A walk in the clouds

This was the Fronalpstock-to-Klingenstock trail from Stoos, near Schwyz in central Switzerland. They say you can see 10 lakes from up here. We only counted 5, but that was no disappointment. The five-kilometer hike is breathtaking, with 360-degree panoramic views from almost anywhere on the trail. I read somewhere that it is sometimes called the "blade" because you walk along a narrow ridge for most of the hike.

It was awesome.

Dieting in Europe

Nutritional labels are different in Europe than those in the States. Unlike U.S. labels, which break down the calories per tablespoon, ounce or serving of something (although I often take umbrage with what measly amounts are considered a serving), the labels in Europe tell you how many calories you would eat if you ate 100 grams of something.

Well, nobody eats 100 grams of butter or 100 grams of salad dressing (i.e. a tub of butter might be 200 grams). So I've had to learn to do things differently when it comes to counting calories every day.

Here's a lunch-time attempt at calorie counting:

A bottle of salad dressing contains 250 milliliters of dressing, but the label says that there are 302 calories in 100 grams of dressing.

How many milliliters are in a gram?

I learned through a Google search that it is a one-to-one ratio. So I multiplied 302 by 2.5, to come up with 755 = the bottle contains 755 calories total.

I usually measure out dressing in tablespoons, so I needed to figure out how many calories are in one tablespoon.

The tricky thing is that a tablespoon measures volume whereas grams measure weight. A tablespoon of something thick and heavy will be more grams than a tablespoon of something light, like flour or powdered sugar.

Therefore I Internet searched how much a tablespoon of salad dressing would weigh. I couldn't find it, but found the weight of a tablespoon of oil -- 13.65 grams.

Next, I divided 250 by 13.65 grams, which gave me the result of 18.13 -- roughly 18 tablespoons per bottle. Then I divide 755 by 18 = 41 calories per tablespoon.

I wonder how many calories I burned just trying to figure that out.

Happy Anniversary, Switzerland

Today is Switzerland's National Day, an equivalent of my American July 4th -- a day to celebrate the country's "birth" or founding. Most Swiss are off work, many businesses are closed and there will be city celebrations, friends and families gathering for barbecues, and many towns will have fireworks at dusk.

As an American, it's interesting to think about the difference between how our countries got their start. When it comes to our national birthdays, Americans celebrate a "breaking away" while the Swiss celebrate a "coming together."

Nearly 500 years before the British colonists challenged their faraway king's taxation policies, on August 1, 1291, three "cantons," or fully sovereign states, in the Alps swore an "oath of confederation" -- a bond of brotherhood, a promise to work together if they were ever threatened by outside forces.

By the 1500s, there were 13 canton members of this confederation. Switzerland was officially formed as a country in the 19th century, but it wasn't until 1993 that National Day became a federal holiday.

As an American, it's interesting to see how the different foundings of our two countries have shaped our cultures.

Rebellion, freedom and independent-thinking are part of America's national psyche, traceable all the way back to the seeds planted during our revolution. Our cultural personality has only been reinforced over the years by the millions of immigrants who, fleeing hardship or oppression, grafted themselves into our culture. The very act of leaving behind language, tradition and family was, for many, a rebellion against poverty, caste systems or authority in one form or another.

The first seeds that grew into what is now Switzerland were planted in an act of peace, an agreement of interdependence. While the country is also fiercely independent -- not joining the United Nations until 2002 and still not a member of the European Union -- its philosophy of neutrality is quite different from the United States' tendency toward active intervention.

This is all quite oversimplified and generalized. But my main point is that it's interesting to observe Switzerland's unusual history in a world in which nations are more likely to be born of violence and blood and conquest than in an amicable spirit of brotherhood and peace.

Cheers, Switzerland.