The Griswalds - Part 1

This past Monday, my parents (Ann and Frank), brother (Cody), sister (Dana), sister’s fiancé (Ray), brother’s girlfriend (Kaitlin), brother’s friend from high school (Nick), three family friends from the Lake (Sue, Eric and their son Kyle), and half of Lafayette (just kidding, sort of) concluded their 10 day visit in Switzerland. If you thought that list was extensive, you can only imagine the trouble and fun we had during their stay.

The original concept began with Dana and Ray coming over for a week of skiing during Dana’s winter break. By December, the idea and trip gathered more speed, and collected more debri and innocent observers, than the three most recent avalanches combined, ending with a collection of 10 friends and family members. Coordinating, entertaining, and hosting this many people (during busy season nonetheless) was no easy task.

I decided on sending the crew down to Zermatt, home of the Matterhorn, for a week of “world class” skiing, with time spent in Zurich on either end of the trip. I won’t bore you with the troubles I went through to rent a place in Zermatt, but we ended up with two apartments on either side of town, both up hill. I can now understand the saying “I had to walk to school uphill, both ways”.

Zermatt proved to be a good decision (for reasons other than the 3 lbs I lost hiking the two hills). The weather was beautiful and sunny every day, the skiing was good (but not great for those advanced skiers in the group –sorry guys), we had home cooked meals every night thanks to two fully loaded kitchens and the town offered the Swiss charm I was looking for. This is of course the bright side…in the meantime, everyone was suffering from jet lag and colds, three people (yes, you, Cody, Nick and Kaitlin), almost got on the wrong train from Zurich to Zermatt, (where it was going we are still not sure) and my week was cut short due to work (yes, I do actually work Sue!)

Overall the week is perfectly summed up with the “Brady Bunch” photo of all the kids on the train up to Zermatt and the photo taken at the last bar of the Mountain Run.

The Griswalds - Part 2

Before and after the week in Zermatt the family had two nights in Zurich to check out the city that is now my home. On the front end of the vacation, I took the parents, both sets, on a tour of the city which included the cities most famous site (most of which were still unseen by me) including Gross Munster, Frau Munster, Sternen Grill at Bellevue, Zeughauskeller and Spruengli in Paradeplatz, Old Town “Niederdorf”, fondue at Dezaley and a few watch stores.

On the tail end of the trip, all 10 guests were in town. And unfortunately, after the standard 2 hour tour of Zurich, provided the weekend, half of the group had seen all of the city. So I sent the parents to Lucern and the kids went on a good ol’ fashion Sunday pub crawl. What a better way to end the vacation!

I said my good-byes Monday morning at the train station and experienced the bitter sweet pain, of finally having my house back, at the price as saying good-bye. Seriously, thank you everyone who came out to visit. I hope you had as good of a trip as I did (minus the snooty waiter at dinner on Saturday night in Zurich…seriously who charges CHF 4 for a tap water!).