Zermatt 5

Day 6 Funincular

I had wanted to experience some of the alpine landscapes and was fired up by seeing the glacier so we decided to book tickets to the very top of the mountain in what's called Matterhorn glacial paradise. You go up a few stages on a cable car. This is the highest altitude cable car in the world, crossing over the Alps and going into Italy, you can do the border crossing by cable car which is so cool we almost did it.  These things are pricey but we signed up for the like 100 dollar ticket cause I basically said I was not going to be able to get up an alp without it and wanted to get up an alp while I'm in the alps. 

So up we went. The Funincular ride itself was pretty majestic, you are floating above this landscape rising in height for a long time, like an hour and you get a bird's eye view of everywhere we'd been walking and more.  

We went up to Trockener Steg which was the second highest station at about 3000 m which is the true arctic landscape like a moonscape black tumbled rocks and ice. 

So we had some adversity, there was something wrong with the funincular up to the top station, you could see it but they change you to another cable car line and that one couldn't go for some reason that was not clear with the German information offering level. So we hung around at Trockener Steg for a while taking pictures. It was a delightfully clear day, really great views of the Matterhorn and the briethorn with its hood of snow, and views across to the hornli hut where the Matterhorn hikers start their summit attempts, and views down to some of the other huts like the one at the end of the cog railway that goes up a different mountain. 

Jeremy found it so so cold though, like every time the wind blew he was about out. There's a hard line for him that happens like 0-5 degrees like just below where it ever ever gets in Oz and he just checks out like you can't live. I get that way too like weeping cold but it's gotta get a little worse or I can cope better if I have the right clothes or something. 

There was uncertainty that seemed to be leaning to forget about it from the funincular so we took a little walk forward up the road to have a look see, get closer to the glacier, which turned out to be a walk that led right up to the glacier. Like you could get up to it and touch it and walk along it. I've never been to a glacier you were allowed to literally interact with before and it was so cool, so we walked up to it and up into it like 10m.  A glacier is made of ice see so it was kind of no joke you cant walk on it.

 Some of the ultra prepared swiss hikers were, busting out their hiking poles and crampons and marching up the glacier to the Matterhorn glacial paradise and good on them. This is the one place I've ever been where I've looked at the ultra prepared hikers and seen the point, like the tech legitimately allows them to do more, rather than just being fashion. 

All in all it was a little hour up and back to the glaciers and then we had a coffee at the restaurant that was of course there, and walked in the photo point circle one more time and then headed down and nabbed a partial refund. 

We thought about trying to hike down part of the way but decided it was too cold to seem fun and it was just as well as they had closed some other stages of the funincular due to winds by the time we headed down. 

All in all it sort of gave me what I wanted: seeing the true alpine landscapes, being up at alp level surrounded by the alps at eye level, and a big bonus getting to touch a glacier. 

Zermatt 4

Day 5 Hike 4

We were really planning on a nice easy day today, we had signed up for a fondue night that afternoon, so we made a plan to walk to the next town along the rail line trail, which looked flat - right next to the rail line (it wasn't, a challenge in Switzerland is that things can seem right close to the river or train line but actually be 200 m above these things and it's not obvious on the map, there are no flat trails you are going straight up or straight down a mountain at all times this was the closest we got though) and not too challenging (which it wasn't but that just meant we walked two towns over instead of one).  

So we walked out. The exciting sights of this were

1. So in a place this hilly some of how they ship goods is by helecopter no joke-- how else do you ge the beer to the top of the mountain where of course there's an alpine restaurant hut. So as we walked we got to see this helecopter make a couple of laden and unladen trips.

2. We passed like 3 quite good waterfalls. So there's a lot of water around, alpine springs and rivers, snow melt and so you can run into a steep and impressive waterfall all the time. 

3. The trail kind of followed the river which I did like.

4. We cut across the river over a historical covered bridge! I didn't realize those were a thing here. It was especially charming with the loud rushing and roaring of the river around you. 

