Swiss Sojourn 4
IV. Shades of Gray
The fourth installment of my 1995 Swiss journal, continued from The Campus on the Hill. Mostly about the dismal weather that actually worked to my benefit. Were not so many days so raw I might have been tempted to go out and play more and fallen behind in my studies.
Zürich is not a particularly colorful city, but it isn’t drab either. While most of the commercial buildings downtown are built of somber gray stones, there are a number of modern structures and residential neighborhoods are full of pastel facades, mostly beige, light green, or pink if not white. Many buildings downtown and in adjacent neighborhoods are of prewar vintage (no saturation bombing here), solidly built, beautifully crafted, and mostly free of grime. Their cleanth is probably due to the paucity of heavy industry, efficient mass transport, and reliance on electric heat. There just isn’t as much soot in the air to cling to them as elsewhere.
Zürich’s air is not exactly virginal, however, as there are some smokestacks and a lot of cars that raise as much stink as in any other developed nation. (Third world cities, full of older vehicles in poor repair and two-wheelers with two-cycle engines, are another matter.) Hemmed in by hills, atmospheric stagnation sometimes sets in due to temperature inversions, and exhaust fumes intensify. It’s rarely full-blown smog, but its quality is hardly, one might say, alpine.
Most mornings begin with fog (that is, once it is light enough to see, which now, near the Winter Solstice, means not before 7:30). From my flat, over and beyond rooftops I can glimpse Züriberg, the hill behind the university, some 2 km away. This morning on my walk to school the atmosphere was more pellucid, with occasional patches of almost-blue sky, than now. This afternoon’s prospect is typical; from my desk I can see the houses on Züriberg’s lower slopes rather dimly and the top not at all. Earlier, light rain was falling from that almost-fair sky, squeezed out of not-so-thin air by cooler temperatures several hundred meters up for my commuting pleasure.
My friends here groan about the winter weather, and tell me to expect endless gray, chilly days from now until mid-April. They complain about the damp monotony of their climate, and urge me to flee to the mountains, where the sun will be shining and the sky blue, whenever possible. After but two months here, I too am starting to find it tedious, but it beats what I was used to in Boston, where many days are also damp and chilly, unless they are clear and bitter cold, almost always with a biting wind that multiplies discomfort. Winter is much milder here, so far hovering around freezing or up to 10 degrees above, with occasional rain but no major storm so far.
It was mild and dry when I arrived in mid-October, and stayed pleasant until the cold and damp of December. Just before that, for a day or two, we had a strong wind out of the South, which here is called a Föhn — known in French regions as Mistral, similar to the Santa Anna winds of California. This is a relatively warm wind that rushes down from the mountains (I guess from the Alps, but in France it comes from Morocco) and people don’t seem to like it. They tell me the Föhn makes them uneasy and causes difficulties sleeping. I noticed that the air moved and smelled differently when it came, but can’t say I felt that anything ominous was happening. In fact, I sort of wish it would come back, so I can see if dramatic changes in the personalities of my friends get triggered. Mostly, people seem to use the Föhn to focus their everyday grievances. The Swiss are not big complainers, so having that excuse to gripe may be healthy for them.
But the drizzly damp that the Föhn ushered in should be just dandy for mushrooms as long as we’re frost-free. I’ve already cut some Winter Mushrooms (Flammulina velutipes) off a tree on the mountain to add to a stew. Those white, spindly Enotakes typically served up raw in soups, salads, and sushi are the same fungus, but cultivated in the dark and picked when young. Wonder if my landlord would mind me growing some in my bathtub.
Next: Getting Around
