining enough speed to get through them…so, lots of unstrapping and walking…oh well…I had a lot of time to rest and enjoy the view, while waiting for princess to catch up…hehehehe…

here is a one of my favorite pics of the trip...this is probably near 11,000 feet up as we were making our way down on a cat trail to this other lift...

Hitting Zermatt...

So, we just got back from a five-day trip to Zermatt...this ski resort in Switzerland...THE ski resort in Switzerland...Zermatt is one of the most well known resorts in the world actually...always rated in the top five in the world in most every ranking...so, since we are here in Europe, may as well check out the best the Alps has to offer...here is a description of Zermatt on a random ski website...

"This is what everybody imagines a ski resort to look like. Perfect for the top of a chocolate box picture. Known for its beautiful scenery and location in the Matter Valley on the Swiss and Italian border, Zematt offers a panorama of 33 4,000m peaks including the Matterhorn."

Here is a quick pic i took of the famed Matterhorn from our hotel...

guinness and saint paddy...

so, just had a "quick drink" (equals three pints of guinness) after work at a couple of pubs (which is actually a normal day for me it seems nowadays)...anyways, the last place we went to was offering a free hat with every guinness ordered...so, i got this hat and gave it to m....on the back of the hat, it says happy st. patrick's day 2009...but the front is more interesting...250 years of G...its older than America...sweet...i can actually say i got addicted to G in their 250th year...yeah yeah yeah (inside joke)...and also visited dublin and the home of guinness in the 250th year...yeah yeah yeah...