We had intended to go on a little forest loop but from what my limited German and the pictographs on the signs could say it was closed due to them blasting rocks in the area so maybe avalanches can happen? We definitely passed some quarry areas and a rock processing facility. 

So we took this trail to two towns over where there was another alpine lake I wanted to see. This one had a reggae bar and a jet ski training school. Why Switzerland? Note: please learn what a gorgeous alpine lake is for. And took the train back home, in time to rest and shower for our fondue dinner. 

Which was actually really special. Our hotellier made his own fondue so lots of herbs and wine and shaved garlic mixed in, and poured wine and eventually schnapps down our throats all night. There were three couples one speaking English (us) one German and one French/ Swiss dialect so we had a good rollicking conversation in pidgin between us cause everyone spoke two languages (minimum) so different combinations of people were chatting in different overlap languages. We got good and drunk and eventually the party broke up and we passed out. 

Zermatt 3

Day 4 Hike 3

By this stage we were feeling a bit wiped, this whole week we were sleeping probably 10 hours per night with muscle repair energy. We woke up this morning moving really slow and took the morning off. J was wanting to do the elusive four hour hike. I made us I think the fried potato rostis and fried eggs for a sumptuous brunch, this was something we'd seen advertised at some of the alpine cottage restaurants and I bought the rosti packs and did it. Maybe nows a good time to mention I did a bit of cooking I was proud of during this week. My best was probably a block of smoked tofu in a mushroom sauce, they had a pack but functionally a mushroom gravy with stir fried snow peas they also had a lovely frozen pack of. It was really substantial but also not reliant on a big sack of carbs. We've been eating a lot of bread and cheese interspersed by bread and ham or bread and hummus meals but what bread and what cheese. I even got into bread and butter and jam cause the quality was so good. 

Ok so we hit the trail maybe 11:30 a straight out one on a slow but consistent uphill climb. This trail functionally took you straight back to the glacier. Again we got about half way to the glacier but up to the point where you got a real view of it. This was weirdly one of my favorite trails but it's quite hard to describe. It took you straight out always climbing but never like summiting a hill. And past like farmers cottages. There was just that heart lifting feeling of the road going on and on, and you being kind of about midway up with the peaks far above you and the valley and the river far below you. It went from the river to the woods above that to the farmer's cottages and gardens above that to the alpine meadows and goat pastures above that to the end of where we went where you crested a hill and there below you surging with snow was the glacier.

And from the glacier the river flows, at the point where we stopped was a lake, really a dam and a hydroelectric facility there, so big concrete walls and buildings like a dam but an alpine lake below the glacier. 

All over in the city river they keep saying don't hang out in the river cause they can unexpectedly release water from the hydroelectric plant and here's where it all happens. 

We had planned to take an alternative route back but we decided to go back the way we came cause it was so nice, so we blitzed back down the hill about twice as fast as we went up. 

Zermatt 2

Day 3 Hike 2 the Glacier garden

We took off the second day along the river. The river flowing by the town is glacial green the same one we came up on by the railroad. This devolved to following under the funicular heading up to alpine levels and then evolved into the Kulturweg, a trail that takes you through various alpine villages, historical huts which are built around. There's a trail which takes you all through them, we didn't do the whole of this but a good bit.

The target for today's hike was the Furi suspension bridge. We hiked up to Furi. About an hour and a half uphill, and then there was an incredibly charming woodland walk up to the bridge.

The further interesting thing about this hike is that it follows the path of the glacier as it receded. In the centre of town there is a church tower, classic European city style. The church tower has been there since before the glacier receded, you can see a pic where the glacier comes into town in sight of the tower, right where we've walked circa 1890 the little ice age.

So we're basically walking up the path of the retreating glacier. And the larch trees are a reclamation plant, they're one of the first plants to come back when land becomes available. I learned later they're able to survive the harsh winters because they shed their leaves like deciduous trees in winter to give them less to freeze and their sap is more sugary than other pines too which makes it less prone to freezing.

