Last July, my wife and I and two other California couples spent a "botanische Woche" in Zermatt with 10 Swiss wildflower enthusiasts and a Swiss guide. Every day, we took some sort of transportation up into the mountains, and then hiked down. Our 78-year-old guide handled the climbs like a mountain goat. We ate all our meals together, and I arranged to sit at tables where Schweizerdeutsch was the primary language being spoken. We had lots of interesting discussions. I felt like I was among "my people," people who had a broad worldview, broad cultural interests, and a mindset that considers it ordinary to absorb various languages and cultures.

The Swiss acknowledge that their politics are somewhat conservative, but they are proud of their social services network. They also think that they have been very good at welcoming refugees, and claim that they have accommodated a proportionally larger refugee population than most European nations.

They have a very favorable view of the EU, but they see it to be to their advantage to maintain their historic neutrality and not to join the EU. They think they serve as a good balance to the EU. They also consider the EU to be overly bureaucratic to the point of being somewhat repressive, and the Swill prefer their freedom. The Swiss Confederation is a rather loose union, and each canton is largely autonomous - and they like it that way.

I found Switzerland and the Swiss people to be absolutely delightful. And I loved their train system, and the Swiss people I met on the trains.

We wish we could go on another botanische Woche this year; but, like everything in Switzerland, it's too damn expensive.

-Joe-