Put this in your pipe and smoke it

Since Gretchen has gotten in the spirit of commenting on some of the stereotypical Swiss quirks, let me jump in with one that I've meant to comment on a number of times. Every time I go to the mountains, I'm amazed at how into the outdoors people are here. You can be hiking along, huffing and puffing and gasping for air, and be passed like you're standing still by an 80-year old man. In Zermatt we had friends who got to the top of one of the mountains on the cable car first thing in the morning and met a guy who had hiked up the whole way through the snow (since he had to leave before dawn, he did this with a miner's helmet with a lamp on it). I could go on and on about this--it's really quite impressive. But the thing that blows me away is how often someone will pass us while hiking, skiing, etc., but we're ultimately able to catch up to them...because they've stopped to have a smoke. Just when you think you're going to enjoy some pristine mountain air, you run into a bunch of hikers on the trail or skiers on the chairlift inhaling a pack of cigarettes before running you off the mountain. It's the sort of thing you expect to see someplace like France or Italy--in the latter, incidentally, bars and restaurants are now smoke-free--rather than Switzerland. Maybe people figure they're in such good shape that the occasional pack of Marlboros couldn't possibly do them any harm. And I guess when they can hike up a steep mountainside faster than I can run downhill, maybe they're right...