6 Months in the New Land of Red and White

It's been 6 months since I left Canada for Switzerland. I can't believe the time has passed so quickly. Simply amazing.

Last weekend I decided to take advantage of my new (as of August 13th) GA (General Abondement). The GA is an annual pass available to Swiss residents that allows you to take any bus, train or boat at any time, in the entire country. Pretty sweet and definitely worth it for someone who plans to get to know his new surroundings well. My first free weekend I decided to take advantage of it and head to Thun to take in some of the World Kayaking Freestyle Championships. I managed to make it down for a couple of runs in the junior men's and women's semi-finals (toting along my big ol' Canadian flag for waving) as well as catching the Big Air qualification event. Overall a pretty sweet event and it was a nice to see Canadian Nick Troutman (from the Ottawa Valley) come out on top in the K1 competition. Here are a few of my best photos:

An overview of the site. They had shut the dam on the Aare and created a nice standing wave that the athletes had 45 seconds to perform their best tricks. The stands actual extend over the water which was cool.

My best photo of the day by far. Junior girl coming up after her flip move.


Slacklining exhibition by Stefan Siegrist. It was pretty cool, because that water was a) moving pretty quick, thus preventing focusing and b) was damn cold (see next pic)


Lost balance = cold shower


Yes, that is a C1 whitewater upside down. The coolest event of the day was the Big Air qualification. 8 m jump over the river with lots of acrobatics...


Some not ending so well. Ouch..