I have a sporting injury! Yesterday we went tenpin bowling (I am atrociously bad at it, but as it turns out not quite as bad as Olivia. Did I mention that Olivia is my friend who has been staying with us for a while? Oh the luxury of having a spare room! Anyway, at least you can drink beer while you bowl, which gives it a definite advantage over most other sports. Plus I rather like the shoes). I mysteriously managed to cut my thumb and mangle my knuckles a bit, and today I've noticed that my left buttock is in agonies. Obviously its muscles haven't done anything quite so active in a while. I feel so sporty!*
* Obviously if I was actually sporty the minor exertion of three whatever they're calleds (games?) at the bowling alley wouldn't be enough to make my muscles wince. Since I am obviously not sporty, though, the reminder that I did anything vaguely more active than go for a walk makes me feel like some sort of super athlete.
Showing posts with label sport. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sport. Show all posts
Friday, 22 August 2008
Saturday, 9 August 2008
Zimbabwean Dollars, Perhaps?
A while ago, Reto forced me to bet him a million zillion dollars that Australia would win more cycling medals than Switzerland at the olympics. I embraced some olympic-appropriate patriotism and the certainty that Australia's olympics are the summer ones and Switzerland's are the winter, I ignored my complete lack of knowledge of our talent at riding bikes (indeed the first time I heard of that Cadel Evans person was last week (after we had made the bet!) when my french teacher explained who he was. His name caused a lot of difficulty. I thought perhaps "cadel" was a french word that I didn't know yet) and I took the bet.
This afternoon Reto had a gloating frenzy because apparently some Swiss dude got a bronze medal in a bicycle event. Make the most of it while it lasts, Mr Smug*.
* I'm still not sure if we're any good at riding bikes, but I'm certainly willing to try to dampen R's sense of victory. Aussie Aussie Aussie, etc etc etc!
This afternoon Reto had a gloating frenzy because apparently some Swiss dude got a bronze medal in a bicycle event. Make the most of it while it lasts, Mr Smug*.
* I'm still not sure if we're any good at riding bikes, but I'm certainly willing to try to dampen R's sense of victory. Aussie Aussie Aussie, etc etc etc!
Tuesday, 1 July 2008
Sport
As I'm sure I've mentioned, even though I DON'T LIKE SPORT AT ALL, I am sort of a fan of large-scale sporting events, in the manner of the Olympics and this soccer thing that's just finished. I like how people hang around and there is free outdoor entertainment and public transport is more friendly than it normally is (although you're annoyed that there are no spare seats, you enjoy seeing all the enormous dutch men in fluorescent orange wigs struggling with their banners and wondering if this is the stop to get off at).
In this spirit, I was always determined that I would make some sort of an effort to at least go to some of the cities where the games were being held and see what the vibe was like while the soccer was on. Being more of a slacker than a doer, though, the closest I got was R and I going to Berne a few days ago and having dinner in some restaurant that was just next to a fanzone*. There wasn't any soccer on that night, so instead of sporty entertainment there was some woman on stage who is apparently quite famous in Switzo (well, Reto had heard of her, and he is pretty oblivious to everything), singing the kind of music that Reto's mother would like (ie. atrocious folksy sort of stuff with no redeeming features whatsoever). So that wasn't endearing at all. Later we walked past another fanzone in Berne and this one was heaps wackier, but there was still a bit more yodelling going on than I would have liked. Admittedly this was sort of rock yodelling, and the singer seemed to be wearing some sort of heavily spangled outfit that doesn't go with yodelling (and therefore I suspect the yodelling might have been ironic or something), but it was still somehow ... not great.
Ever since I saw Ms Mac's picture of the ginormous soccer player statue in the train station in Zurich, I had also been meaning to go there and have a bit of a squiz. Apathy won for a long time, though, and so the first time I was actually in Zurich with the opportunity to look at them (ie. while they were there) was on Monday, ie. the day after the soccer finished. Switzerland being as it is and all, there was none of this "leaving the christmas tree up until it dies and you're left with squillions of old crunchy pine needles tromped into the carpet" type attitude (not least because this is the land of no carpet), so in spite of the fact that I was there at the crack of dawn (10am or so, after helping Reto lug his vaaaast quantites of army crap onto the train), the soccer giants were already in a state of semi-dismantledness. All their arms were gone. I saw a pile of giganto hands with their pink little (enormous) fingernails sticking out of some giant-hand-mincing machine (or possibly just a normal rubbish skip). One of the armless soccer chappies had been pulled down and was lying in a rather ungainly fashion on the ground, face down, with his shorts missing and a man standing in the area where Soccer Giant's bum should have been had he apparently not been in the throes of being dismantled bum-first.
