Lausanne

The first week of June, Erin had to go to Lausanne for work for a few days, and I decided to tag along. Lausanne is one of our favourite places we've been. On the hills above Lake Geneva, it's one of the most picturesque places in Switzerland, and that's saying a lot.

We arrived tuesday night and stayed until Thursday evening. While Erin was working I was able to explore the city a little. Having already been here a few times before, there wasn't much left for me to explore, but it's still nice wandering around the steep, cobblestone streets of the old town, and along the Quai d'Ouchy along Lausanne's waterfront.

On Tuesday, I spent some time checking out the city before heading down to the lake, where I walked along the Quai until I found a quiet little pebbled beach to read and go for a quick swim. The weather was great; mid-20's and sunny. After Erin got off work, we had a nice dinner at the Thai restaurant in our hotel and walked the meal off with a hike through town at night.

Wednesday, Erin was stuck working again, so I made a visit to the Olympic Museum. I've visited the museum a few times, and always find it enjoyable. They have a permanent collection with memorabilia from athletes past, as well as all the torches, medals, etc. used from every Olympics.

Unfortunately, that was it for this quick trip, and we were back to Konstanz that night. Lausanne, as usual, was beautiful, and hopefully we can make it back there again soon.

World Hockey Championships

This tuesday, the two of us were lucky enough to score a pair of tickets to the Canada - Slovakia game at the World Hockey Championships in Zürich. While most of the best players in the world are still playing for the Stanley Cup, each team was still stacked with NHL players, including some big stars like Dany Heatley, Jason Spezza, and Martin St. Louis.

We weren't quite sure what to expect for the game. Sometimes you see these games on TV and the arena is half empty, and seems really quiet. Happily, this wasn't the case for this game. The arena was sold out (about 6,500 people), and it seemed like at least 5,000 of those people were crazy Slovakian hockey fans.

Canadians were definitely outnumbered by Slovakians in the crowd, by a margin of at least 10-to-1. We ourselves were surrounded by a sea of Slovakian jerseys. Being totally outnumbered like that made it a little sweeter when Canada jumped out to a quick 3-0 lead in the first period, led 6-1 after 2, and made it 7-1 in the third before Slovakia got a couple of late goals for a 7-3 final score. The Slovakians seemed like they were having a good time anyways, and were in good spirits even with the loss.

As an added bonus, decked out in our Team Canada jerseys and paper hockey helmets, we stood out in the crowd after Canada scored and made it on the TV broadcast. We got home to an email from our mother in Prince George that she saw us after one of Canada's goals, and over the next couple of days, we got a few messages from friends back home saying that they saw us in the Sportsnet highlight package of the games. We're huge celebrities now.

Unfortunately, Sportsnet's videos aren't available on their website here in Germany, but after searching Youtube, we were able to find a clip with us at the very end, celebrating after a Canada goal. Check out the last two seconds of this Youtube clip:

And for our next big news, tomorrow is a big day as we head off to Portugal for a 10-day vacation. We fly into Porto, have a few days there, then head down to the small beach town of Porto Covo for a few days before finishing our trip off with three days in Lisbon. We're really looking forward to it, and are sure to be back with an update when we return.