The Neutral Zone

Zurich, Switzerland - We've gotten in some excellent hiking as the spring turned to summer. Below is a sampling of the places we've been. Stoos Ridge Hike We visited Stoos earlier this year when it was covered in snow. That snowshoe adventure ended in minor disaster when both of us tumbled part of the way down a hill towards the end of our route, resulting in minor cuts and bruises and a sprained ankle. Despite the raw memory, we decided to give Stoos a second chance and attempt the Stoos ridge hike, a 4.4km walk along the ridge that connects the Klingenstock peak to Fronalpstock. The path is at times a little narrow and in various places the drop off to the left, or the right, or sometimes both the left and the right, can be rather precipitous. This might have created more anxiety, except that the path was littered with all manner of folks who were less surefooted--like the portly older swiss gentlemen--or careful--the kids wandering about with their faces glued to their ...

Zurich, Switzerland - The title of this blog is both literal and figurative. The pandemic has been on a bit of a tear here in Europe. It seems many European countries, Switzerland included, got a little lax over the summer thinking the pandemic was behind them. The Swiss reopened bars, nightclubs , and even some large-scale events . The results were predictably not good, with cases spiking rather drastically in October and November. Tragically and also hilariously, a Swiss yodeling competition that attracted ~600 people was one of several superspreader events this fall. While case counts have settled down a bit recently, they are still about four times higher than they were at their previous peak in March. Indeed, the Swiss seem rather more cavalier with coronavirus than what I understand is happening in the US. Restaurants are routinely packed with customers. People wear masks indoors to shop and on mass transit, but rarely outside, even if city streets are crowded.  All th...