I had intended to take my camera with me that day so that I could take a photo of Reto in all his army finery, all laden down with his idiotically heavy gun and his bayonet and his cammo helmet and his bags and bags of army junk, but a photo of these partially deconstructed soccer chappies would have been far better. But I forgot the camera, and so now I have neither photo. I suppose that's what I get for saying "I'd like a phone with no features at all, please" when I went to buy my mobile. At least it can send and receive SMSes, which is a distinct step up from my previous phone. Which, by the way, wasn't so old as to predate SMSes, it was just sort of broken.
* a fanzone being a fenced off area where everything you could possibly imagine is banned. Like weaponry and pets and glass bottles and anything you might be able to throw (I think that was actually specified on the signage. What can't you throw?? Things that are so sticky that they don't let go of your hand when you try to pelt them? Post-it notes?)
In this spirit, I was always determined that I would make some sort of an effort to at least go to some of the cities where the games were being held and see what the vibe was like while the soccer was on. Being more of a slacker than a doer, though, the closest I got was R and I going to Berne a few days ago and having dinner in some restaurant that was just next to a fanzone*. There wasn't any soccer on that night, so instead of sporty entertainment there was some woman on stage who is apparently quite famous in Switzo (well, Reto had heard of her, and he is pretty oblivious to everything), singing the kind of music that Reto's mother would like (ie. atrocious folksy sort of stuff with no redeeming features whatsoever). So that wasn't endearing at all. Later we walked past another fanzone in Berne and this one was heaps wackier, but there was still a bit more yodelling going on than I would have liked. Admittedly this was sort of rock yodelling, and the singer seemed to be wearing some sort of heavily spangled outfit that doesn't go with yodelling (and therefore I suspect the yodelling might have been ironic or something), but it was still somehow ... not great.
Ever since I saw Ms Mac's picture of the ginormous soccer player statue in the train station in Zurich, I had also been meaning to go there and have a bit of a squiz. Apathy won for a long time, though, and so the first time I was actually in Zurich with the opportunity to look at them (ie. while they were there) was on Monday, ie. the day after the soccer finished. Switzerland being as it is and all, there was none of this "leaving the christmas tree up until it dies and you're left with squillions of old crunchy pine needles tromped into the carpet" type attitude (not least because this is the land of no carpet), so in spite of the fact that I was there at the crack of dawn (10am or so, after helping Reto lug his vaaaast quantites of army crap onto the train), the soccer giants were already in a state of semi-dismantledness. All their arms were gone. I saw a pile of giganto hands with their pink little (enormous) fingernails sticking out of some giant-hand-mincing machine (or possibly just a normal rubbish skip). One of the armless soccer chappies had been pulled down and was lying in a rather ungainly fashion on the ground, face down, with his shorts missing and a man standing in the area where Soccer Giant's bum should have been had he apparently not been in the throes of being dismantled bum-first.
I had intended to take my camera with me that day so that I could take a photo of Reto in all his army finery, all laden down with his idiotically heavy gun and his bayonet and his cammo helmet and his bags and bags of army junk, but a photo of these partially deconstructed soccer chappies would have been far better. But I forgot the camera, and so now I have neither photo. I suppose that's what I get for saying "I'd like a phone with no features at all, please" when I went to buy my mobile. At least it can send and receive SMSes, which is a distinct step up from my previous phone. Which, by the way, wasn't so old as to predate SMSes, it was just sort of broken.
Just picture them armless, pantsless, and lying face down with normal-sized humans coming out of their bottoms. It's a bit like an Almodovar film, isn't it? Thanks to Ms Mac for the photo, too.
* a fanzone being a fenced off area where everything you could possibly imagine is banned. Like weaponry and pets and glass bottles and anything you might be able to throw (I think that was actually specified on the signage. What can't you throw?? Things that are so sticky that they don't let go of your hand when you try to pelt them? Post-it notes?)
