Pfiffelspritz

People are very fit here. The folks who seem to be local all look skinny and muscley and like they spend every hour of every day hanging off the side of a mountain. Even the dogs are fitter than any dogs I've ever seen anywhere else.

Hiking times on signs or in maps are not at all the same as in the US. Back home, if a sign says that a walk can be done in 20 minutes, that means that it will usually take me and Steve about 10.

Here, a hike that the sign said would take 50 minutes took us well over an hour. These people don't hang around. They don't walk, they power walk. They Nordic walk; everyone carries massive poles and they swing their arms and puff their chests out and give you dirty looks all at the same time.

I asked the guy at the front desk of the hotel for a nice walk that would take about an hour. He sent me up the North Face of the Eiger, and expected me to be back by lunch.

Our last Swiss town which we visited today is called Pfingstegg, and it afforded some pretty spectacular views of the valley below. It was sort of a perfect finale to our time in Switzerland: the sun was shining, the temperature was about 75 degrees, there was a light breeze, paragliders sailed in the distance, and we had this amazing view before us of mountains, glaciers, thick green grass, the river and the villages below.

It would have been an absolutely perfect day had my beloved hubby not spilt an entire beer stein directly into my lap at dinner. He couldn't have aimed it better if he'd tried. It was quite an impressive cascade that came toward me, and I couldn't even move; all I could do was stare at it in fascination as it poured over me, foamed up and then settled deep into my jeans and the lower part of my shirt.

The hotel was just a little too far away for me to want to walk back, change and then return to the restaurant. Plus it was still warm out so I decided just to sit with it through the meal. My legs got very cold at one point, but then I didn't notice it too much.

The worst part came after the meal when I had to walk back to the hotel. I hadn't had that sensation since I was about 5 years old, and I couldn't get my leotard and tights off quick enough and just wound up peeing my pants.

I was too embarrassed to tell my teachers so I just put my pants back on and waited for my mom to pick me up. As she followed me out, she asked why I was walking so funny. I told her I had sat in a puddle.

To her credit, she didn't call me on it, but since I'd been inside the school all day, and the outside of my pants were dry, I'm pretty sure she knew exactly what kind of a puddle it was I was talking about.