The Flag's a Plus

A few weeks ago, Laura and I took a long weekend and visited the town of Appenzell . Appenzell is a small and conservative Catholic town in the Northeast corner of Switzerland. We ran into trouble before we even left. We were staying at a quiet time of year -- too early for Ski season and too late for hiking season. So, many of the hotels had closed either for renovations or for lack of traffic. I made reservations online at Hotel Loewen. A day later, they called me and told me, very apologetically, that they were closing the hotel that weekend, but they'd forgotten to disable online booking. Would we mind spending our second night at the four-star hotel down the street at no additional charge? I told them that would be no problem. There's no direct train between Zuerich and Appenzell. Appenzell is reached via a narrow-gauge train from Gossau or St. Gallen. The SBB was quiet and comfortable with a great view, as usual. Swiss trains are thoroughly spoiling me. The App...

The Swiss like scarves. Used properly, a scarf can expand the comfort range of a jacket or coat. However, there's a growing fashion trend of ridiculous, enormous scarves. They wrap these things around their neck a few times, then pile them over their shoulders. In the end, they look like walking ice cream sundaes with a weird blond cherry on top.