Monday, 9 June 2008
You're Perfectly Normal
People are constantly talking about the soccer in my french class. Everyone seems to be very well informed about who's going to win, who should win, which teams were robbed, when we can all expect to be kept awake by victory-addled fans driving around and honking their car horns (and which fans it will be doing the honking) etc. Me and one other girl in the class aren't interested in all the sporty talk, and the teacher seems to find it necessary to constantly reassure us that it's okay to not like soccer, that even though everyone else obviously does, that it doesn't imply anything weird about us at all that we don't like it, that we're still people in spite of this hideous defect and that everyone else should still treat us just as they did before even though we have really asked for the opposite treatment by OUTING OURSELVES AS A PAIR OF MUTANT FREAKS.
I have no problem with not liking sport. I have been a non-fan of sport in a sporty, sporty nation for a good many years, but I can't remember when my disinterest was last made such a big deal of.
I have no problem with not liking sport. I have been a non-fan of sport in a sporty, sporty nation for a good many years, but I can't remember when my disinterest was last made such a big deal of.
Friday, 6 June 2008
Poor Poorly Rogy
In other sporty news (who would have thought I had this much sporty news?? Or any at all, frankly), apparently little Rogy Federer may have all this world-class sport person stuff going on, but that doesn't mean he's medically fit for military service. Or so his german wikipedia entry tells me. That bit is mysteriously omitted from the english version.
Yay For The *^&%^*@# Soccer
This soccer thing is starting imminently (tomorrow, I believe) and everyone's all a-tizzy about it. Shops all over the place have flags and soccer balls in their windows, people are flying flags from their cars, all sorts of merchandise is being hocked everywhere you look, and we people with blogs are complaining up a storm.
Much as I have absolutely no interest in any forms of sport at all, I'm kinda looking forward to the whole shebang. All my hazy memories of the Sydney olympics revolve around how much better it was than we all expected, and how everything worked so well and people were happy and we all watched The Dream on telly and I successfully managed to avoid having anything to do with sport (apart from the time when my sister and I went kayaking and someone yelled "go for gold!" at us, which I enjoyed enormously). That being the only sporting event I have ever been even remotely associated with, I'm assuming, possibly naively, that this will be the same. I think possibly the fact that I don't live in a city where games are being played is a bit of an advantage, because it seems that everyone who does is feeling bitter about the unavoidable disruption that sqillions of pesky fans descending like locusts will inevitably cause.
Meanwhile, something seems to be going on with the train line between here and Lausanne, with the result that all of the decent trains today were cancelled and I spent an hour longer than usual waiting in the freezing (really, I could see my breath, even at noon. It was allegedly about 15 degrees, but my fingers started turning purple) for stupid crowded, slow trains to arrive. On one of the trains, while we were in the throes of stopping for 15 minutes in a tunnel, a dude with a guitar tried to entertain everyone by singing some song about how it sucks to be trapped on a train in a tunnel, and then some woman hurled abuse at him for disturbing her peace. Actually it was all in french so I could be a bit confused about what was actually said, but I'd like to think I'm not. Anyway, those train people might want to work on repairing that before tomorrow, because squillions of cancelled trains, squillions of tourists who don't really know where they're going, and squillions of cranky locals is not necessarily a good combination.
I'm looking forward to it enormously. I do like a good whine.
Much as I have absolutely no interest in any forms of sport at all, I'm kinda looking forward to the whole shebang. All my hazy memories of the Sydney olympics revolve around how much better it was than we all expected, and how everything worked so well and people were happy and we all watched The Dream on telly and I successfully managed to avoid having anything to do with sport (apart from the time when my sister and I went kayaking and someone yelled "go for gold!" at us, which I enjoyed enormously). That being the only sporting event I have ever been even remotely associated with, I'm assuming, possibly naively, that this will be the same. I think possibly the fact that I don't live in a city where games are being played is a bit of an advantage, because it seems that everyone who does is feeling bitter about the unavoidable disruption that sqillions of pesky fans descending like locusts will inevitably cause.
