Boom! It's spring! The crocuses and daffodils are up and the flowering shrubs are budding out. The windows are open at the Institut and the lovely springtime odors of the neighboring farm are wafting in the window as I type. The fresh dairy air!! The Untersberg! The sunshine! The foehn!
The what? The foehn is a warm, dry wind that tumbles, sometimes with landslide suddenness, down the northern slopes of the Bavarian Alps. In winter and early spring, as it sweeps across Bavaria, it melts the snow and brings to the landscape a strange, bluish haze. German mountain-folk hold to an ancient belief that the foehn also brings sickness and melancholia in its blast. (an old article in TIme magazine)
Last time I talked a little about Kreislaufkollaps. Now you can learn a new German malady: Foehnkrankheit!
When the foehn blows, susceptible people have trouble with allergies, migraines, exhaustion, sinuses and all manner of maladies. Indeed, most of the Special Course class today was just dragging. The weather is spectacular but you feel too tired to enjoy it. It's rather like the totally Arctic days we have at home in Wisconsin. It's minus 30, but it looks beautiful outside. But you can't really enjoy it. I personally had a very tough time getting out of bed this morning and have been attempting to locate some serious caffeine in an attempt to snap out of my foehnkrankheit.
Funny how so many physical and mental conditions are linked to the weather......
By the way, the foehn is also called the "snow eater" because of its ability to lay waste rapidly to accumulated snow. It also leaves the air with a bluish tinge, which is quite observable today.
My next post may well be from Paris where I am spending the bulk of the Easter holiday with my Orff friend Donna Fleetwood. I'm sure that Paris will never recover!
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