The Neutral Zone

Zurich, Switzerland - As the title suggests, H and I have been embarking on a variety of winter escapades over the last month. The most surprising aspect of this is that H is the driving force behind our galivanting. Over the course of our time here, H has discovered that she likes the outdoors rather more than she thought prior to our arrival, and this newfound appreciation has expanded to also include outdoor activities in the winter. H detested winter weather and activities prior to her arrival here. To be fair, her most recent experience with cold, snowy winter included several scarring trips to visit Lake Tahoe: during one trip she contracted an agonizing eye infection and in another a blizzard extended our drive to nine hours and finally forced us to abandon our car in the yard of a neighboring property before we reached our destination. So she may have had some cause to be suspicious. But here in Switzerland she's become rather taken with winter and its ability to transform ...

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...