Zermatt, Switzerland

Finally, some downtime to write about our amazing last several days! We:

• Flew out of SFO on Wednesday. (Fun fact: There were at least five other Googlers on the same flight to Zurich. We recognized five, but there may well have been more.)
• Landed in Zurich on Thursday afternoon. We worked for a couple hours, and then shuttled off to the Google Christmas party.
• Scrambled around Friday morning to find power adapters and SIM cards. We then worked for a few more hours, and took a three-hour train ride to Zermatt.
• Skied on a glorious, sunny Saturday, underneath the Matterhorn.
• Strolled around Zermatt on Sunday morning, took the train back to Zurich, and then strolled around Zurich while sipping Glühwein and watching pre-Christmas festivities in the city.

Now, Chris has found a way to stream the Patriots-Bears game, and we have some time to relax.

Here are the pictures from our Zurich/Zermatt adventures (so far). For once, I wish I could write about all my pictures, but since they're really painful to import into Blogger, I actually added captions in Picasa, and I'll only post my favorites.

Front and center at Zermatt is the Matterhorn, of course! I didn't really believe how close we would be until we got there. And how lucky were we, to get such a crystal clear sunny day?!

Before the trip, we were super-psyched about the idea of skiing into Italy. I'd read about a particular run called "Red 7" which is an intermediate run starting from Switzerland and ending in Cervinia, Italy. It's been called one of the top intermediate runs in the world. But sadly, the top of the "Matterhorn glacier paradise" wasn't open.

We ended up spending the day on the blue (easy) and red (intermediate) slopes around Gornergrat and Trockener Steg, and had a ton of excitement. We took our first ski lesson at Squaw in Tahoe the previous weekend, and thought we'd improved by such an amazing amount (hooray, Level Four skiers) that we could tackle lots of reds, but it turns out the blues at Zermatt were quite challenging enough for us.

The conditions were a bit icier than they were at Tahoe last week, and we both took a bunch of spills, but we managed to make it all the way down from Gornergrat to Furi. WOOHOO!! Our reward was a yummy, warm,  ~$15 (!!!) cup of goulash soup. (People are not joking when they say Switzerland is expensive.)

Toward the end of the day, we went up to the highest slope open, a wide, gentle blue one with magical powdery snow, a fantastic view, and best of all, very few people! Gornergrat was extremely crowded with (in my humble, level four opinion) really good skiers that went intimidatingly fast. Up at the blue run above Trockener Steg (the one with the t-bar lift), close to the time the sun was setting, it seemed like we had the whole mountain to ourselves. We felt so lucky.

Staying at Hotel Antares

At the advice of my teammates who organized the trip, we booked at Hotel Antares, a hotel that was practically next door to the Matterhorn Express Gondola Station. Google Maps says it's 110 meters.

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The location was perfect for someone with short legs and who can't really walk in ski boots. There was an ATM at the station, and the rental shop, Dorsaz Sports, was right across the street and a short elevator ride down. Couldn't be easier.

The hotel itself was cozy. I thought the furnishings in room were a little faded-looking, though very clean and comfy. There was a nifty balcony with a view of the mountains and the river Vispa. The most annoying thing was that the bathroom, which looks so sleek and new, had an absurdly low shower head, below chest-level for me, and I'm 5'2". But the location was so excellent that I didn't mind, and we loved the breakfast – delicious croissants (I had no idea croissants were supposed to taste so good), lots of meats and cheeses, and Nutella!

As I wrap up writing about Zermatt, I'll leave you with one more awesome picture. That's right, an ad for a Swiss Army knife with a laser pointer and USB key.

More on Zurich some other day! Again feel free to look at the album if you want to see more.

Sean and Dani's Wedding

Another lovely weekend in Colorado Springs last weekend. This time, we went out for Chris's cousin Sean's wedding, which was held at the beautiful Shove Memorial Chapel.

And yes, the chapel did have an office. :-)

It was a very pretty rose-themed wedding, and we all had a fantastic time!

I uploaded lots more pictures of the weekend on my Picasa account, so feel free to browse.

But the fun didn't stop with the wedding. On Saturday, we threw an 80th birthday party for Chris's Great Aunt Mary. Since Uncle Ray graciously hosted, we were once again treated to barbecue from Rudy's. We demolished FIVE pounds of meat, which is not bad for eleven people!

On Sunday we were mostly on our own, so we toured the Celestial Seasonings factory in Boulder, as well as the Butterfly Pavilion in Broomfield. The tour of the fea factory was interesting; we learned that the top three bestsellers for Celestial Seasonings are actually not tea at all. They're "herbal infusions" since they contain no tea leaves. The weirdest flavor was probably the blueberry green tea; it actually tasted less like tea and more like weak blueberry juice, but it was kind of tasty.

Air Force vs Navy

Continuing the tradition that the Taylors and Staceys started last year, we had Mini Family Reunion 2.0 in Colorado Springs last week. Like last time, the ostensible main event was a college football game, but since Andrew was in London, we got tickets to the Air Force vs Navy game. Chris has a cousin who graduated from the Naval Academy (and is now in the Marines), and another cousin in the Navy, so it was at least somewhat relevant.

