Knabenscheissen

This morning Ella and I watched the end of Back to the Future III, her pick this week for movie night.  After the show was over, she of asked me, "So, mom, if you had that time machine, where would you go?"  I told her I think I'd go maybe a hundred years into the future. Doc Brown has it right. I want to know how things turn out.

"Oh, no way!  There's no way I'd mess with the space-time continuum like that.  Do you know where I'd go?  I'd go back in time twenty years so that I could visit that Geauga Lake park and go in that wave pool!"

I don't really remember telling her about Aurora, Ohio's Geauga Lake amusement park, but I guess I must have.  The pool she's talking about was aptly called "The Wave," and it was my most favorite attraction in the whole park.  Instead of constant little waves that you usually see at pools at water parks, it would shoot out one tsunami wave every five minutes or so, lifting you off your feet.  Worth traveling back in time for? Oh, so definitely.

But today, coincidentally, I walked past several of the rides that Kathy and Billy and I used to look forward to each year at Geauga Lake: the Enterprise, the Music Express, the Spider. They were all right here, this weekend, as a part of Zürich's largest folk festival, Knabenschiessen.

Used to love this ride, before my stomach started to betray me.

The emblem of Knabenschiessen. Is
she sighting a rifle, or did she shoot
her eye out?

"Knaben" translates to "young men," and "schiessen" means "shooting"; the Knabenschiessen festival is several centuries old, and is centered around a marksmanship competition for the youths of Zürich. Traditionally the competition was for the young men (aged 13-17), although the young women, the Mädchen, of Zürich have been allowed to participate for the past twenty years.

The girls were originally excluded because, more than anything, the aim of the festival is to build enthusiasm in the young men for their impending compulsory service in the Swiss Army.  And, indeed, the guns that these kids are shooting are the official guns of the Swiss army: SG550 assault rifles.

Every student of age in the canton of Zürich is invited to compete, and, each year, over 5,000 do. As of last night, the first-place holder was a 13-year-old boy.

A small girl with a very powerful weapon

Although the rifles are rapid fire, the kids are given just five shots (The Swiss pride themselves on frugality and tidiness), at a target 300 meters away. The shooting range was on the fringes of the festival, but we followed the sounds of the gunshots and found our way inside.

The kids are shooting at the targets on the upper ridge: each station had a shooting instructor, to coach the kids and
keep things safe

But we didn't stay long: although they had a large bin of head sets for protecting our ears, I don't think that they fit my kids very well, and they all seemed uncomfortable with the noise.  And there was plenty, with sixty-two kids shooting simultaneously. Often when we're climbing on Ütliberg we'll hear the crack of guns from this shooting range, which is at the base of the mountain, but being in the same room was another thing entirely. 

Apparently almost a third of the competitors gets a prize: there was large room of swag, the sort of things that you'd find on the higher shelves of Chuck E. Cheese's, donated by Zürich businesses.  But everyone who shoots gets a free sausage.

No one of our group was of age to shoot, so we had to pay for our sausage, which we decided to have in the Schützenhaus Albisgütli, in the event hall that was transformed into a Biergarten for the weekend.  It was cool and quiet in there, in contrast to the 80-degree weather and incessant carnival din outside. And the fact that the Zürich city band was playing had no small effect on luring me through the doors; unfortunately, we only caught the last song of their concert.

The concert was enjoyed by every senior citizen in Zürich, and us. 

Our waitress handed her pad to Ella so that she
could add up our bill.

The food was pretty fine, but it was a long time in coming, which had to be painful for the kids.  Because right outside the door of the restaurant were all of those rides that I mentioned earlier, an enormous carnival of temptation. But before they were allowed to sample it, they had to eat their healthy food.

Some of the rides on offer were pretty intense:

Man, I wish I could ride this.

That's actually really fast. And it's decorated with bitchin' art!

But my kids decided they weren't ready for such great heights.

Dennis didn't want to go home without trying at least one decent carnival ride, though. They chose the Crazy Mouse, which nochElla and Paul had talked up. As I write this, Joey is peering up at the picture, saying "Look, I go Crazy Mouse! That fun for me!"  But was the only one of the kids who enjoyed it: Ella decided to stay safely on the ground, and the ride moved Alex to tears.

Alex's tastes ran more in the direction of the haunted house.  I tried not to think about the fact that it was 4 CHF per person for a 30-second ride: it was the only ride that he wanted to go on.  I'm thankful that the attendants who were hiding inside with furry gloves decided to grab at me instead of Alex: I didn't bring any spare pants for my son today.

An oldie but goodie. Odd that they felt it necessary to make
it look like a Gameboy.

Ella ultimately decided that she preferred to play games to going on rides, and she spent her money knocking down cans and winning a prize.

And, for good measure, we let the kids share a turn fishing in the duck pond before going home.  I think I've mentioned this before, but while the games are more expensive here, the people who run them are a little more generous.  Not only were the kids allowed to share a turn, fishing for four ducks each out of their dozen, but he throw back ducks with low points painted on their bottoms so that each of the kids had enough to win a little prize.  Joey chose a very squeaky rubber ducky, ensuring that we wouldn't lose him for the rest of the day, and Ella and Alex both got teeny little fußball toys.

Not even as awesome as it looks.

We got separated from Dennis and Joey as we were getting on the buses, spotting each other in time to wave goodbye as Dennis and Joey pulled away from the curb in their bus.  But Dennis was holding my bag, with my bus pass, so I decided it would be safer to walk the mile home.  Ella and Alex spent the whole walk planning epic fußball tournaments with their little two-inch toys, but they postponed their plans in favor of going swimming.

We'd tried swimming this morning before the festival, but before she made it to the pool Ella stubbed her toe and split her nail open. The lifeguard advised against swimming for a few hours. The boys got to play in the icy water, but teary Ella had to go home.  We decided she'd waited long enough and walked the kids back to the pool, but Ella's bandage fell off and she broke her nail open all over again. She didn't miss much, though: the thunder that had been threatening all day finally started, chasing the rest of us home for the night.

That gave Ella and Alex the time to start their tournament, when they quickly discovered that it's very hard to play aggressive fußball on a two-inch plastic toy.  So their souvenirs were abandoned in favor of other toys, left to gather dust on their night stands.  But I'll leave them there to remind the kids of a fun day.