Don't Blame Americans For Being Fat. But The Swiss Have No Excuse.

Ok, Yodelers. The Frau has determined that how a culture takes care of their pools and how they swim in these pools says a lot.

As she wrote in Swiss Life: 30 Things I Wish I’d Known, Swiss people are hard to swim in a pool with. For some reason, every person in a Swiss pool can’t wait to swim right into your space. The Frau was always having collisions with people when she swam in Swiss pools. 

It’s so interesting, because an American pool can be very crowded with swimmers, but somehow no one runs into one another. Maybe everyone is more polite in the U.S. Or maybe they have more sensitivity to personal space. Or maybe they’re just more worried about lawsuits. The Frau is not sure what it is, but Americans are much more pleasant to swim with.

A crowded, but pristine Swiss pool

But, on the flip side, American pools are not pleasant. American pools, when they're actually open and accessible, are very dirty by Swiss standards (but then again, so is the entire world). In Switzerland, pools are cleaned at least every three weeks. The Frau is convinced that the pool she swims at in her American town is maybe cleaned once a year. That’s being generous, Yodelers. It’s really gross, but there aren’t many options other than gross unless you want to pay the price of a small mortgage every month to swim at a private club.

Unfortunately, recreational facilities are, like everything else in the U.S., up to Swiss standards only if you are willing to pay obscene amounts of money–and possibly drive miles to get to them. Unlike in Switzerland where spotless examples of recreational facilities are everywhere and for everyone, recreation is only for the well-to-do in America and only if you are lucky to live in a location where they exist. Everyone else is fat and without options.

It’s quite sad that Americans don’t invest in recreational facilities like the Swiss do. (But then again, American governments don't invest in much of anything except themselves and war these days…roads, public transport, schools…everything is suffering…why not recreational facilities too?)

So. Can you blame Americans for being overweight? If it costs four times the amount to go to a decent pool in the U.S. as it does in Switzerland (even more if you consider that most Americans make less money than the Swiss), maybe we shouldn’t blame Americans for being fat. Maybe we should blame the lack of investment in public recreational facilities instead.

What do you think?

No hiking considered at an American mountain resort

The Frau had another bout of cultural confusion over the weekend. See, she went to a place in Illinois called Chestnut Mountain near Galena. First of all, there was no mountain, there was more like a Baden-sized hill. Still, the hills were beautiful and they made her homesick for Switzerland, as did the view of the Mississippi River from the “mountain” lodge. Any other Europeanized American think this view looks like the Rhine?

View from Chestnut Mountain balcony near Galena, IL

Anyway, The Frau mistakenly assumed that going to a “mountain” and ski resort meant there would be good hiking trails there in the summer. Instead, hiking is not even listed as a summer activity on the Chestnut Mountain website—BUT riding a Segway is.

Which makes The Frau wonder: Can Americans get any lazier?

While The Frau was eating lunch at the resort overlooking the Mississippi/Rhine, she spotted them: The people on the Segway tours, which one must pay $50 for the privilege to go on. Anyhow, the Segways appeared to be on a trail, which later she saw was marked accordingly. The website says it’s three miles long and it apparently goes over 220 rolling acres of terrain.

So The Frau has a question: Would it be breaking some American rule to hike on a Segway trail? She knows that hiking, like walking, is not really an American thing to do. But if she wanted to hike at an American "mountain" resort would that be ok? Obviously there is some danger involved as she could be run over by a Segway tour. But she’d be open to signing a liability form if it would mean that she could do a proper hike in Illinois.

Anyway, The Frau will find out next time. When she goes back to this downhill ski resort—with her cross-country skis.