J had already decided he preferred the below the treeline landscape because it's more lush, less barren up to circa 2500m above sea level? Then you get the alpine meadow kind of landscape to 3000-3500 and then the true alpine like moonscape rocks and snow.

Ok so we get to the suspension bridge through an almost marshy landscape.  There was a couple there psyching themselves up to go on it, so we took pictures of the views and settled there for a while, they went out on the bridge got a quarter of the way out and the husband was like not today Satan and noped back off the bridge. We went on and I swear I could feel the exact spot where he gave up, I mean the bridge is off a cliff but there's a moment where the earth just falls away.

It's a very good single person suspension bridge, lots of handholds, a good two foot width so you can get a good stance, quality Swiss engineering, and I made it across with even being able to look. Down, out, the river below and the gorge, the breadth looking out. I couldn't take pictures because I needed both hands to hold on tho.

The suspension bridge was the target for the day but we wandered on planning to loop a separate way back. We wound up adding an extra hour onto our day that day by walking up to the little glacial garden park. This is a part of the glacier recession walk that takes you all the way to the glacier if you keep going, but it's this little park founded by a local innkeep and geology enthusiast during the 1800s or so right after the glacier retreated. It had these strange like pots carved into the rocks that happen when the glaciers move or more to the point from the water flows that flow under the glaciers. In the middle ages there were stories about them being the tools and households of giants and that makes a lot of sense, they look super machined, manmade from how finished they are. We picniced there and walked back along the bike path, so a super serpentine pathway back through the larch forests, going by lumber mills and little cottages at intervals on the other side of the river from what we came up. 

Zermatt 1

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Zermatt

Day one

We arrived about 3 and got picked up by the hotellier, Richard, who was name checked in many positive reviews. 

We had come up by the mountain train which has a central gear link between its tracks to stop it rolling backwards on the high slopes. We ran by the glacial river for a good long way. We had not gotten a seat for this last leg so stood in the vestibule which was kind of good because we could look out of both doors, small mountain towns and the river rushing below and the Alps rising up around us shrouded in mist and always rising. 

We got groceries designed for a real kitchen and a full week at the coop which was a madhouse. Frozen veg and all sorts. Potato rostis etc. By the way the coop is an actual coop its like the food lion or woolies of Switzerland but its a cooperatively owned business with an alliegence to things like free range eggs and local produce. The things we can do if we do things other than corporate profit, it's incredible. Fully unpacked my stuff and fell into bed. Views of the Matterhorn from outside our door, shrouded in cloud. 

Day 2 Hike 1

The larch trees are soft, like fur soft, and their boughs droop down, tiny pinecones. We took a short cut, steep zigzag path up the hill and at the top we were rewarded with more matterhorn views. Now the clouds were clinging to it's head so you could see the height of it but the clouds seem to catch on the top and get stuck in billows. Then on upwards through the small town -- the hikes never get truly remote in this area of the world, you keep wandering through mountain huts, the little restaurant hotels which exist in the most remote places, cultural villages, and highset little towns. 

The lake when we got there was a bit of a train station. In Slovakia I'm used to crystalline alpine lakes in the glacial colors. This was a brown lake with a children's playground next to it. This system of disappointing alpine lakes continued throughout our experience of Switzerland.  Honestly, the most beautiful lakes we saw in Switzerland by far were the ones in the towns Zurich lake and lake Geneva were both gorgeous. Clear, with swans swimming in them, people bathing in the lakes because they were that clean, and blue so blue. 

But when we reached the first lake of the five lakes trail the clouds cleared off entirely and we got our first complete picture postcard view of the Matterhorn. This is what it's all about people. The full incredible sillouette, it seems almost unreal at times because you've seen the image so much before. And knowing my cloudy European weather as I do, I was gonna be satisfied with the views we'd had so far and figure they do the postcards on the one clear day of the year. But no it's all true, crisp beautiful views. 

