Riddle: What clears the way for specacular weather and views of the alps, but gives everyone headaches and bad moods? Answer: föhn.
Funny word. But i've heard it so much lately, and in so many contexts. Examples:
I wake up from a long night sleeping to find my host mom lying on the couch looking not well. I ask her what's wrong and she replies "I have a föne headache." (and here i'm thinking, oh, than perhaps i'm not hungover from the previous night, it's just the föhn...)
I am chatting with a cranky museum security guard who is noting that people are especially difficult today. I blame the rain, he blaims the föhn.
I am riding home on the train from the aforementioned long night out, and the sun is coming up. The sky is especially clear and beautiful, and an austrian friend sitting next to me remarks: föhn is so wonderful, don't you agree?
I ride with my host dad through perhaps the most spectacular autumn scenery i've ever seen to pick out a pumpkin so i can carve them a jackolantern. Why is the sky so clear, the sun so golden, and the peaks of the alps so suddenly visible? föhn.
Alright, alright. So what is this so called föhn? It's, as it was explained to me, a warm, dry and sudden wind that comes from the mountains. And as you can see, it has quite incredible effects. Namely, as explained, it brings wonderful, warm, sunny, clear weather that allows you to see for miles and miles (or i guess i should say kilometers and kilometers) towards the mountains, but it puts people in bad moods and gives them headaches. At any rate, I had no bad mood or föhn related headache, but I did have a fantastic time walking down the block and staring for hours and hours at the alps rising majestically above Lake Starnberg, which so happens to by ringed with autumn-colored trees. Sigh.
Needless to say, i'm wowed by the beauty of it all here.
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