Prochain arret: Zermatt

When every muscle in your body hurts and you were the last one out of the snowy hills, no one around for acres, only you and the jagged ridges, then you know you had a good day skiing... or so says Matt. We have been in Zermatt for the past four days and today took the cake. The sun was shining, the Matterhorn towered above powder fresh snow, and the pasta was delicious just over the border in Cervinia, Italy. Our faces still burn with the sting of cold wind from the tip-top of Mt. Crumpit. We weren't the first ones up the mountain, but we were definitely the last ones off and now we can feel the tug of bed and the aching reminder in our joints of a day well spent. Here are a few pictures...

Achtung, baby. Teri approaching Italian/Swiss Boarder.

Teri schussing down the piste.

Biblical references and symbols are found throughout the area.

All smiles before the epic day began...

Beyond the misty mountain

Lunch in big Italy

Inside the slope side "Chalet Etoile".

Vino Rosso and rigatone gargonzola i spinach.

Really just hashbrowns, but the umlaut over the "o" makes all the difference.

Here are some more pictures from our trip. We visited some friends that we met in India and who live in Thun. We had a wonderful weekend with all five of them. We even learned how to count in German thanks to some hard fought games of Uno. Thanks again Herzogs!

Lake Thun

Teri, Matt, Mariza and Marcel



Tea Time

Haselnusslebkuche

We also visited Bern, the Swiss capital.

Pretzels

Sausage

The quiet zone on the Swiss train. Note that headphones are also verboten.

Une Grande Vacance

View from gondola, Verbier

Morning sunshine

Matt and Aunt Lynne make a fire

Fondue

An Apres Ski of Vin Chaud (hot mulled wine) on the mountain at sunset

Saint Bernard

View from Mont Fort 3330 meters

View from L'Orchidee, Uncle and Aunt's place

Matt and Uncle Gene with morning coffee

Aunt Lynne with bean soup

Teri on train from Geneva to Verbier

Greetings from Switzerland! We are starting off the new year with a vacation in the mountains and we begin our journey in Verbier. We are visiting our Aunt and Uncle here in their hilltop hideaway, and they are so generous for putting us up yet again. We have spent the week skiing on the sunny slopes around Verbier and enjoying the fresh mountain air. The view is breathtaking and it is so refreshing to spend so much time together being active outside. Skiing is one of Matt's very favorite things to do and he is quite good at it. Teri, well, it will take a lot more time and practice for this novice to be able to ski down the mountain without too much trouble, but she'll get there.

More to come!...

Deluge

We've recently discovered how to connect to the sometimes-strong-but-mostly-weak internet connection at our apt, so we decided to post some pictures we've been harboring in our camera for the last two weeks.

O tannenbaum

This is the replacement tree for the one that was torched in the riots at Syntagma Square

".... As soon as I get my hands on you...!" the statue seemed to say. Making it up as we went along at the National Archeological Museum in Athens.

Very famous statue. Very famous.

Graffiti from the riots after the shooting on Dec. 6th

The dark face of anarchy

More dark faces of anarchy, a.k.a. crazed Panathinaikos fans (Note the flares at the far end of Olympic Stadium)

The 2004 Olympic grounds

Teri outside of a tiny Greek Orthodox church 

On a walk around the hood

Matt posing in front of our apt building--ours is the second floor balcony

Kali Chronia!

Christmas in Greece:
Roasted vegetables, fish, Greek salad, sweet rolls, champagne.

Spanikopita.

Little Baby Jesus. Asleep in the hay. Cattle lowing, etc., etc,.

New Years in Athens: Fireworks, stray dogs, loads of people, and a bad mix of Ouzo and Greek wine. But the food was good.

New Year's fireworks in Syntagma Square, Athens

New Year's Eve dinner at the taverna...

Ouzo, octopus, deep fried zucchini, greek salad, souvlaki, deep fried cod, white wine.

More to come, but now hungry and have spent way too many hours in smokey internet cafe listening to techno and US top 40.

Love to our families and friends. Talk soon!

Last Days in D.C. and Solo NYC Part 1

What do you do if you're on your own in NYC? Well, first you say goodbye to good little cousins and good ol' friends in D.C....

Then you meet up with another good ol' friend from childhood for brunch in Chelsea. Try to stay dry in the snow storm.
Trudge through the snow, to Penn Station and Macy's and take a peek at "the real" Santa Claus. Kindly accept your parting gift from a kind elf who is trying to make some extra cash to pay his NYC rent.


Then fight your way through the Christmas crowd to see the Christmas windows at Herald Square.
Then go back to your little apartment, eat Udon noodles, watch some movies, and stay out of the winter slush until you regain your strength for day 2.

TRADITION tradition!

Last year we went to a sing-along production of Handel's "Messiah" in New York. It was so much fun that we decided to go again this year in Washington, D.C. The concert was held on a very chilly night at The National Cathedral (No, we really don't spend all of our time there!), and it was a great opportunity for Teri to show off her newly found black velvet jacket. Since we have a limited travel wardrobe, she sacrificed comfort for fashion, but Matt was nice enough to stand outside in the cold to flag down one of the few taxi cab's circling this part of D.C. (There we so few, in fact, that we ended up sharing the cab with some very frosty, and chatty, women from Alabama.)
We love the idea of establishing traditions and this is one we hope we can continue in whichever city we eventually end up in.