Today was a long day of traveling! It started off pretty well in that we woke up on time, had our chores and last minute things done around the house, but still had to turn around twice to get passports and Kevin's wallet :) Good thing we never got farther than 1 block away from our house!

For the Switzerland portion of the trip, our friends Jason and Rachelle are joining us and we met up with them at the airport. Our flight from Chicago to Atlanta was nice as all four of us were upgraded to first class and enjoyed the extra room. The trouble started once everyone had boarded in Atlanta; we were on the runway and the left engine generator was not functioning correctly. Keely had already fallen asleep and had a rude awakening when she learned we were back at the gate instead of flying over the ocean! After returning to the gate and sitting on the plane for a while we were told to deplane so they could perform maintenance. We got a round of Euchre in (the girls won!) and had a snack while we waited...and waited. Total delay was about 5 ½ hours though the pilots were able to make up about an hour of it on the way to Zurich.

Finally, we arrived in Zurich, and it was perfect timing with no lines at customs, we got our bags quickly, and we were off to figure out the train schedules to Zermatt. Lucky for us there was a train leaving in 40 minutes which gave us time to find an ATM and a snack before boarding our train. The ride was about 3 1/2 hours long through the city of Zurich and along the sides of mountains and through ravines. The scenery out in the country was beautiful - green fields with snow peaked mountains in the background. The architecture of the homes, barns and buildings is just as you'd imagine. We rode on two different trains, on the first one we sat on the second level to get a little bit higher view of everything, so that was nice. The second train had huge windows so that you could see all the way down into the huge ravine that you were traveling perilously close to!

When we arrived in Zermatt a porter from our hotel met us at the train station in an electric mini car (no gas powered vehicles are allowed in Zermatt). It was a tight squeeze but it fit all of us and our luggage. We checked into our hotel, rented skis for tomorrow and then took a walk around town. The town of Zermatt is small since you can walk to most things in 10 minutes or less, but it is quite nice as well as bustling with people. There are tons of restaurants, stores, and best of all…chocolatiers! Everyone was pretty tired after our day of travel so we opted for some pizza and called it a night.

The boys are going skiing tomorrow and there is a chance of snow every day this week!

Keely