Time: 17:20
Place: office window
Day: Thursday
Suddenly a strong wind started blowing, the trees were fighting to remain attached to the ground, the sky became all dark, thick, black, scary!
Immediately the clouds vomited litres of dark grey water and ice onto the soil… 20 minutes of apocalypse… and then quietly the world started again.
The sky quickly turned blue, the sun started blinking again and the rainbow brought its comforting, soft, magic stripes and good mood for everyone!
Last Wednesday I just arrived home when the fury of the sky fell on the Earth.
In Ehrendingen and surroundings a violent hailstorm started and went on for half an hour, followed by violent rain!
The main road crossing the village became an impetuous river with half metre water, and all the fields and streets became white as in winter!
The force of nature was impressive!
The buses and cars still on the road became like insects into the sea.
In some neighbouring villages they even remained without drinkable water for some days, because everything was contaminated with mud.
A lot of basements, houses, shops where flooded and invaded by water and mud.
A real scary scenery.
But thanks to the assiduous work of the fire brigade, in a couple of days all the main damages where fixed and the mud and water sent away and dried.
Unfortunately, as in this case, even the quiet Switzerland can sometimes become very… angry and upset!
Last weekend my wife and I went to the mountains to Stoos (Canton Schwyz) to bring our two small daughters to get ski lessons for the first time!
Nothing special, you would say, apart from a nice family reminder.
Actually we did establish a record, and even a world record!
We reached the top (Stoos village) by the steepest funicular railway of the world!
This amazing “vehicle” had been just inaugurated on the 16th December 2017.
It looks like a futuristic spaceship, like the strangest of the roller coasters. Nevertheless, thanks to the automatic level compensation of the four cabins, even if you drive almost vertically, your feet are always well in contact with the floor.
Here some figures of this terrific engineering masterpiece:
110% incline (World record!);
47° maximum slope;
1500 passengers per direction of travel per hour;
3-5 minutes’ travel time;
744 elevation gain;
1’740 m distance between the valley and the mountain stations;
34 passengers per cabin;
14 years needed to complete this work, from planning to realisation.
This is another surprising example of “Swiss made”, which makes the white crossed Confederates so proud!
Today some supernatural confectioner spread… a lot of powdered sugar on the Swiss cake where I live!
Unique landscape, which I do not remember to have ever experienced here in Argovia.
No, it is not barbed wire…
No, it is not a jail…
No, it is not possible to escape…
OK, it is just a fence with nice icing (it is December: it is cold!).
OK, it is just the wall of the Company.
OK, from Monday to Friday, at least, you are not supposed to escape.
Real Swiss 