Lunch & Misc.

Escargot is suppose to be a delicacy but the snails here in Switzerland are safe from becoming someone's lunch. We have heard that snails here are protected and cannot be hurt, which might explain why you can occasionally find some pretty huge ones running around... or should I say, sliding along.

One day we wanted to get out of the house so we took a bike ride to a nice spot by the old Aare river. Roo and I took a little swim.

Hangar Rockin

Our friend Liz let us in on a crazy mixed event ("Car, Bike, & Rock n Roll Meeting") being held at an airstrip in St. Stephan. There was a mixture of old cars and motorcycles and lots of tattooed people dressed in Rockabilly attire. The event was suppose to have drag races but unfortunately it rained and that put an end to that. Here they are lined up and ready to go but about 10 minutes later the sky opened up and down came the rain.

There was a lot of VWs there, here is a cool 80's Creamsicle Convertible Bug.

Taxi anyone?

Probably more then 80% of the people there were dressed up in there Rockabilly finest.

The top of the above car, pretty neat.

Cool old army motorcycle. The guy riding it was pretty cool too, the one on the way to the urinal with greased back hair and a cigar hanging out of his mouth.

More pictures at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/iusuallycheckmyemail/HangarRockinJulz201002?feat=directlink

Grenchen Airshow

Since I have a past life love affair with planes and anything to do with them I really wanted to check out a air-show being held in Grenchen. We hopped on your bikes and had a nice ride there. We stopped in the cute town of Büren an der Aare to take some pictures since it was on the way.

Cool old car coming from the cool old covered bridge.

Mike and a DC3

Some awesome remote controlled jets. The pink one has its own trailer, which means it has to be worth a pretty penny (or Rappen).

The first aerobatic planes.

Swiss military helicopter doing some crazy tricks.

The last show of the day was the aerobatic jets. Totally awesome!!

There is a ton more pictures and Mike took some great videos of the aerobatic air-shows that you should check out at the bottom link.

http://picasaweb.google.com/iusuallycheckmyemail/GrenchenAirshowJune26?feat=directlink

Hooters-Interlaken

One Friday Mike had the day off work so we took a short day trip to Interlaken. We broke our diet to try out Hooters Switzerland. A lot of people know that Hooters is a favorite restaurant for my sister, Diana, and I, so I had to taste test and compare the two countries. Overall, I have to say it was damn good and just like home; well almost Di was not there to share them with us and a little different selection of beer.

Mike being silly with a view of Interlaken behind him.

Interlaken is a huge tourist area and is crawling with bus tour groups. On our way back to the train we were behind a large Japanese tour group which we did not think anything of. That group was guided into this Oberland shop and we were like "ok, I wonder.. what do they sell in there that gets groups to stop in there?" So we went in and looked around, well it took a few minutes to figure out the appeal for this group but when I did I was actually kind of shocked: After a certain time all the shops in the area change the staff to people that can speak Japanese, which is great, but I really did not expect that! We went into several shops earlier in the day and all the staff were speaking Swiss German so I don't know when the change over happened... but it did.

This is a view from Spiez were Mike was for the Sängerfest.

Schwingerfest - Lobsigen June 13, 2010

A group of friends invited us to go with them to a very Swiss sporting event called Schwingerfest. Ok all of you get your mind out of the gutter because it is not what you think!! The Swiss sport of Schwingen is pretty much wrestling. Here is a link to wikipedia to explain in more detail.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwingen

We rode are bikes to the town of Lobsigen (about 30 minutes away) where the festival was being held. I got some nice pictures of the views on the way there.

I saw this huge nest and birds on top of this house on the way and was told they were storks. They must be taking a break from delivering babies. Side note: we have seen several more storks and stork nests since this day in different towns here in Switzerland, I guess all babies come from Switzerland.

So if you did not read the wiki article here is a brief explanation to the Schwingen sport. The guys wear a pair of Schwinghosen or wrestling breeches and try to wrestle their opponent to the ground and pin their shoulders to win the round.

So the winner of the Schwingerfest was the big guy in the lighter color shirt. We were told that this is not the first one he has won.

Here are a few of the prizes:

Aren't the little ones cute.

Here are the rest if you want to check them out:

http://picasaweb.google.com/iusuallycheckmyemail/SchwingerfestLobsigenJune132010?feat=directlink

Spiez-Sängerfest

As some may have heard, I, Eugene, am a member of a famous Swiss Men's choir. I can't imagine that there have been too many Americans to have that experience... but having an american on board is not the strangest element of this particular choir, the Steili Kressä. The list of zaniness never ends, but as a fun example here are some pics of our trip to the state singerfest... by tractor!

the Kressämobil is outfitted with a grill, and an absurd amount of beer.

note the traditional Edelweiss shirts:

Chriga is our flag-girl.

broccoli-cheese wursts on the road!

we spent the night at the foot of this mountain. it rained and some where very wet in the morning.

New Bike for Spring!

Some cool spring pics of Switzerland. Shelly got a new bike, this time a good one, so we plan on doing some riding this year to go along with our newfound diet plan.