My flight from Europe was one month sgo. Hard to believe that, since then, I hiked Moonshine Park and dropped down the Ridgway side of the ridge, plus saw so many people, went to a conference, and endured a deeply hauntingly rainy trip to San Diego. On the flight here, I got unlimited free wine. Now, they say it is 6 bucks a cup (not glass), since this is a United flight and not a Lufthansa flight. Yet I keep getting free wine out of them, based only on the promise of giving them more Mozartkügeln once I get to baggage claim. I could attribute this to me being charming, but I think it gets down to the tipping culture, and the underlying social underpinnings.
As I mentioned in many previous posts, the American vs. European differences in tipping culture speak tomes. Europeans consider good service routine. Why pay for good service, or for a couple cups of wine, when it should be assumed? Americans instead whine for such service from both directions; customers demand (not expect) it, and workers want some bonus for it. So they get it, in the form of tips, even though I strongly suspect they don't really make more than their European counterparts. Same trick here. I think I am clever and just charmed a stewardess, but in fact, she's probably giving free wine to everyone on the plane. Slut.
The rest of the flight was similarly uneventful. The flies in Munich airport were as tenacious as always. The flight from Munich to Graz was quite pretty, with snowy Alps jutting defiantly above clouds that rolled off the slopes like lazy avalanches. I did not get any photos of them, since I was near a wing, but I shall try to sate eager readers with snowy mountains in Colorado from just a few weeks ago:
The trip to Colorado opened with a massive snowstorm. I tried to be accepting. It was almost November, after all, and the snow did make everything pretty. Yet it did not portend good hiking. I still had fun seeing the family and everything, but then noticed it ceased snowing after I arrived. And so I did get in some good hikes, with good pictures, of an unprecendentedly wintery hiking retinue. I found lots of good new hikes, and discovered that snow creates some new adventures in old favorites. Yellowjacket Mine, for example, is a whole different hike in the snow and ice. I lost two walking sticks just making it through. I promised them they would be recorded, and they are. To my two loyal former walking sticks, Mini Wally and Wally Nuevo, you did your jobs well, and saved me from a nasty tumble down a ravine. May you thrive on the bottom of the ravine, in whatever way a dead log may wish to thrive.
But the big news around town was not the weather, but the election for Sherriff. My uncle was up against his toughest competition yet, who took out full page ads slandering him, and used all kinds of dirty tricks. We all told ourselves it was politics as usual, but it wasn't, cause this was our family. I was there for over a week before the election, which was 2 Nov, and the biggest local contest was the race for sherriff. I tried to contribute with clever writing, but was badly humbled and upstaged by the master. Mom wrote such a persuasive and sweet Letter to the Editor that I was left dumbfounded. It was like having my tongue wrapped in a towel. Vastly superior English skills. I hope I can write like that when I grow up. Fortunately, Uncle Dominic was re-elected for the third time, sending a strong message that the locals like him. Local humans, anyway. I doubt the local bear community does, but they cannot vote.
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