Chilly Monday

Hello All,

The weather is erratic in this part of the world; it proves that you can’t have everything. As our editor mentioned recently, ‘I love it here but would hate to face a winter’. This is apt especially as we don’t ski. We have extended our stay in Grindelwald because the natural surroundings are simply exquisite, providing us the opportunity to enjoy incredible hiking. Our hotel, a family run establishment, is very tastefully furnished and well maintained. Although it is not ‘fancy’, like most (all) things in this part of the world, it is expensive. By the way, the price of gas (petrol) is nearly $6 a gallon, double the U.S. price. Transport is very expensive especially the Alpine system—it makes a person want to hike.


Our room is comfortable but we are thankful that we did not bring the cat. We would have no place to swing it. Do you ever wonder about these sayings. Last Shabbos it was raining ‘cats and dogs’. We heard a story about the derivation of this one. Back in the middle ages, when the weather turned down, the residents used to put their domestic animals on the roof for protection. (Who knows how that worked?) However, if it rained hard, the poor things would wash off the roof, slide down and pass the windows or openings. Anyone looking out would see these ‘raining animals’ and then exclaim, ‘it’s raining cats &…..’.



We undertook not to discuss bears any longer, especially since we left Montana and Idaho. Over there, we noticed that some people wore bells on their trouser legs to warn off bears. The idea is to make bears aware of human presence. Apparently, bears hate surprises. We are a little doubtful about the worth of this technique especially when we think of 700 pounds of grizzly shaking in its paws because of a concerto of bells.
Scare C(r)ow

Anyway, here is the interesting part, which has made us retract some of our scepticism. On the mountains in Switzerland, we hear bell sounds much of the time. Each cow, goat and sheep wears one around the neck. We were most concerned when we first noticed it. We thought there must be a bear epidemic in Switzerland. How clever the Swiss are, we thought.

Spot the goat!

They get their domestic animals to warn off the bears while they sit comfortably inside their homes. The funny thing is the system seems to work. We have not seen a single bear this whole trip. The cacophony of sound must drive the bears ‘nutty’—we know this from our experiences.

Monday morning arrived and so did the rain. When we spotted a break in the clouds, we decided to walk rather than ‘take a hike’. However, the longer the rain held off, the further we went. The result was we hiked up the mountain for an elevation gain of 2300 feet, arriving at Alpiglen Station. We observed the mountains in various states as many had received another night’s sprinkling of snow. The clouds were active too, which provides a wonderful contrast of both serenity and potential violence. At the station restaurant, we noticed a sign (see picture) obviously discouraging people bringing their own food and eating on the patio.
However, we saw it differently. We agree: Walking up those mountains is ‘no picnic’. This interpretation may be lost on the locals.

Warm wishes,
Smiling Lazarow’s (at least trying)