Note in this photo the alphorns, and the people standing behind them with white
tops on who are carrying ginormous cowbells, which they sort of clanged into their thighs as they walked, which made a loud and surprisingly hypnotic racket. We also saw flag-throwing,
which looked really quite pretty)
All in all, and speaking as a non-fan of all forms of sport, it really was a fairly fun day. It seems that the aim of Schwingen is to get your opponent onto his back, while simultaneously retaining hold with at least one hand of his hessian wrestlin' nappy. Possibly the most confusing thing about it all was that there were 7 separate Schwinging fields (or whatever they are called. "Circles of sawdust" would be the non-technical term) in the stadium, so every now and then a whole lot of people would cheer even though nothing much had happened in what you had been watching (apparently everyone else was watching the match that you couldn't see because it was obscured by a pole or something).
Anyway, we watched a bunch of wrestling, we got kind of dusty and hot and sunburnt, we saw some large cows, we drank shandies (which was fantastic!), we heard the Swiss national anthem (it seemed hardly anyone sang along, which was surprisingly non-patriotic of them, but then again apparently it has only been the national anthem since 1981), the favourite won the whole thing and then we went home.
Oh, and someone asked me if I was from the Gold Coast. My mock-Swiss (Australian) friend and I were talking and someone leaned over to us and said "where are you from?" and I said "Australia" and she said "from the Gold Coast?" and I said "errr .. no, Sydney" and she said "Sweet as" and then we wondered why anyone would assume anyone was from the Gold Coast. I thought "sweet as" was a weird touch, too.
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