Zermatt

Last weekend was spent in the beautiful town of Zermatt with the majestic Matterhorn constantly in sight! I can not describe how incredible this town is. Hillary, Esther, Jen and I left Friday afternoon after class and took a train to Andermatt. At Andermatt we foolishly got onto the glacier express, which prides itself in being the slowest express train in the world. The entire car was windows which made it nice to see the scenery, but I bet a turtle would have gotten to Zermatt before us. Miserable! We finally arrived in Zermatt at 6:45 and the first thing you see when you get off the train are oversized golf carts that take people around town because it is a carless city!

There was only one main street in Zermatt which gave it the small town feel, but when you look at the city from above it is a lot bigger than it seems. We walked to our hostel and got there in time for the free dinner. They served the most lasagna I have ever eaten, salad, soup, bread, and ice cream! It was definitely a bargain.

Our original plan was to go rafting, but the guy at the front desk told us that water levels were too low and it would be too cold and the only thing to do in town was hike. So we decided to go up to the top of a mountain to see the Matterhorn better, and go inside a glacier! The Matterhorn is something else. There are mountains in Colorado, but this mountain is just wow.. It demands your attention and asserts its authority! We had to take 5 gondolas in total to get to glacier paradise and in the middle of the journey we stopped and hiked around the base of the Matterhorn for a bit. The view where we were was slightly obstructed by that lovely brown mountain but the best view was yet to come! When we finally got to the top of the mountain next to the Matterhorn, we were above the clouds on a ski resort! Absolutely incredible. We took this opportunity to take a lot of picture with the Matterhorn. Some were serious, others just goofy!

    

After we took picture with the mountain,we went inside the gift shop and bought tickets to descend into a glacier! It was totally work the 8 francs it costed.

Inside the glacier there were many different ice carvings, an ice slide, and even a chandelier! 

We spent 20 minutes freezing in the glacier, and then went back down all the gondolas to Zermatt. We walked around town and bought souveniers, but most importantly we got a german pretzel, and I ate a veal brautwarst! I was so proud of myself for stepping outside of my food comfort zone, and it was actually pretty good. Walking around town, we found flowers that were named Erika! Close enough to my name that is was picture worthy.

 

Before we left town, we had one last mission. We noticed on Friday night that there was a bar that was having a pretend Oktoberfest, so we decided since we aren't going to make it to Munich due to costs, we should at least participate in fake Oktoberfest and all got a stein in celebration of it! We got back late Saturday night and had all day Sunday to catch up on homework and sleep which was much needed. 

Zermatt was definitely a good place to see as it reminded me of a ski town in Colorado and made me feel at home for a little bit! If only I was able to snowboard, the weekend would have been vastly improved!