After the pig roast from last year, tailgating this year was rather tame in comparison, but it was a lovely day. Here's Falcon Stadium, as we were walking in.

And here's the obligatory fly-over. I think these were WWII era planes. Later we got a fly-over by four awesome jets, though I don't remember exactly what they were. I remember hearing the announcer saying "eagles" so maybe they were F-15s? Anyways, pretty cool.

There was a lot of pomp and ceremony before the game too, which was nifty to watch. A bunch of cadets from Air Force (and some from Navy too!) marched onto the field led by various Cadet Colonels whose names and hometowns were announced over the loudspeaker.

The Air Force was wearing green flight suits, and the Navy was wearing white. The football players for Air Force were wearing interesting uniforms too; all the shirts either said "Freedom" or "Service" on the back – no names.

Possibly the coolest piece of minutia (for someone who holds a personal best of 13 push-ups in a minute), was seeing how buff and fit all the cadets were. Whenever Air Force scored, a couple dozen members from the stands had to get out on the field and do a push-up for every point. Of course, the final score was only 14-6, but but DANG they were FAST. Made me wonder what my life would be like if I'd gone to a military academy.

The synchronized cheering was awesome too; they were way more loud and organized than any student section I'd seen (which is admittedly not many, but still). I think my favorite was a "YOU-CAN'T, DO-THAT" chant (you know, that same sing-song chant that people do "LET'S-GO, RED-SOX" to). Air Force did that one when Navy got a penalty.

Anyways, fun weekend, lots of great food and company, and some pretty hiking around Garden of the Gods. The extra red blood cells and motivational push-up watching helped me have a good workout at the gym on Monday too!

Howard's Wedding in St. Louis

Last weekend, our good friend Howard got married out in St. Louis. Congrats Howard and Emily!
He, John, and Chris had a fun mini high school reunion, which is apt, since this is the year of our 10th high school reunion.

Now, we've been to a bunch of weddings at this point, but Howard and Emily threw a really spectacular one that had waaaay delicious food. Lobster bisque, caprese salad, the tenderest tenderloin...and LOOK at this dessert buffet!

In addition to the terrific food, Howard and Emily's wedding won the award for Best Special Effects, haha.

Fireworks show! So awesome!

What else did we do in St. Louis? Chris, John and I made the obligatory visit to the Gateway Arch, which was very Halo-esque. It was also very fun to take pictures of, but I'll only subject you to my favorite one.

After waiting in a looooooong line, we went up to the top of the arch in one of these little claustrophobic pods (the so-called "tram").

By the time we finally got to the top, we were running late for the wedding, so we stayed for only about 30 seconds. (I mean this quite literally.) But it wasn't really a huge loss...we all now agree with Howard that the arch is indeed a "tourist trap" and "overrated". The view from the bottom was much cooler than the view from the top, I thought. Still, I'm glad we did it at least once.

The next day, we braved the crowds once more to visit Forest Park and the (free admission!) St. Louis Zoo. Favorite animal of the day? Take a wild guess.

Yeah, missed my girls. :-)

I also enjoyed seeing a real okapi, after looking at the model on Daniel's desk every morning.

There wasn't any time to make the reunion complete and have a nice D&D session...but we'll save that for next time, heehee.

Lots more pictures of the weekend here, if you want to see them!

USTA Playoffs and Districts

This season, I joined three USTA teams, and as luck (or skill, haha) would have it, two of the teams made it to playoffs, and one of them made it all the way to districts! Here's a cool picture of me playing with my 3.0 team, University Club of Palo Alto. (Thanks Chris!)

But wait...isn't that... Jenn in a SKIRT?! Let it be known, that's the team uniform (white top, red bottom). And I couldn't find red tennis shorts. Rick told me "wow, that's the best tennis outfit I've seen all day" the first time he saw me wearing it. And then he secretly told Chris "well, it doesn't look like her personality at all, but I was trying to be encouraging." Gee, thanks coach. But yeah, usually I wear the colors of intimidation: black tank + black shorts, GRRRRR! :-)

In the spirit of honesty, I should probably note that most pictures of me playing tennis do not look awesome. Here's a particularly horrible one of me doing everything wrong on a serve. BAD BAD BAD. Open racquet, open shoulders, AND a foot fault. So embarrassing. :-( But actually having this picture was the main thing that motivated me to work on my serve this summer!

Anyways, my 3.0 team ended up losing in the playoffs. I lost my match, excruciatingly, in the third set, when I had to retire with a calf cramp. I've never had a calf cramp before, but this one was bad. It took almost twenty minutes to even get my toes to uncurl. Lesson learned, drink more water on hot days!

My 3.5 team made it to the district championships, which were held in Folsom. The luckiest thing ever happened with our assignment of venues; Chris's team ALSO made it to districts and got assigned to Folsom! This was pretty seriously improbable, given that districts were being played all over NorCal that weekend, but it meant we got to hang out and watch each other's matches, which was fun.

Here's a shot of a slightly improved serve at districts.

Wearing the so-called "colors of intimidation" in 95 degree heat was possibly retarded, but oh well, haha. Both of our teams ended up losing, but I managed to win one doubles match with my partner Cindy, and we had a good time. Better luck next year!