Sechseläuten

            Sechseläuten Is one of the most famous holidays in Zürich.  It happens on the third monday in April every year.  First there is a very large parade with all of the cities guilds.  The parade was wicked amazing.  And the guild from our neighborhood was the second biggest after the bakers guild.  At the parade they throw out tons and tons of flowers.  And since we were at the end of the parade we got the most because the people really wanted to get rid of them.  We were at the parade for two hours collecting flowers.  At precisely (down to the second) 6:00 they lit a huge bonfire on fire with a big snowman on top packed with explosives (actually he was made out of cloth but that is how the legend goes).  They time the amount of time in between when the fire is lighted until the mans head blows off.  The shorter the time the better the Summer will be.  Although last year it took 6 minutes and they had a very bad Summer, and this year it took 20 minutes and 39 seconds so it will be a very bad summer.

Click below to watch a video I made of it

Locarno weekend

Last weekend

Last weekend we went to Locarno with my cousin and my aunt.  Locarno is in Ticino were they speak Italian in the southern part of Switzerland.  It was a three hour train ride from Zurich, on the way there we stopped in Bellinzona.  Bellinzona has lots of castles because it is situated in a narrow part in a valley that is the only way to get from Germany to Italy without going over any mountains.  The next day we went on a hike twenty minutes out of Locarno.  We got there on the Locarno regional transport called Fart.  There we took a gondola over a huge chasm to a small village.  It was very awkward at the bottom we were there with another elderly couple and nobody was attending it.  It took a little while for us to figure out that we had to press a green button to make it go.  Everyone had a laugh.  The hike was very nice.  Along the way there was a serve yourself bar and we stopped and bought ourselves some honey.  The next day we went to the thermal baths it was amazing, and all the water was salty.  There was one big bath that had a part outside and inside.  After that that we took the train home the kind of train we were on was a tilting train.  It was a very fun trip.

Picture from beginning of hike, looks like painting.

Bea at the top of some broken stairs(there are lots of old farmhouses there that are falling apart)

Fart Regional transport

Castles in Bellinzona

Outdoor part of thermal baths

Zermatt Skiing

       

           Last week I went to Zermatt, it was a three hour train ride from Zurich.  When we arrived everyone was walking around.  It was a very warm day and we could see the Matterhorn and the skiing lifts very clearly.  We were all very tired so we went strait to our hotel.  In our room we had a perfect view of the Matterhorn from our balcony.  This picture is taken at sunrise from our balcony the day we went skiing.  In the morning the snow was very icy, we got on the 8:30 train up the mountain.  We got out at Gornergratt it was the end of the train line.  From there we skied a couple of kilometers to a gondola and then transfered to two other gondolas and then to a cablecar/tram to the Matterhorn Glacier paradise stop.  That was the highest we went that day at 3883 meters, from there we skied down on a glacier to Plateau Rosa Testa Grigia at 3480 meters.  That is when we crossed the border to Italy.  In Italy we mainly stayed on the same three lifts. I went off a jump and got 1 meter of air and landed.  We stayed there for a while then at three oclock we got on a lift with customs back to Switzerland.  The snow was getting slushy so we skied back to our hotel and returned our skiis.  The skiing was extremely fun and we all got very sunburnt and tan.

Archery

             For my birthday this year I got a bow and arrow.  Yesterday my aunt brought them to me from the USA, this is a picture of Simon right after he has shot his arrow.  Every Sunday morning in Berkeley a guy named Michael would set up archery targets.  I would go up there and practice. He was a very good teacher he would teach you by shooting at coffee cups, then once you got good enough you could go shoot at real targets and then when you were really good he would let you go shoot at a paper plate about a hundred meters away.  I hit it on average 7 times per year.  I have been waiting a very long time for my own bow. And now I get it when i very least expect it! In Switzerland???