The Matterhorn appears sometimes to be an old man on a shaggy mountain horse with the snow as his beard. 

So we climbed a bit above the funicular train station and found a likely looking rock to picnic on, gazing at the Matterhorn. After some soul and time searching we decided to turn back here, and make our way back to town.

We took another shortcut back down, a treacherously steep little track which went straight down half the elevation with no switchbacks. It snuck by a couple of old bunkers set into the mountain side Ww2 holdovers oder etwas. It was quite lush the groundcover, but we had to climb down really delicately. We found out some of the way down that this was a Matterhorn training track, if you can make it up this thing at a run in 20 mins, you're ready for the Matterhorn. 

We took the gentler sloped bike way back to town, a forest walk again that belled to the side of the town and then back. We were out about 7-8 hours that day with 800m elevation gain, probably the highest of our trip. 

We turned back with an eye to returning with the energy to make dinner and live a little instead of having chips and beer while we cried -- but in the end we had chips and beer and cried, the first in a long line of trying to pick within our capabilities in an environment where everyone else is a Matterhorn summiting alien and failing utterly, both at resembling a Matterhorn summiting alien and and remaining within our capabilities. 

Our hotel, as advertised had a Matterhorn view, and so when we got back over our chips and beer we could still watch it all evening until the lure of being spread-eagle was too strong. 

 

Zurich and Bern

Zurich as a town seems like a nice but unremarkable neighborhood say in a row house district of London, say Nottingham or something, and then out of nowhere these fantasy elements show up. A wild little red turret with bronze, an unexpected observatory in the middle of town. A strange golden date on the clock towers. Birdhouses like miniatures of the houses they perch atop of on roofs. 

The lake is clear, like Sydney harbor, and swans and ducks collect on it, people are swimming out in the bay. It's a wild thing to think about people swimming in their city river. Like you wouldn't do that in the Themes or Brisbane. 

We spent like six hours over two days just walking down one side of the lake then the other.

Bern

Einstein thought that nationalism was the greatest danger, motivator to war,whereas Freud thought it was the urge towards violence and the death instinct. What do you think? 

There are bears in the bear pit so my work here is done. Also our hotel is up the biggest hill in the world which has an amazing view over the city. Thw river, glacial blue, still runs fast below. 

We've been eating almost all our meals as cheese and bread in the hotel room, which has been a fun experience so far. It has sort of afforded us luxurious coffees out at riverside cafes and craft beers at cellar bars, and croissants and chocolates. Like by not spending 50-100 bucks a meal we can guilt free enjoy indulgences at whim. 

My relationship to eating has been different too, we have skipped a meal nearly every day just from being busy. Our 4 pm dinners aren't helping my 7 pm bedtime at the moment but I feel really sated with a lot less even though I'm eating a lot less often. 

We visited the Bern bears on the way in and out of town every day. Sometimes they were really active and sometimes invisible, and one day we saw all three together! 

2022

The shape of the year

2022 was really defined for me by Jeremy being gone for 6 months and being with my mother for five. Everyone who's an expat is starting to do last year the big trip home to see the family who they haven't seen since it's before Covid and mine happened then too.  I got to spend 5 weeks in the US and meet Dorothy who was born after I left and see everyone. This was the first break I'd taken since I started working too. So got my mind actually out of the work zone for the first time in two years.  

And then my mum got to come live with me for 4 months and be in my life here. And she gave me a whole lease on life too. You know it would be a random part of the afternoon and then all the sudden we'd have to take a look at the sky break because it was turning some magical shade of scarlet or there had been an amazing cloud or the moon was visible. That kind of enthusiasm for the beauty and wonder of my life helped me to reconnect to it. And then we were cooking all the time too doing these recipe projects. I think having projects in general. Me and Jeremy have like computer games and walks and trips. But we don't really have projects. We set up our lives so that there's not a whole lot of things that we like should do. But some of what I like about going to the US is getting into those life improvement projects going through stuff for appearing houses or organising lives.  Plus we went to Vanuatu and read Middlemarch you know classic life of beauty and wonder stuff.

