The Making of Emmentaler Cheese

Knabenschiessen 2015

"Knabenschiessen is a traditional target shooting competition in Zürich.^[1] held on the second weekend of September each year.^[2] The festival, officially held for the first time in 1889, is one of the oldest in Switzerland, dating back to the 17th century.^[2]

The competition is open to 13–17 year olds who either reside or are enrolled in a school in the canton of Zürich. Originally reserved for boys (Knaben), the competition has been open to female participants since 1991. The shooting is with the Swiss Army ordnance rifle, SIG SG 550. The competition is held in the shooting range at Albisgütli to the south-west of the city center, on the slope of Üetliberg. It is surrounded by a large fair."  (source: wikipedia)

This year and last year's winner were both girls! :-) It's still a little odd to see young kids shooting big guns but it's also done in such a safe and controlled environment. As it should be.

Scientifica - Zürcher Wissenschaftstage

Science Day at ETH took place this weekend and what a show! There were lectures, hands-on experiments and many tables manned by grad students and faculty happy to explain the science behind their exhibits. We saw one that looked like two trails of white lights spinning around very quickly but once you used a light that was moving as fast (in the case 1000 RPS -revolutions per second), you could see the trails of white light were actually two little white balls with happy faces painted on them. This wasn't the most impressive part though. Trying to comprehend that molecules move 1 billionth times faster was a moment.

Grace and her friend Annabella attend a lecture on robots with Rob and I took Ally to see other exhibits that were age appropriate for her.

I am always so impressed with the quality of events happening in and around Zürich on a regular basis.

Judo Competition

Grace competed in her first Judo competition last week and she did great! The competition is ongoing and there are teams so each person is trying to win and accumulate points for their team. Grace won one of her two fights and is looking forward to competing again. In the meantime, Ally is just returning to her Judo classes after breaking her arm and is happy to be back. 

Uster Triathlon 2015

Rob completed his 4th Triathlon! This was his second olympic and we couldn't be prouder. The day was a scorcher but Rob persevered and improved his time by several minutes. The girls and I took a bus to Maur and then a boat across Lake Greifen to Uster where the race was taking place. We waited for Rob to finish racing and then we all took a boat and bus back home. Next week is the Grifenseelauf.

More family pics from Dallas

Life in Switzerland

Grace was quite frustrated this evening when we couldn't located a glue stick that wasn't all dried up. She had a homework assignment and needed to cut and glue her math problems together. She told me that ALL (yes, she emphasized "all") Swiss homes have sharpened pencils, plenty of good glue sticks AND they never lose anything! 

That's quite an impression! I am going to ask Ally tomorrow for what she knows about Swiss homes. This should be entertaining.