At Hotel Tannenhof, we get breakfast with muesli, flaxseeds, prunes, fruit, many cereals, sunflower seeds, Brie, hibiscus tea, fresh breadS, soft boiled eggs, and select cold cuts. The budget-conscious Swiss are eating better than Americans that’s for sure. Pat and I tasted the eggs but couldn’t finish them. We’re not much for runny yolks, sorry. I smuggled extra bread, brie, and a tangerine out.

We then had a comedy of errors where each of us kept forgetting some skiing paraphernalia and I had to keep going back to the room on the third floor walk-up from the basement. It’s important to note here that it is quite common to keep one’s skis, etc in a common storage unit at your hotel. The hotel doesn’t want water everywhere, and your sense of “this is my stuff and everyone is a thief” goes out the door. There is a tacit understanding that stealing is in bad taste, and everyone is on their best behavior. In a ski village you just leave your skis outside all the time. My skis have never gone missing. Thieves don’t hang out on the slopes.

We walked out to the main road finally where we got our 2-day ski passes. That first day we skied Gornergrat. The slopes became blustery and dark by 2PM. The snow soft and wet. Every fall was heavenly compared to ones we’ve felt before. Barely anyone on the slopes with us – we wondered if we’d been abandoned. The blues were supposed to be greens, but I contend that they were in fact blues. My first run was enough to make me want to quit, but I managed 2 more runs. Pat was kind to wait for me as I constantly fell and had enough time to take the picture below when he completed run 4 without me. We were surrounded by true beauty. At one point, Pat exclaimed that ‘God was the perfect architect,’ and he is right.

Day 2 I woke up sore all over and with a crick in my neck. No excuses, I was done skiing. I still followed Pat from slope to slope taking in the scenery. Gorgeous!!

The rest of Sunday and early Monday was spent buying Swiss chocolate and running for trains, trains, trains, and a plane. We snuck in one meal in Zurich – Thai food. Pat refused to eat more than three bites of Lily’s Pad Thai so another 45CHF flew out of our pockets. We’ll come back and eat Switzerland.