tripZermatt2

Then we walked to a local bar and had dinner. The bar was called the North Wall and made excellent pizza. It also had a big screen TV and we sat and watched some of the Olympics. I had totally forgotten what that reality was like. TV, Olympics, pizza and beer; it was very reminisant for me. After dinner we went to the cinema. The movie theatre was not a theater at all, it was a bar with lounge chairs, little tables and this huge screen on one side of the room. It was wonderfully comfortable. We saw Me, Myself and Irene, (in English with French and German subtitles). I was soo excited when I saw the scene at the train station in Burlington and for a moment I had a glimpse of homesickness. It was the most beautiful thing to see at that point in the evening. Parts of that movie were hysterical but for me the scene from home made the whole movie worth while. After the movie we walked back up to the hostile to check the kids and in and they were all there safe and sound so we put them to bed knowing that tomorrow would be a big day.

At that point I was so completely exhausted that even my husbands snoring didn't keep me up (thank goodness). The next morning came early and the view of the sun hitting the side of the Matterhorn from our bedroom window forced me to jump out of bed and grab my camera. We got all the kids up and were headed up yet another train to the Gorgengratt at 3, 500 meters where we were going to hike down. Now keep in mind that this hike is with totally different clientel than last weekends hike. These kids were not hikers and in fact Jian Jia had on little sneakers and white jeans.

At the top of Gorgengrattt there is a nice restaurant and gift shop and I made it successfully through that area without spending any money but then out of the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of a local artist selling his watercolors and in fact this one painting caught my eye before the artist did. It was a watercolor of the oldest guide Irich,( that had mentioned from the muesum, ) in front of the Matterhorn. I just loved it so I talked the artist down and told him I could only give a certain amount and he agreed so I straped it to my pack and left with a beautiful watercolor that I simply love.

The hike down began with snow up to our calves. My husband Al and I were dressed okay but some of the kids were slidding on the slippery snow in some of the steep parts. For the most part though the kids took off together down the mountain and Al and I stayed back with some of the kids that were having a rougher time. After a few hours we joined back up with everyone and headed down the rest of the way together. Once the Matterhorn was out of site we stopped in little shaded part for some lunch that we had bought at the Coop earlier. It was just bread, cheese, fruits nutts, and vegeies but it was delicious. The hike down took from about 10:00 am until around 3:30 in the afternoon but that was a pretty leasurely decent.

We had two kids that were pretty sore. One hurt his toes with the contant downhill and the wrong shoes but we warned them of that. The other, hurt her ankle but it wasn't anything serious, just a bit sore. I am sure that she rolled it quite a few times on the way down.

We gave the kids until 6:30 to hang out and then we met back at the North Wall Bar for dinner. Again we watched the Olympics and stuffed our faces. The kids left quickly after dinner and Al and I stayed and talked to the owner and had another beer. It was a relaxing evening. After the drink we walked Jian Jia back to the hostile because she was the one that had rolled her ankle and she wanted to go to bed. Al and I sat around and he tried to convience me of the greatness of Star Trek- the next generation but after a few hours of conversation I am still not convinced. At 11:00 we had agreed to meet the kids to take back the ones who wanted to go back to the hostile and bring the ones that wanted to go to the disco to go dancing.

Now school procedure is to breathilize kids to make sure that they are not drinking because no one should be drinking (seniors can drink in three weeks). Unfortunately we caught two of our lovely children with alcohol on their breath so Al brought those kids to the hostile and couldn't come to the disco, but I went and took my Russian children. It was pretty fun but we really didn't dance much. We pretty much sat around and talked but that was really cool too. I brought the kids back to the hostile at 1:30. I was exhausted and thought that I could fall asleep but the snoring this night was an issue so sleep didn't really happen much.

The following morning we were able to sleep in a bit and caught the train out of town at 10:10. It was yet another beautiful day so the scenery down on the cog was perfect. We stopped in Martiney along with many other facutly families for the afternoon. First we brought our kids to the Muesem to the Van Gogh exhibit. That was great!!! Then more free time for lunch and we met back for the train to Leysin at 4:00. After we set the kids free Al and I walked around Martiney a little. We went to an old Roman ampatheatre (don't know how to spell that). It was still the original stones. Very cool. Then we had shared a spinach crepe, I didn't know that crepes existed that weren't dessert. I picked up a frame for my watercolor and we were on our train home. It was a wonderful three days.

Zermatt Family trip Continued.... click here to return to Zermatt trip page 1