Springtime is when Swiss farmers spray their fields with cow manure. You therefore need to keep your washroom window closed to prevent the smell of shit.

The wait finally ended. Last summer Bryan and I bought tickets for the Canada-Slovenia and USA-Latvia matches at the 2005 Hockey World Championships in Innsbruck. Our seats could not have been better. We sat directly behind the bench and had a perfect view of the games. The Canada-Slovenia game wasn't very exciting due to the 8-0 blowout in favour of Canada. The number of Canada fans was overwhelming, although I don't believe most of them were actually Canadian. The guy next next to us explained that it's German mentality to cheer for the favoured team instead than their own country.

Between games we bought tickets from a scalper for the following day's Sweden-Finland game.

The USA-Latvia match was much better. The arena was packed with crazy Latvian fans who went insane when they scored the first goal. Bryan was naturally cheering for Team USA and was therefore taunted by two older Latvian guys. They had their few minutes of fun, but Bryan had the last laugh with a 3-1 victory (see photo below). It was disgusting that the USA national anthem was jeered.

The following day we wandered around Innsbruck and killed time. We had planned to watch the Ukraine-Denmark game in the beer tent, but technical problems with the television projector forced us to buy cheap standing-room tickets (good call, Bryan). Bryan and I randomly picked teams and wagered a beer.

The Swedish-Finland tickets had a small complication. The scalper had sold us "press-only" tickets and I was briefly worried that we would be removed. Fortunately, luck was on our side and we were bumped to great seats in the fifth row for a fast and intense 5-1 win for Sweden.

In the end we regretted not staying longer and seeing more games. Last night was the Canada-USA match but unfortunately it was not broadcast at home because all stations were focussed on the Switzerland-Germany game (Canada & Switzerland both won). Bryan and I are already talking about next year in Latvia so that we can laugh at our Latvian friends again (see photo). Go CANADA!

Cycling & Wander-ing

What a fantastic weekend. It started on Friday with a bike ride followed by the annual St. Gallen Honky Tonk Festival. The festival has a simple premise of ~30 bars around St. Gallen with live music and a single cover charge. This isn't a festival I usually enjoy, but this year was exceptional. I joined Ossie and his girlfriend for some Irish folk and "kick-ass rock and roll" before stumbling upon an incredible blues band. The guitarist was Italian and honoured greats such as Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jimi Hendrix with his own virtuoso style. Fantastic!

On Saturday I joined Antonia for a bike ride through the Toggenburg from Wil to Mogelsberg (to visit Bryan) and back. This was the first real summer day of the year and I got the sunburn to prove it. On Saturday night I played a few games of pool with Bryan.

On Sunday I joined some hikers from wanderforum.ch for a hike near Baar, Switzerland to the Hoellgrotten. It was a leasurely pace through beautiful scenery followed by a walk through a cave with stalagmites and stalactites (the Hoellgrotten). What I found interesting about the Hoellgrotten was the root of a maple tree that had penetrated the 2m thick ceiling of the cave, and then grew another 3m(?) to the pool of water below. I met a number of great people and I hope to join them again in the future.