As I look out the window, the weather is much as it has been since the beginning of February; cold, drippy, and gray. I have been counting. There have been exactly five nice days since February 8th.
Yesterday was one of those nice days. It was warm (60s!) clear and sunny. When the weather is nice here, it is SPECTACULAR!! The mountains are beautiful, the residents happy. All is well with the world. But as the sun set last night, the clouds moved in and this morning it was back to the gray steady drizzle.
Because Salzburg is in a sort of basin, the clouds can really linger for a long period of time. It also tends to rain and be drippy rather than snow because it stays artificially warm. It can be snowing in the mountains (you can see it!) and drippy in the city proper.
Aside from the mental havoc that a nonstop streak of bad weather can wreak, German speakers are prone to a condition called "kreislaufkollaps" which translates to "circulatory system collapse." Now of course that seems absurd, because if your circulatory system collapsed you would be deceased. I asked a friend about this and he was kind enough to explain that low blood pressure is a common problem amongst the Germanic natives and if the weather consists of a lingering low pressure system, the folks with low blood pressure feel unusually bad. The doctors are very busy during periods of foul weather with patients suffering from kreislaufkollaps. I've seen two instances of this phenomenon, and interestingly neither person was of Germanic origin. But the effects are not nice. They are rendered unable to stand or move around much, are light headed, and have difficulty understanding what's going on around them. In one case, I was at a store with a friend who had this problem. She was literally lying in the parking lot, unable to get up or walk without assistance.
One of the sales associates noticed that we were having difficulties and offered some "drops" to my ailing friend. Apparently you can buy them at the apotheke without a prescription. They consist of herbs and homeopathic meds that the FDA would never approve! The results were dramatic. First of all, the drops smelled quite toxic and my friend confirmed that the taste was unique to say the least. But within 10 minutes she felt much better and we were able to continue with the plans we had for the day. We managed to get the name of the drops so that she could head off future episodes.
We need some besser wetter and soon not only to stave off depression but kreislaufkollaps too!
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