Living in Zermatt

I slept very well in my luxurious Swiss apartment. I woke up before my alarm wen off, and just lied in bed until it did, then I got up to go down to breakfast. However, I expected a little bit more from this place in that area. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't really anything more than I'd already been getting. There was bread, cereal, some assorted fruit slices, lunch meat slices, and Swiss cheese (which I thought was very clever). I guess I was expecting breakfast here to be a little more like their expensive lunch and dinner menus. Maybe some french toast, pancakes, at least a pastry or something. Although, it was free so I had my fill of it happily.

After breakfast, I went back up to my room, showered and got ready for the day. One thing I love about hotels is that they already provide everything you need, so you don't have to use any of your own things like soap, toothpaste, and towels. This place in particular is packed full of little luxuries. I'll have a great time when I leave here, continuing my longstanding tradition of taking everything that isn't bolted to the floor. You can never have enough towels, or soaps, ashtrays, drinking glasses, silverware, tissues, or sheets. I'd take the chairs if I could fit them on my back, but they'd probably notice.

As I was just getting ready to leave, I heard a key slip into the lock on my door. They'd sent up a cleaning lady, who must have assumed I was already out of the room. I hate it when they just enter in without knocking, or doing any sort of check to make sure I'm not naked, or still in bed. Several times during my trip I've been just hanging out either in bed, or just partially clothed when the cleaning lady decides to come strolling in. This time however, I was fully clothed and already out of the showever, although only just. As she fiddled with the key I figured I'd have a little fun, and greet her at the door. Without saying a word, I placed myself right in front of the doorway, and waited for it to open. To her great suprise, there I was smiling down at here when she finally got the door open. She let out a scream, and leaped back dropping all her cleaning equipment all over the hallway. I stood there smiling, and nodded to her as if to say, "I'm still here". She backed up, and appologised profusely, and said she'd go now, and come back another time. I said that'd be great, and slowly closed the door as she gathered her things to leave. I heard her let out an embarrassed laugh from the other side of the door, as she ran to tell another cleaning lady what just happened. I sat there and laughed myself for a while, remembering the look on her face. It was absolutely priceless. I'll bet nothing even remotely like that has ever happened to her. I'm sure from now on she'll knock before entering to clean.

I had a couple arrands to run today, first of which was to figure out where to go from here. I'd talked to the Kents, who were expecting me in Colmar, France, and we worked out that the 4th or 5th would be a good time to come up. So I found a train leaving here on Sunday the 4th in the late afternoon which gets in at 10:13 in Colmar. This means I'm going to be staying here one more day, so I went back to the hotel and reserved my room for one more night. I also explained that on the day I leave, my train doesn't depart until about 5:30, so I asked if I could store my bags somewhere on that day until I leave. The lady at the desk was so nice, and she said I didn't have to check out till 1pm, and then when I did, I could leave my bags behind the desk with her.

The next order of business was to find a grocery store to get some food for today. With the help of that same lady, I found a perfect little food market just around the corner. I spent some time browsing through things, weighing costs, and remembering if I even knew how to cook certain things. I finally settled on a (very easily oven cooked) frozen pizza for lunch, and then cheeze torellini for dinner. I also bought some bananas because I'd been craving them, and some boxed cookies for dessert. I was very proud of myself, that I went down and bought groceries that I was going to cook for myself. I felt all grown up. After grocery shopping I stopped into a few little shops that weren't open yesterday. I went into a book store where they had a couple English books, however nothing I was looking for, it seems. I also looked at some beautiful music boxes I found in another shop. One day I'll have a little daughter I can buy a Swiss music box for, but until then I'll just look.

I tried to work on uploading some pictures today, but that just proved unbelievably frustrating. My laptop just isn't what it used to me. It can't even perform simple tasks anymore at any sort of decent speed. I even tried deleting everything on it that wasn't vitally importaint to free up some space, but still it just won't do it. I worked on it for about an hour and a half before I became so frustrated that I just wanted to chuck it out the window. I have so many photos that have just accumulated from times I've had no internet that any time I try to Upload them onto Flickr, my computer freaks out. After 2 hours, and I'd gotten about 2 photos uploaded, I finally gave up and decided I needed to go take a walk before I exploded. Walking was just what I needed to do.

I felt so much more calm, and peaceful staring up at the Matterhorn, and feeling the chilled wind on my face. I caught the occasional whiff of barbeque as I passed by several steak houses, and that scent mixed with the icy air brought back fond memories of family trips to Mammoth in the winter. I listened to my iPod as I walked full circle around the city. As I reached the end, I noticed a small dirt path I hadn't seen before which lead up away from the city. It headed right towards the Matterhorn, and seemed to curve way up into the mountains, so I followed the path outside the city. It was about dusk when I started off down the path, and it turned into a little "Night Hike" through the Alps. I didn't go really all that far. I followed the path up only about an hour (it went a lot further than that) until the city was far out of sight, and then I turned back. It was nice though, to see the beautiful green hills, and watch as the sun dipped down under the horizon, although coming back was a little creepy in the dark. The dead leafless trees, and winding dirt roads don't look quite as friendly in the dark by yourself when you can't see any civilization around you. But I did make it back safely, and cooked myself dinner. I managed only to destroy the kitchen a little bit, but it tasted good enough. Now I'll just hang out, relax and watch some TV. Perhaps in a bit I'll go out and smoke my pipe on the balcony. It's been so wonderful relaxing here in Zermatt.
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