After yet another night of not enough sleep, I got up something ridiculously early like 8:30 a.m., put on my new hiking shoes and hopped in a car with my brother and his Spanish work friend S to Mythen, a 1899 meter high mountain about an hour from Zurich. We met up there with M, my brother's other work friend, with whom we had sat by the river the day before.
I was much more optimistic about my ability to hike up this mountain
than I should have been. While the other three were talking, joking around, hiking up the fairly steep trail with no apparent difficulty, I was gasping for air most of the way up. Which is a shame, because the view down was pretty spectacular, the path was well marked, and the company was good. I was quite pleased to reach the summit and to enjoy a bowl of pasta and a cold drink served by the hut. We spent about an hour at the top, eating, drinking coffee, chit chatting about, among other things, the Reformation, and the organizational structure of their company. Here's a picture of me taken by M at the summit where I'm looking a lot less tired after an hour of sitting.
The walk down was thankfully (but not inevitably) much easier, and I was better able to take in the scenery, the clean air, etc. At the base, we said goodbye to M, and Rob, S and I drove to the Zurich Lake where we sat on the grass for a few hours and relaxed. S drove us back to Rob's place, the two of them (not exhausted from the day) went out again to a bar to watch the World Cup final match, which I watched from Rob's apartment, happy just not to be on my feet anymore. I think I ate some cheese and a granola bar for dinner.
Also, I got slightly sunburned on my forearms and neck, but not so much that I'm uncomfortable.
* R.E.M. -- Exhuming McCarthy
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