Day 47 Of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – A Walk In The Rain
Yesterday I went for a walk in the rain. I walked for two hours, took pictures and listened to Echo Der Zeit and this episode of the Thru-Hiking podcast. Gretel Scarlet was the interviewee. She talked about South Bound (SOBO) hiking the PCT.
It’s interesting to see how different her attitude was to most people’s, how being a dancer, and someone who considers nutrition, speaks differently of food and injuries.
Thanks to the rain most people stayed indoors. This was a good opportunity to walk along routes that I have been avoiding for weeks due to the pandemic. In the process, my trousers and shoes got soaked so I was squelching along. Even cars were not that frequent. I crossed two people during my ten-kilometre walk.
I walked through a wooded part and the trail that I usually follow was now a river. I had to step to the side of the path to avoid walking through the “stream” that it had now become. My shoes were already wet from walking through some tall grass earlier on.
I used to be a cold water diver so being wet doesn’t bother me. I was comfortable for almost the entire walk. It’s only during the last kilometre when I turned to walk into the wind that I started to feel cold and tired. By this point my trousers were soaked and the humidity was moving upwards.
I had considered making the route longer when crossing the last village before home but decided not to. I didn’t want to have to walk along the road when agricultural paths were clear of people. In light of how I felt on the last leg that was a good decision.
The river that has been running clear for the past month is now filled with mud and higher than usual. I filmed it and let Tik Tok auto-edit the sequence you see above. Tik Tok reminds me of Seesmic with one small difference. People are dancing, pranking each other or trying to make people envious of their lives and where they live.
I am almost certain that the video above doesn’t make you envious of my walk. Today we couldn’t see the Alps as they were covered in clouds. Usually, people show hikes with nice views. This video contrasts with that intentionally. The video below shows what normal people film. In this case, you do envy their situation.
In the process of making my blog AMP-ready I am reviewing old blog posts and seeing who I was as a student. In the process I came across one case study I wrote about Facebook and Social Determinism. We see that peoples’ fear of Social Media back then is what is allowing us to stay connected, and less lonely, today.
During the month of April I walked for fourty five hours, cycled for four hours, ran for one hour and did various sports for a total of fifty eight hours. In total I took 392,409 steps. It shows that despite the pandemic, and because Switzerland’s low population density, we are still able to be physically active. Those jokes about gaining quarantine weight, by others, does not apply to me, or if it does, may be muscle mass.
In theory I could start counting down to the Eleventh of May when life returns to normal but I’d rather continue counting up and keep this series of blog posts going up. In Eleven deals we can get in the car and go for a hike in the mountains again. We will also be able to start ranging on our bikes and exploring new places.
TTFN (Tata for Now) - I was watching an episode of Bones last night where they were speaking of all the abbreviations we used to use a few years ago.