Things Experienced, Things Learned

Today is Monday, September 2.  In the USA, it is Labor Day.  In Switzerland, it's 2.9.13 (that's how they write a date: day.month.year).  Just another Monday here.  But while the Swiss, and the entire rest of the world, do not celebrate this day as anything special, I wanted to share a special evening we had on Friday.  

Friday was Museum Night in Davos.  There are six local museums.  A Medical Museum, Winter Sports Museum, Kirtchner Art Museum, Historical Museum, Mining Museum and the Wiesen Local Museum.  From 7pm until midnight a free shuttle bus took us to each of the museums and allowed us to visit the museum at no charge.  This event takes place every two years, and lucky (!) for us, this is the year it takes place!  So Friday evening Ray and I spend visiting the museums and learning more about our new home!

Did you notice on the sign that the time of the Museum Night is displayed in military time.  That's what we Americans call it: military time.  Around here they just call it Telling Time!  Something I am getting used to.  Most all of Europe displays time this way.

Our Apartment is tall building on other side of valley

Saturday was a kind of celebration, too.  There are chair lifts on both sides of the mountains.  In the summer, the lifts are used to take hikers up to the top of the mountains.  Hiking is a major activity here in the summer.  People come from all over Switzerland,  to hike in the Alps surrounding Davos.  Sometimes I have to remember that I now live in a 'tourist town,'  a resort community, a place people come to visit because there is so much environmental beauty.  The main street of the town is crowded with people either getting ready to hike or having just finished.  People of all ages, walk around with their walking sticks.  These sticks look like ski poles. I have noticed so many elderly people that I would most likely see using a walker in the US, using these hiking
poles.  I have not seen one senior using a walker.  My mother-in-law resisted getting a one.  She needed it for balance, but as she said, "only old people use walkers."  By the way, she was 88 when she said that.

MB on top of the world

Here, in Switzerland, people start using a 'balance devise'  as soon as they begin hiking as a child.  There are many children walking around with their hiking sticks!  People never stop utilizing their hikiing sticks as they get older and use them in place of walkers when they are seniors.  Hiking is so loved, we watched seniors dragging their oxygen tanks with the hoses under their noses, hiking!  Nothing stops them!

Well, this past weekend was the last day of the chair lifts for the summer hiking season.  The chair lifts are closed now for about two months, getting ready for the S N O W!  When the snow comes, they carry skiers up to the mountain tops to ski!  So, because Sunday was the last day of the summer chair lifts, para gliders used this opportunity to do their thing.  Paragliding is another huge sport here.  There were so many para gliders on top of the mountain that from our balcony, they looked like a swarm of mosquitos flying above us.

I have loved seeing families walking together with all their gear, climbing up, up up and then heading down, down, down.  There is such a feeling of togetherness and appreciation of nature.

Next time I write, I'll share my grocery store experience!  

Bis bald!  (See you soon!)

Marybeth