Bonjour de la Suisse: Schwingfest!!!

Seriously... how could I make this up?

No, G and I did not attend a crazy spouse swapping event or a wild weekend at some "alternative" resort... instead we went to one of the biggest sporting and cultural events in Switzerland, the Schwingen Alpine Festival, or Schwingfest for short.

Along with G's friend from work, M, we all piled in Mr. & Mrs. Kofi's new car, with baby Els is tow too. We drove halfway across the country to Luzern where we spent the night. On the way we stopped in Bern to visit with Mrs. Kofi's grandmother and then have a riverside lunch and do some sightseeing around town. We rolled into Luzern pretty late, but we got a warm reception from Mr. & Mrs. Kofi's friend who we had dinner with. He has a great place that overlooks the lake and the Alps in the distance. The food was great and the conversation was flowing. We didn't want to leave, but we had to be up early to make it to the festival.

The Schwingfest is the National Wrestling Festival that takes place every three years and lasts for two days. Saturday is the preliminary matches and Sunday are the finals. The wrestlers wear a special pair of shorts over their pants (that look like a potato sac but are tougher). One hand grips the opponent's belt (through a hole at the back) and the other grips the bottom of his shorts. The aim is to throw the opponent onto his back (with both shoulders touching the ground), without losing the grip on his shorts.

There are quite a lot of rounds and quite a few wrestlers, so within the arena there are 7 matches going on at once. I had no idea who was who, but I knew there were three guys from California (of only 4 international competitors) and one was from Vacaville... so he was my guy. Too bad he was eliminated early on.

But there was a lot more going on than just wrestling. There was the big stone-throwing (Steinstossen) competition where a giant stone weighing 176 lbs. is held above the competitor’s head and thrown as far as possible. We actually saw the world record of stone throwing broken! There was also marching bands, yodelers, flag tossers (Fahnenschwingen), military horse riding demonstrations, alphorn players, and a group of parachuters that landed right on the field.

We met up with a group of Mr. & Mrs. Kofi's friends who knew way more about wrestling that we did, so we picked their brain all afternoon trying to understand a little more about the sport. We enjoyed the local cuisine of bratwurst and beer and of course the good company of friends.

We also had a chance to get a close look at the prizes for the winners. The first prize for the "King of Schwing" is a giant bull. Other large animals such as horses and cows are given to the top 10 wrestlers. Since almost all of the competitors are farmers, they are pretty valuable gifts.

Overall it was a fantastic festival... much more than we had expected, although I really didn't know what exactly to expect. But Mrs. Kofi was right; it was not to be missed! And best of all... now we can say we are real schwingers!