What is this phrase? It’s the Swiss phrase one says before everyone eats, equivalent to bon appetite in French or buon appetito in Italian. I’m not sure precisely how this translates, I always think something like "enjoy" but that is just me, no actual Swiss people were consulted in the writing of this post.
One of […]

Here is the forecast from Google. I love the image for Saturday. The first, oh, twenty times I saw that I somehow saw frozen blocks. I was in the process of writing this up when I suddenly realized nope, it’s a tree branch with icicles. Funny how icons work.
FWIW all the sites agree that […]

This is a sign from near Lake Zurich. The lawn/field was covered with beautiful crocuses. Lovely, just gorgeous on this spring afternoon. But notice anything about the sign? One of two things was true when the city of Zurich decided on this wording:

This is a heavily touristed city. 25% of the people who live here […]

I have a theory about the hats. Earlier this week I saw more hats than I’d ever seen before. I speculated. I pondered. But I also observed.
The weather in Zurich has been consistent (chilly and rainy) all week. Monday and Tuesday were hat days. Wednesday and Thursday were not. We were planning on buying a […]

Having spent a winter in Zurich now I can ask "why don’t people wear hats"? It was cold at times, snowing once in a while, certainly hat-worthy weather. But nope, apart from the occasional old man wearing a cap (ears conspicuously left in the cold) no one wore a hat. Well except for me, I […]

I have written about this before. Over the weekend the forecasts all began calling for nasty weather this week. Odd, it’s been spring-like of late. Today though the models are changing and no one can figure it out.

This is the Weather Underground. Notice that -16C on Wedneday? Brr. Now over to the BBC

And […]

I am waiting at the airport to fly back to Zurich. I have been in Seattle for about a week on a business trip. I think it will take some time to digest this trip (literally and figuratively) since it is my first trip back home since we moved. Great to see my friends and […]

I have mentioned the "interesting" weather forecasts I see for Zurich. I know weather forecasting can be tricky. We’ll even ignore for a moment the spread between the BBC and the others. You know what the weather was (and I mean the weather, the stuff that is happening outside the window)? It is snowing.
BBC

Weather […]

People have asked, "hey, Switzerland seems great, I see your posts and it’s just all good stuff." Well not always, I did mention the prevalence of smoking. But I feel compelled to speak about an oddity of Switzerland (inasmuch as we have spent time in a few towns and Zurich, so of course we’re experts).
The […]

A colleague sent this on the cycling alias at work. I liked this a lot, it really shows how inefficient cars are. One of the nice things about living in Zürich is not driving. And it’s not avoiding driving because I care about the planet (although I do) or I am cheap and gas is […]