Eastern Europe | schwingeninswitzerland

It is the middle of winter so I wasn’t expecting warm weather in Geneva, but I wasn’t really expecting this either. Europe is experiencing extremely cold temperatures. The weather forecast: more severe cold. The bitterly cold weather will continue through the weekend thanks to a dip in the jet stream that has allowed a large area of high pressure to move west from Siberia.

freezing in Geneva

Cold weather gear, check. Hats, scarves, sweaters, coats, gloves, mittens, long underwear, wool socks, boots, I have been wearing it all. At once. While drinking hot tea. Sitting underneath a blanket. With the radiators blasting.

The Jet d’Eau is off until further notice for obvious reasons

This weekend, it was -12 C (10.4 F) when we got on the chair lift to head to the much colder mountaintop. While the chair lift wasn’t warm, we are lucky because the cold snap hasn’t created major problems for us. Others have not been so fortunate:

Occupy Geneva has been disbanded, not because the government is broke it up, but because someone froze to death.

A Death In The Stronghold Of Occupy Geneva

An Eccentric Distantly Related to Occupy Geneva Dead At The Camp

In Eastern Europe, people got snowed into their cars and almost froze to death on roadsides. Entire villages and regions are inaccessible.

Courtesy of World Bulletin.net

In Hungary, people combed through a disused mine’s refuse pile with their bare hands to get coal.

Courtesy of MSNBC/AP

Hundreds of homeless across Eastern Europe and in Russia have also frozen to death.
Greece and Bosnia have declared states of emergency.

Courtesy AFP/Getty Images

London’s Heathrow Airport cancelled half its flights on Sunday.

There have also been some more (and some less) humorous stories about people’s experiences with the cold.

Our friend from Poland told us that they are leaving their cars running overnight because temperatures are so cold that they won’t start.

Bosnian snowboarders took advantage of a record snowfall and snowboarded down the streets of Sarajevo. People also snowboarded next to the Colosseum.

When I opened the paper yesterday, I saw a story about someone who went swimming in Lac Leman (Lake Geneva)!

courtesy of You Tube

In Belgium, temperatures of -10 C kept intoxilyzers, machines to test motorists’ alcohol levels, from functioning.
courtesy of BBC and AFP
Cars parked by Lac Leman (Lake Geneva) have frozen in place. They are stuck because scraping ice off can take the paint with it. Today, someone told me a story about this happening to an expensive sports car. The owner elicited professional help to melt the ice so he could get his baby to a garage.

Last weekend, we met Mrs. DiCaprio in Prague and had a great time. There are no friends like old friends and it is a wonderful city. Aside from the great company, here are some of the things we liked about Prague:

While certain parts of Prague have definitely figured out the tourist schtick, it didn’t seem as overdeveloped and the local culture seemed a bit more accessible than some cities.

It wasn’t majorly bombed during WWII and so it is rather old and incredibly beautiful.

It’s got a ton of history, a river running through it, beautiful buildings and the light is amazing. It gives the city a romantic, dreamy quality.

Czech culture is really interesting. Completely over-generalizing, the Czech Republic is independent, peaceful, loves democracy and is skeptical of authority (which is understandable given their conquest and years of rule under foreign empires like the Hapsburgs, Nazi Germany and The Soviet Union).

The Czech Republic has a rich tradition of art, music and literature that are distinctly Czech. This tradition still percolates through daily life there. Below is the Franz Kafka Memorial in the Jewish Quarter. It was inspired by his story “Description of a Struggle“.

Vaclav Havel, playwright, poet, essayist, dissident and first post-communist leader of the Czech Republic died in December 2011. His contributions cannot be overstated.

Czechs are proud of their history. Statutes abound. You see plaques all over the place with little paragraphs. For example, Johannes Kepler, the mathematician, scientist and astronomer lived in Prague. He has a plaque on a former residence.

Crosses in Prague’s main square commemorating the execution of 27 Protestants during the 30 Years War by the Catholic Hapsburgs in 1621.

There is a statute known as the Jan Hus Memorial in the center of Prague at at one end of Old Town Square. It depicts depicts Hus, a young mother, victorious Hussite warriors and Protestants who were forced into exile. He was burned at the stake for his beliefs that Catholic mass should be given in the vernacular, the local language, and not in Latin.

Prague has lots of interesting public art.

After John Lennon’s death, people painted his portrait, lyrics and grievances on this wall. The communist government painted them over every day. Each night, they appeared anew. It’s known as the Lennon Wall.