Ken Ritley

Why take a panorama photograph of the inside of an empty first-class compartment of a train in Switzerland?

No reason. Just because I could.

Deep in the Berner Oberland of central Switzerland,

Switzerland has two chains of supermarkets, Migros and Coop.

Generally speaking, the Migros chain of supermarket is far superior in every way to the Coop chain of supermarket.

Although it is doubtful they will ever get there, due to the tremendous talent and creativity of the people who work at Migros, nevertheless the Coop chain is trying hard to make inroads and catch up, as this snap from my local Coop shows:

It’s a little hut inside of the supermarket where a sprayer keeps the air very moist, where the temperature is almost freezing, and where you can buy (and I am not making this up) pieces of cheese with prices in the triple digits!

Continuing the series, sometimes you see a sign that’s just plain silly.

Case-in-point: this recepticle for cigarettes, inside of a designated non-smoking area:

Looking south from the hills above Zurich,

Sometimes you see a sign that’s just plain silly.

Case-in-point: this “do not park your bicycle here” sign, directly next to a stand for bicycles:

OK, it is not in fact my freight train.

But it is, in fact, a freight train, and the fellow in the orange clothes on the left is not, in fact, an escapee from a prison. But he is, in fact, a hard working member of the Cargo Division of the Swiss Federal Railways.

I captured him taking his massive freight train on a remote controlled walk through the center of the city of Zurich, at about 5 AM in the morning.

To be fair, I am stretching the term remote control. In Germany, they really do use radio controlled technologies to drive freight trains from outside of the cabin. But in Switzerland, this fellow above is using a radio-controlled device to talk with a train driver (not shown).

Hardly an usual scene in downtown Zürich, especially during the wintertime:

There are many, many reasons why I feel honored and privileged to live in Switzerland – but the fact that the Swiss – like myself – are hard core survivalists is probably the best reason of all.

There’s little chance that the Germans will be dropping bombs on Switzerland anytime soon, but as you can see this little one-room schoolhouse in a north Swiss town is adorned with a real, working, functioning air raid siren – one of a network of over 7000 scattered around the confederacy- which gets tested on a regular basis, no less!

In upcoming posts I’ll share Swiss survivalist secrets so impressive that if you are a survivalist like me, you may find this the optimal place to live!

First things first – do not panic!  What I show below is not a real dinosaur. I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: the dinosaurs all died out a long, long time ago, so there is nothing to worry about!

OK, now that we have gotten that out of the way, here is a very convincing model of a dinosaur, welcoming the visitors as they drive into the charming village of Bassersdorf in north central Switzerland.

I took this magnificent snap in the large hall at the main train station in Zurich, also known as Zürich HB:

To be honest, I did tweak this image a tiny bit using Microsoft lens. I am very proud that I never modify or enhance my images in any way, so for the sake of full disclosure I am also showing here the original snap as it came out of my little point-and-shoot camera:

I really, really hope I am not now on the slippery slope from the noble endeavor of photography to (what I consider) the less noble endeavor of artificial image manipulation.

Maybe if I always post the original together with any adjusted images, that may save my immortal soul?