Three Random Pictures

The first is from my visit to Canada. Here I am testing a 1/32 violin. It is fully functional, but my fingers are just too large

The second picture, also from Canada, is about Justin Bieber who is from Stratford. I actually didn't see a lot of stuff devoted to him in Stratford, but there were many more buskers, possible because Bieber talked about his days of busking on the streets of Stratford. There was a large card section for him in the local stationary shop, but that might be common everywhere. I don't hear much Justin Bieber here in Switzerland, at least not on the local radio they play in the lab. It has yodeling on Tuesday nights and plays modern pop and even some old version of mnah mnah (not the muppet version). They also seem to love Dolly Parton "Island's in the Stream".

And finally, in Switzerland at the street festival in Davos they have venders selling food and drink and some crafts. This log was set up in the street, apparently it is a way to decide who buys the next round. You go around in a circle hitting your nail into the log with the skinny end of the hammer. The last one to the bottom has to buy the round.

Visit to Canada

I just came back from my visit to Canada to see family and friends. The weather in Davos has been cool, the weather in Ontario was over 30 most days! After Vancouver and now Switzerland I am no longer used to that heat! We didn't have the air conditioning running, but did spend some time in air conditioned malls.

On the 13th of July, Friday the 13th, I went with my dad on his bike to a small port town called Port Dover. Every Friday 13th, motorcycle riders from all over converge on the small town and this time there was over 150,000 people and tens of thousands of bikes. They were parked all through town (no cars allowed in), up streets, in the middle of streets, side streets, everywhere.

Lines were huge, crowds were huge, and it was really hot. In the middle of the street I changed out of my blue jeans into a skirt but it only helped a bit.

In Canada I attended my cousins wedding and got to see lots of family. One evening my uncle hosted a BBQ and we got together again.

My uncle has an open fire method now for cooking beans.

While in Canada I made a brief trip to Toronto to visit my friend and her new baby. We had a great lunch on top of a hotel by the lake.

In the evening we went to see a horse show currently playing in Toronto (and being advertised everywhere!). It was a combination of horses, musicians and acrobats and was similar to Cirque de Soleil and even more extravagant.

Also while I was home was my fathers birthday and we bought him a great cake...

Also while I was in Stratford I visited the farm and saw there were tent caterpillars in the oak trees! While I was looking at the nests I saw a wasp come. She cut herself into the tent, wiggled her way to a spot above some caterpillars and then proceeded to stab them with her stinger. She would move on to another group and did this about 10 times. As far as I can tell she was laying her eggs in the caterpillars because after a while she wiggled out of the tent and flew off. However, there won't be any babies because soon after we walked along and burned away all the nests.

Now I am back in Davos and when it is not beautiful, sunny and merely warm, it is raining and cold! Hopefully before the end of the summer I will have some tomatoes to show! There are tomatoes and Stratford, in Lausanne, but not yet in Davos (well, just some green ones).

Jorisee three!

On the weekend it was again a return to the Jorisee hike. What can I say, I like the area.

There was snow as expected but it didn't interfere with the hiking. There were flowers in all the meadows.

And we saw a 4-legged animal running below on the snowfields as we crossed the pass which was probably a chamois.

The lakes are slowly melting, apparently last weekend they were just melting at the edges.

The weather was fantastic, not too cool with sun and cloud.

The last third of the hike was on snowfields, which was pretty easy for traveling.

It looks more impressive than it is, although I suppose falling would suck.

We saw some marmots at the beginning and the end of the hike, and we could hear them whistling most of the time.

Deer in Davos

From a walk a few weeks ago.

Sertig to Monstein

Finally, the weather in Davos has turned fantastic. I've been thinking summer would never come and my tomato plants would never flower and the snows wouldn't clear.

However, the first decent hike of the season was really nice. The fields are all green and even the mountain pastures have turned. Spring is at least several weeks behind that in the lower valleys.

I brought my ice ax in case there were some steeper snow fields like I had encountered last year but the track was mostly clear of snow.

The weather was hot down in Davos but up in the alpine it was just nice and warm.

My favorite parts of the mountains are the rock lands, where nothing is growing, just snow, ice and rock.

The higher valley was in flower and no cows had been moved up to the higher pastures. We could see tons of marmot holes and even hear whistles, but didn't see any.

Lunch was at the top of the pass, and with the wind blowing it got rather cool.

One last look at the snow parts.

And we started the ~900m descent into Monstein. As we descended it got significantly warmer and here we even saw a marmot.

When we got to Monstein we could see farmers collecting the hay. They have small mowing machines and then all the family and probably neighbours rake the hay down the hills to be finally collected and bundled.