The Land of Chocolate and Cheese--Oh, and Skiing!
I’ve gotten stuck again as reflections have become increasingly more difficult for me. Processing my thoughts in one country when experiencing a completely different one is challenging because my headspace gets fully occupied by taking in new sounds, smells, and experiences, not to mention to the traveling logistics and homeschooling. This is precisely what happened between Switzerland and Morocco…
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Zermatt, Switzerland…the land of cheese, chocolate, and skiing next to the Matterhorn. To spend three weeks here (the longest time we’ve rested our heads in one place in 7 months), was such a wonderfully strange experience for me.
Switzerland feels like an eternity ago, though in reality, only 14 days have passed. Our time in Zermatt was a break from active academic/cultural learning of our travel destinations. So apart from the two weekend trips we took to nearby Swiss cities (Lausanne and Interlaken), Switzerland, for us, was all about one thing—SKIING!
Why Switzerland?
Years ago, when Kapil and I began dreaming about our trip skeleton, we threw in a couple of our wishes. Mine revolved around volunteer service and culture and Kapil’s around nature and physical activity. His only non-negotiable dream was for us to spend three weeks skiing as a family. When looking for an all-around mountain ski village that had the best probability of skiing for everyone, Zermatt seemed like a good place to achieve our goals.
Kapil has always loved skiing and over the past 8 years, he has participated in a (rather exclusive) annual boys’ ski trip with three friends. They choose a ski/snowboard destination and (with the blessings of their partners) they ski/snowboard hard for three-four days. This worked really well for us as a family because it meant that Kapil could dedicate the ski season to the kids—holding ski leashes and/or skiing with the kids on green and blue runs.
The 2017-18 ski season was the first in which all 5 of us were on the slopes at the same time. I was not in some reproductive stage (no joke—that’s been my reality for like 14 years) and all three kids were independent enough to spend the days in their separate ski schools (at different levels).
Well, our time in Zermatt, took this skiing concept to a whole new level.
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Skiing in Switzerland
We arrived by train (from Zurich) just before a massive snow dump, yielding almost a foot of fresh powder! During the snowy next day, we got fitted for our ski/boot rentals, bought our passes, and figured out ski school. Fortunately for our enjoyment, but unfortunately for our wallet, children’s ski schools in Zermatt were closed, as it was their slow time. We found an awesome ski school that worked with us (Summit Ski School) and gave us a discount on two private instructors to work with our varied skill-levels, as a family. Little did we know that time, that our instructors, Jacob and Alex, would stay with us for all three weeks and become family.
I will never forget that first day of skiing. Our rental chalet was on the ski run, or piste (as they say in Europe) and we walked twenty minutes down to our rental shop in the valley (Bayard) to grab our skis and meet our instructors. Like any good Californian skiing family, we brought our sandwiches with us in our backpack and were ready to hit the slopes for the day.
We met Jacob and Alex who are both from the UK and are just awesome guys. They were energetic, funny, patient, and had absolutely beautiful skiing forms. We quickly decided who would go with who—Zayan and I would go with Alex and Kenza and Kaysee, with Jacob. Kapil would float around and hit his own runs.
The few days were all about getting to know the mountain. Zermatt is a fantastic mountain for intermediate skiers. There are a ton of Red runs (our equivalent of Blue Squares) and several Blacks (which are our Black Diamonds). The lifts include trains, gondolas, and heated-seat chair lifts…and honestly, it can all be quite overwhelming when you are first learning the mountain.
On the first day, after lunch, we decided that I would go with Kenza and Kaysee down a few more runs and back to the Chalet, while Z would spend some 1-1 time with Alex. The run home involved two rather steep and icy Reds and having fallen once already that day, Kaysee was quite shaken. Insistent on getting us home the most convenient way, Jacob literally carried Kaysee down two Red slopes, while Kenza and I snowplowed down holding extra skis and poles.
Now, fast-forward 12 ski days later…it was astonishing to see the progress. By the second or third day, all three kids were skiing Blacks and by the last week, they were skiing Yellows (which are off-piste bumpy runs—similar to our Black Diamonds or Double Black Diamonds) and jumping off of whatever mound they could find. Regardless of how tired they were, the kids were eager to get out in the morning and spend the entire 7-8 hours on the slopes. Never again was Kaysee carried down a slope though he still had some falls…and snowplows were forbidden forms of the past!