And then also Jeremy going and I had to cope both with like basic taking care of myself, life management, kind of things which I did better than expected on. And a positive side effect of being on my own is I really put some energy into building my social life which now I feel like actually exists again.

New Year's resolutions

1.  Apply for a new job. This one was set for me by Jeremy and the idea is to alter my way of thinking about my job. The plan is to really get to know what's out there and disconnect the idea of doing good work for society and my identity from the job I'm currently in. I can save the world with people I love at Micah but that's not the only way I can.  In classic me style. I've already done that one. There was some real serendipity and a really interesting role doing capacity building for the housing providers came across my desk with an organisation I'd looked at as an alternative. A lot of roles I see are like what I'm doing but less awesome, but this one is a truly different thing with different skills. I spent like 6 hours January 6th ish updating my resume and writing to the selection criteria which is a lot of work but also transferable if I were to see something else that excited me.

This whole idea is in response to what was maybe the biggest challenge of 2022, which is a bit of loss of innocence around my job. I still love it but Ryan at my work always talked about me as having drunk the Micah Kool-Aid and I really really had. There's been some stuff going on minor in the scheme of things but just the kind of politics that stymie you from doing the work. I still have infinite energy for doing the work so I don't feel burnt out but I wonder also if that's a bit of it. People are expected to turn over in crisis work about every 3 years and I've been there two and a half. I don't feel tired of doing what I'm doing but I wonder if the sense of nothing's getting better is grinding me down and then the things I'm getting pissed at that seem to be stopping me from making it better is like a side effect of that.

2. Something diet related. This one's still in the workshopping phase. I've looked at options like having soup or salad for dinner while Jeremy is gone which is most of the year. Or not having beer or wine in the house. Or not having snacks, chips or candy in the house.  I'm not sure what I want to do with this. Jeremy thinks calorie tracking is beyond the pale of the effort I want to put into it but this comes out of getting the sleep apnoea diagnosis and seeing the ear, nose and throat guy. The ear nose and throat specialist talked about what he could do but basically said he could not cure it. And that what does cure it is going to be dying and exercise such that I am less heavy and more toned. And I know there's some stupid and idea things that would be low hanging fruit in sort of improving health and wellness in my current lifestyle.  I'm also going to the regular doctor next week to look at my blood work and see how all that health and wellness crap is going in general.

3. Getting the total mortgage under 100,000. This is a little ambitious but not as ambitious as this year's target which I did not hit. In 2022 I changed my superannuation to be contributing basically the maximum that you can get a tax benefit on as voluntary contributions. This is good news for my retirement and creams off some money out of my pay but it does lower how much I've got in my take-home pay to be paying down the mortgage. It was basically my answer to diversifying what's happening with my money. Because my superannuation is stocks so it's sort of like having stocks as well as property.  We're still twiddling our thumbs a bit as far as if we want to buy the place we're living and if we want to buy something else period. But at the moment the mortgage is still there and we can just watch it come down so it's not urgent. I'm not sure what I want to do long-term as far as that and we haven't found a product we can't refuse yet. We've talked about buying where we are living which has the benefit of not paying our two grand a month in rent. And we love it. And we've talked about getting one of the other apartments I looked at when I was shopping hard, which is perhaps a bit better value for money proposition, but it's no longer where we're passionate about living. And we've talked about looking in the US or property prices are lower and we've got my mom and harmony to help with management and repair. 

4. This one's still being workshopped as well but something along the lines of don't put off for a week which you could do and literally 2 minutes. It's not well defined, but I feel like there's a lot of things like in the nature of a dirty shirt in the middle of the floor that I just get annoyed with every time I walk by but do not take the 5 seconds to put into the laundry basket. And that's just not me.