Meanwhile, something seems to be going on with the train line between here and Lausanne, with the result that all of the decent trains today were cancelled and I spent an hour longer than usual waiting in the freezing (really, I could see my breath, even at noon. It was allegedly about 15 degrees, but my fingers started turning purple) for stupid crowded, slow trains to arrive. On one of the trains, while we were in the throes of stopping for 15 minutes in a tunnel, a dude with a guitar tried to entertain everyone by singing some song about how it sucks to be trapped on a train in a tunnel, and then some woman hurled abuse at him for disturbing her peace. Actually it was all in french so I could be a bit confused about what was actually said, but I'd like to think I'm not. Anyway, those train people might want to work on repairing that before tomorrow, because squillions of cancelled trains, squillions of tourists who don't really know where they're going, and squillions of cranky locals is not necessarily a good combination.
I'm looking forward to it enormously. I do like a good whine.
Wednesday, 24 October 2007
I Hate Sport
I just saw an ad for some tennis thing that is apparently currently on (and ruining the normal televiewing opportunities, frankly, because it seems that these Switzies are Fools For Sport, and so every time any sporty event is on (specifically tennis, soccer or anything involving snow or ice) ALL the Switzy channels turn into temples for the continuous worship of said sport, grr) and they described it as a "Federer-Fest". Hahahah.
Monday, 27 August 2007
Schwingen, part 2
... and then on Sunday we got up at the crack of dawn to watch sport. Reto and I rendezvoused with our mock-Swiss friends and went to the SchwingFest. It was hot and arduous, but packed full of typically Swiss entertainment.
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.
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.
Saturday, 25 August 2007
SchwingEriffic
SchwingFest started today (actually, I think it started yesterday, but whatever) so Reto and I wandered down to have a look around. There were heeeeeeaps of people and it was really hot. We saw a bunch of (prize) cows (including Dobi, the super-prize cow, who sadly wasn't as stunningly ginormous as I had thought), plus a bunch of other (inanimate) SchwingPrizes. It seems that businesses donate prizes, so there were pieces of furniture, coffee machines, tool kits, bikes, skis, barbequeues, a bunch of cow bells (as pictured),
and my favourite, a fairly large bonsai bush. 
Actually, I'm not sure if the bonsai was a prize or if it was only there for decorative purposes, but it was definitely the pick of the bunch.
and my favourite, a fairly large bonsai bush. Actually, I'm not sure if the bonsai was a prize or if it was only there for decorative purposes, but it was definitely the pick of the bunch.We also went and watched a bit of Steinstossen, which involves being a big boofy man and throwing big rocks. It's quite simple, really. All you have to do is pick up a big rock, wave it about above your head (for maximum danger in the event of gravity taking over), run at a big sandpit
let go of the rock while simultaneously pulling a funny (tormented) face,
and then, when all the throwing is over and done with, you have to carry the rock back for the next bloke to hoick.
It seems sensible that this sport does not have the equivalent of tennis's ball boys.
Sunday, 12 August 2007
SchwingMania
Aarau is working itself into a bit of a frenzy about the upcoming SchwingFest. Here is a small selection of the window displays put up in shops around town in anticipation of the event (sorry about all the reflections in the pictures, but they were taken through windows). Don't ask me what any of it means, though. I'm as clueless about traditional Swiss wrestling in hessian sumo pants with milk churns and cows as the next person. 
Sunday, 3 June 2007
Go Team Aarau
I'm practically watching sport at the moment. Apparently the local football (soccer) team is the second worst team in the Swiss A-League, so they are having a play off (or something) against the second best team of the B-League (Bellinzona) to see if they get to keep their A-League spot next season, or if they are relegated to the B-League.
Reto is kind of watching the match on the telly. It's being broadcast live from the oval where it's being played, which we can easily see (and hear) out the window from our house. Aarau just scored a point and I can hear the yelling in stereo. It's practically like being there, only better because I don't have to watch and I'm not bored brainless.
UPDATE: Aarau won, 3:1.
Reto is kind of watching the match on the telly. It's being broadcast live from the oval where it's being played, which we can easily see (and hear) out the window from our house. Aarau just scored a point and I can hear the yelling in stereo. It's practically like being there, only better because I don't have to watch and I'm not bored brainless.
UPDATE: Aarau won, 3:1.
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