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First Major Health Issue: And the Winner Is…
As the kids progressed, I quickly became the weakest skier in the family (overnight) and we found that one ski instructor could handle four of us. This left one instructor open (Jacob and Alex each took a turn) to work with Kapil for two consecutive, cold days. Kapil, like all of us, felt that his toes were numb and cold, but that was nothing new to him. However, by the third day of the second week (after 6 days of skiing), Kapil’s toes were in bad shape. The big toes started blistering with puss and they became a bit discolored. Yup, Kapil suffered from 2nd Degree Frostbite on his toes--yikes.
What happened? The bunions on his feet exacerbated the tightness (and resulting lack of circulation) from his old ski boot—and the toes ended up freezing for days, literally. Frostbite and bunion pain had Kapil off skis and feeling down for days. Somewhere in the middle of his suffering, he got what we thought as a 2-day flu (an off-stomach, aches, fatigue, and a light fever). This saga was to continue as we traveled to Morocco.
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Other Swiss Take-Aways
We quickly learned that the European ski-food scene is unbelievable and found ourselves enjoying some amazing lunches (with gorgeous views) about half of the time. Our other highlights included skiing to Italy (with more amazing and reasonably priced food), learning how to drink hot chocolate with a straw made of TWIX, and visiting cool spots on the mountain as we skied (igloos, chalets, and mini-villages). And despite cooking the majority of dinners at home and living above the valley floor (where it is cheaper), Zermatt proved to be the most expensive chunk of our trip!
Culturally, Switzerland was a continuation of the “foreigner” feeling we experienced in Finland, in which we were in an icy, cold place where we didn’t speak the dominant language. Yet unlike Finland, in Switzerland people truly did not speak English. Perhaps we would have had a different experience if we stayed in a hotel there (like in Finland), but given that we did not speak German or French, we often settled on some form of charades coupled with Spanish (from us) -Italian (from them)!
Historically, we learned about the team of seven (five British climbers and two Zermatt guides) who were the first to ascend the Matterhorn in 1865, but did so only to lose four of the climbers on the descent. The kids were intrigued by the controversy around the death of the other four climbers who are said to have fallen and were dangling by a weak rope, before Edward Whymper (or guide Peter Taugwalder) cut it (and sent them to their death) to save himself.
In addition to skiing, our Swiss highlights included the Collection de L’Art Brut in Lausanne where we learned about the Art Brut movement and fell in love with this museum dedicated to artists who have been institutionalized or have experienced deep trauma. We also enjoyed our visit to the Olympic Museum in Douchy, and making chocolate in Interlaken at the Funky Chocolate Club!
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So what was the “strange” part? I referenced at the start? Honestly, I am still processing this…but I think I really felt like a “foreigner” for the first time, though we were effectively “living” in Zermatt. I loved the so much of the “fun” we had but missed an authenticity of culture that I can’t yet explain. In some ways, I think I am much more comfortable in less first world places…less indulgence. Switzerland was both a comfort in being a stable place to develop routines and fully unpack, but yet it felt less like a “home” for some reason. Home is a definition I intend to unpack as I travel, but for now it is just a feeling that doesn’t yet have the luxury of clarity. It follows, then, that leaving Switzerland was bittersweet…and not just for me. As a family, we really enjoyed our skiing immersion and we made new global family members, but we were ready for warmth. Yet, having said that, nothing could have prepared us for the visceral culture shock of going from Switzerland to Morocco…or perhaps more aptly, Matterhorn to Medina…
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Post Script for “Next Time”
As we have started documenting on our trip—the list of things we missed this time and will save for another visit in the future:
Trying Cheval or Horse: We were offered this at one restaurant and were just caught off guard. We didn’t order it there but thought we would try it if the option presented itself again. Thankfully, it did not!
Geneva—We would’ve loved to visit Geneva, not just for its ties to rich history or it being a prime place to talk about the Geneva Convention, but because it is home to the largest particle accelerator in the world at CERN! Thanks to the movie Despicable Me, the kids surprisingly knew the basics of an accelerator and were interested in a trip, but it was just too far from Zermatt to go for a day and we ran out of weekends!
Note: If you are reading this post on email, click “read on” to go to the website so that you can click on picture link for the Instagram post to see the additional pictures, or visit Instagram directly from our website icon or searching @franklin_street_globetrotters . You can also see some video footage and additional pictures on the Instagram Stories of each of the countries referenced (click on the circle country flags at the top of our Instagram page).
