"Don't breathe the air too deeply".

The sun comes out!  Snowballs abound!

So Zermatt's a little pricey.  I suppose it's not unlike B.C.'s Whistler, which is essentially a playground for the wealthy and elite.  We're in a tiny town in Switzerland and we're essentially a captive audience so yeah, they can pretty much charge whatever they want for everything.
On the flip side: there are no motorized cars allowed here, so all the vehicles are electric.  It's awesome.  I hate cars.  There's no beeping, no pollution and everything is very clean.  There is also a clock here that goes off every fifteen minutes which is kind of neat.
Today we slept in a little, grabbed breakfast and then went up to Klein Matterhorn.  Apparently they have a red, yellow, green system as to whether to let people up the mountain based on the weather conditions.  When we went up it was yellow and we spent about an hour in the coffee shop just waiting for the weather to clear as it was totally socked in and we couldn't see anything.  Then the sun came out and a lot of us ran out onto the mountain to get some photos.  Some of the Australians had never experienced snow before, so naturally a snowball fight ensued.  Our guide, Vitor, lobbed one at me just as my mom was taking my photo and I literally caught it with one hand, it was pretty funny.
I was wearing a shirt, sweater, vest and a warm jacket so I was perfectly set up, unlike the time Michael and I took the gondola to the top of Blackcomb at Whistler in our shorts and t-shirts. Talk about stupid...
Me and another guy noticed that there was a metal walkway that went around and on top of the building that housed the coffee shop but neither of us knew how to get up there until Vitor came over and said "You want to go up?" and I was like hells, yeah.

On the freezing, blustering viewing platform.

Of course it's off season here in Zermatt and the actually walkway wasn't open, but Vitor knew there was an elevator that would take us up another level except everything was all roped off.  No matter, right?  We ducked under "don't enter" signs (I assume that's what they said because I can't read German) and a bunch of us got on this elevator (some people were under the incorrect assumption that we were going to a museum) and then we popped out on this little viewing platform and it was epic.
The wind was literally howling.  The fact that I retained my sunglasses still amazes me.  The wind was so cold and so fierce it literally took your breath away.  I managed maybe thirty seconds out there before coming back in: it was so fun.  It was one of the rare moments in life when I was totally out of my element, absolutely in the now, rather scared, but having so much fun.  After going out a second time the wind gusted so strongly as I tried to get back inside that I was made quite aware that if there hadn't been railings there, there would have been a real chance of me actually being swept off the platform.  It was awesome.
At about this time I was feeling rather light-headed and dizzy which I wrote off to not sleeping that great the night before and also that I feel like I might be coming down with the cold that has been making the rounds amongst my fellow travellers.  There is a doctor couple on the tour and he had been making comments about the altitude and how he was feeling out of it because they live in Perth at sea level like I do, but I dismissed it.  Grouse Mountain is my backyard (4,000 foot summit)!  I go to Whistler often (7,160 feet up)! 

I literally thought I was going to bite it on the way back to the tram and mentioned this to my mom who said she was feeling the same way so we actually sat down for a few minutes before heading to the tram and seeing the sign that said that we were at 12,740 feet and that we were supposed to be walking slowly (something I have never mastered).  I have never been at such a high altitude and that coupled with the howling winds that I experienced on the higher platform made me wonder why in the hell anyone ever summits mountains. 
Came back down, did a little shopping and then I wanted to go for a hike since I've been totally inactive since this whole tour started (not because I want to be, but because we are on the bus so much that there is little time to do much else) and had some great views of the Matterhorn along the way.  It was sooooo nice to be able to get that in.
Tomorrow we take the Glacier Express to Lucerne in the morning.  Our guide has advised us that Lucerne is equally expensive, but we bought our lunch for tomorrow at the grocer's today and dinner's comped tomorrow night.
As Vitor advised us today: "Don't breathe the air too deeply: they'll charge you for it".
A bit funny considering my oxygen level issues earlier in the day.