My Swiss Adventure: Matterhorn Weekend

I hope you are comfy ladies and gentleman, this post will be long...

This past weekend was the big Matterhorn weekend with Rotary, and I can honestly say it was one of the best, if not the best, weekends of my life. 109 exchange students all together in one small village is the best recipe for a great time. Throw in cheese fondue and a few mountains and it becomes something awesome! So anyway, here's the story:

First view of the Matterhorn

Saturday morning I woke up at the crack of dawn (actually two hours before that) and got myself ready. I threw some last minute things in my bag then my hostmom drove me down to the train station. I caught the 7:19 train headed to Zürich and met up with my friends Claire and Jacob on it. On the way to Zürich we just relaxed and talked about how excited we were for the upcoming weekend. We got to the station around 8:30 and grabbed some bread and coffee to wake ourselves up. The train we needed to take was the 9:02 train headed to Visp. Once Claire, Jacob and I were on it, we walked through about five cars until we found a seat. The train was super busy but luckily we found some other exchange students in one of the cars with some extra seats. On the way to Bern there were only a few of us so we just chatted about random things, but once the train picked up more people in Bern, our car was filled with exchange students. On the way to Visp, I spent the entire time going from car to car with friends meeting everyone I could possibly meet. While doing this, I met some awesome new people and made some great friends! Once in Visp, we boarded our tiny train to Zermatt. The train was absolutely filled with exchange students (and some very annoyed other people) so it was quite the Journey. There were 109 of us on the trip so I'm sure it's easy to imagine how packed the train was... On the train I spent the entire time socialising and got to know my new friends pretty well.

Train ride from Visp to Zermatt

After spending an hour on this train, we finally arrived in Zermatt! Once there we all walked together to the hostel. The street was so pretty and I honestly fell in love with the village less than five minutes into walking down the street. About 3/4 of the way to the hostel, we came around a corner and finally saw the Matterhorn in its full glory.

Village of Zermatt

The view was absolutely breathtaking and all 109 of us stood there in slack-jawed-befuddlement for a good 10 minutes before we had to keep going. However once we got to the hotel, the view from the room was also amazing and induced about 10 more minutes of slack-jawed-befuddlement-ism.

View from the room

I was rooming with three other guys for the night. My friend Cam from Canada, another guy named Luke, who we just met that day, also from Canada, and another guy named Migeul from Philippines. After getting settled in we headed downstairs and outside where most of the other exchange students were playing in the snow. Especially the ones from the warmer countries that have never seen snow before, and therefore have not yet learned how awful it can be... But us Canadians quickly showed them how cold it can make you by pelting everyone else with snowballs. After the battle we all headed back into the main part of the village where we started a scavenger hunt of sorts. We genuinely tried for about 10 minutes until pretty much everyone gave up to explore the village freely. I met up with some of my friends and we all went for a quick hot chocolate in a small restaurant.

After we all met back up, all the August inbounds headed back to the hostel for a quick information meeting on the upcoming "Eurotour" that will take place in the last few weeks of me being in Switzerland. After this meeting we all grouped up again and headed to a restaurant for Fondue which was absolutely amazing. I sat at a table with all of my good friends and we had a great time.

Walking to the restaurant

After dinner, all of us headed to a hotel in the middle of the village for a two hour disco. It actually turned out to be really fun and by the time it was over, we were all pouring sweat (imagine 109 exchange students dancing around for two hours in a disco the size of an average bedroom) but we still had a great time. After this we headed back to the restaurant for dessert and some more fun. Every country had to come up and sing a quick song from their country. The Canadians sang "Baby" by Justin Bieber and ended up laughing through pretty much the whole thing. When that was over we were all absolutely exhausted and headed back to the hostel for some sleep.

The next morning we woke up at 7, got ready, then headed downstairs for breakfast. It was just the typical swiss breakfast of bread, meat, and cheese, but it was super good nonetheless. After that we cleaned out our rooms then headed outside to get organised into groups.

Morning view of the Matterhorn

Village of Zermatt

Once into groups, we headed to the gondola lift that would take us to the top of the matterhorn ski area. The entire ride was about 45 minutes heading straight up, so I'm sure its easy to imagine how high up we were. Once at the top, we paused for pictures for about 10 minutes before catching the cable car up to the top of the Klein Matterhorn (Small Matterhorn).

New York

View from the top of the ski area. We were
about to get on that cable car.

Phillippines!

When we got off at the top I noticed two things almost right away. First thing: it was super cold. At least -15 degrees, which isn't so cold normally for a Canadian, however when you're not used to it yet, it hits you hard. Thankfully it was warmer in the ice tunnels... The second thing I noticed was the altitude. It was super foggy so I couldn't see that much from the mountain itself, but I could definitely feel it. It was a little bit harder to breath being up so high, and you would have to stop to catch your breath every few seconds. It wasn't so bad when we were walking slow, but as soon as a bunch of us started belting out Adele's "Hello", we felt the lack of oxygen... Anyway once at the top, we headed INSIDE the glacier for a tour of the ice tunnels and and to look at all the ice carvings on the inside, which was super cool!! There was even a small slide built in the ice that we could slide down.

Ice tunnel in the glacier

Ice carving of the Matterhorn carved
out of Matterhorn glacier ice inside the
Matterhorn glacier...
Matterhorn-inception...

Full size car, carved from ice

When we were finished in the glacier, we headed to a small restaurant to warm up quickly with some hot chocolate before catching the next cable car down the mountain.

Having fun on the gondola headed down

Zermatt from the gondola

When we reached the bottom we headed over to a restaurant for lunch. There we had spaghetti, which was so good after our busy morning. After lunch we had some free time in Zermatt. I went with some friends souvenir shopping and bought a sweater that says Zermatt on it, as well as some other things. We then headed to the train station and caught the next train down the mountain to Visp. At Visp we changed trains to one headed for Bern. When we got to Bern, some friends and I decided to get off the train to go see the light show that plays on the Parlement building on weekends. The show was about the history of the Matterhorn and a little bit about the history of Switzerland, so naturally I found it very interesting, and just all-round fun! After the show we did a quick walk around Bern then caught the train home.