Monday, July 31, 2006
Today, the scouts went canyoning. About 3/4 of the scouts went on a Beginner's Canyoning trip. The rest went for the Advanced Canyoning trip. I went Advanced, and I am going to assume that the Beginner's trip was similar to the Advanced trip.
There is very little time left for this posting, so I'll add pictures when I get home tomorrow, or something. I'm going to polish the whole blog then as well.
Canyoning
This thing was one of the most dangerous things I have ever done. You see, canyoning consists of four main things of abseiling (climbing rock faces while attached to a rope), jumping, sliding, and walking.
Abseiling
This was spooky, picture this: You have a harness around your waist over your two wetsuits, attached to the harness is rope with a carabiner attached to it. Your carabiner is hooked to a rope suspended 30 feet above raging water and sharp rocks. The rock face is smooth from thousands of years of flowing water and is wet. You need to lean back to keep tension on the rope, and you need to lean in to the canyon. You walk slowly sideways, and must not slip.
Time to go... I'll add the rest later.

Swiss national day!!
~Dan, now 17-years-old, woo.

Sunday, July 30, 2006
Today rocked hard. A large group of the scouts went canoeing down the Aare river, and another large group went on a train ride to the Matterhorn mountain, Switzerland's highest mountain. I was on the canoeing trip, and because I can't be two places at once, I don't have info on the Matterhorn trip, I'll try to get info on that later, sorry, I try.

Canoeing
We woke up at about 6:45 for breakfast and rode a train from the town of Kandersteg to the city of Thun (pronounced "tune"). It is there that we found Ghettoboard(TM) version 3 in a pretty rundown and grafiti'ized area, if you know what a Ghettoboard is, you will find this funny. We met our guides and did a quick safety brief. Then, get this, we inflated our canoes. Inflated! It was craziness, I've never seen inflated canoes in my life, and these ones were just great! They had seemingly double the bouyancy, and John and I withstood many attempted capsizings. So here's what we did on the canoeing trip. We went out with a bunch of German people who knew minimal English and struggled to valliantly to speak to us. Eventually this struggle degraded to... war. War on water, great naval battles were had by splashing water at enemies at top speed with the aid of the canoeing paddles. It must have looked funny to the locals bathing on the sides of the river to see float-by boat battles with people shouting in three different languages at once. We rode through the Swiss countryside and saw everything from post-modern urbanization to open fields and mountainous waterfalls. The water was insanely clear, as is most water in Switzerland, and the bottom had nice smooth rocks lining it. Locals went to the river to bathe and enjoy just like an American would at the beach. One of the strangest things I've ever seen occurred when we were boating in to Bern: people of the city would go up the river and jump in, they'd allow the river to take them down like a "lazy river" for about a mile, then they would come out of the water and walk upstream on a path next to the water. I saw thousands of people in skimpy bathing suits walking up this path in a mass exodus to just jump back in to the water, the craziness made perfect sence after a while, because it's quite hot here, and Switzerland is a landlocked country. We had a blast on this trip, but I don't have and photos because there's no chance that I would take my camera with me in the water.

Conclusion
SUNBURN!!!

That's all I have for now. Cheers!

~Dan

Note: Keep the comments coming!
No snow, but sleet and cold rain, it rocked. Some 1018 hikers also got hit by hail in the mountains a few days ago. I know the posting is a day late, but I will have the canyoning and International BBQ that we did on the 31st up tomorrow morning (if I get a chance).
Just a few days left... It's a shame that this amazing trip is finally winding down.
I'll have flight details soon.

TA-DA!!!




Haha to the last one...

Saturday, July 29, 2006
Today, a majority of the scouts went on a trip to the High Ropes Course. A few didn't, they hung around camp enjoying a "laid-back" day. This post will include info on the High Ropes Course and the previously hiked Jungfraujoch trip.

Jungfraujoch
Hi. This is Robert. Im writing this because Dan wasnt on the hike. So after an uneventful bus ride we got to the station and went on cog train. A cog train is a regular train except for a gear the helps the trains traction. This is by far the loudest train ride ive every been on. So we get off the train at this small little town that really didnt need to be there. We got on another train and contiuned the ascent. The little plaza on the top was nice, and i got to spit off the "top of Eroupe" not once, not twice, but THRICE. My dad and i began to walk up a ramp to the top of the plaza oddly called "the sphix" really random. The view at the top was amazing, you could see a ton of stuff. I then looked down and realized that i could also see through the bottom of the floor. I went back inside. The ride down was the same, except we didnt go on the hike and instead went to another town. My dad and i play the most insane game of mini golf we have ever played. I also learned that cooking waffle cones smells alot like crispy, crispy, cookies. And thats pretty much all that happened, this is Robert Collins, you stay classy herndon.

High Ropes Course
We took a mini-coach from Kandersteg to an area of Switzerland near the German/French border that had the High Ropes course we were looking for. This area was kind of strange, as some of the signs were in French and some were in German, some people even spoke both German and French interchangably. William and I came to the conclusion that they were speaking "Freutsch" (pronounced Froitch), a mixture of German and French similar to Spanglish. Once we arrived at the place, we signed a small waiver, took a 2-minute safety class, and were on our way. The thing I love about Switzerland is the idea of "personal responsibility", that way, you are responsible for your own mistakes, not the company. I'll do a quick rundown on the differences between America and Swizerland:
America
2-hour safety course.
3 waivers to sign.
3 carabiners for security.
1 full-body harness.
1 helmet.
2 gloves.
1 guide following each individual person.
1 helmet.
1-hour affixation and checking of all parts of this list.
Switzerland
2-minute safety course.
1 waiver to sign.
2 carabiners for security.
1 half-body harness.
2 gloves.
That's all! Not only that, but this place in Switzerland has never had an accident, while even the most secure American places have them. What's the deal! Anyway, enough of my rant. We were done with our safety course and on our way to the most extensive and exciting high ropes park I've ever seen. Some parts had you up 35 meters in the trees climbing across a single wire. There were five different levels of difficulty, and we were able to go through them all in our alotted four hours. Arguably the best part of the course was the 200-foot-long zipwire at the end of the Red course. On the way back from the park, we saw some amazing sights over the Swiss countryside, I'll include a photo.

Conclusion
I have over 1500 pictures already, I'm thinking of making DVDs that include all of the pictures of the trip for parents in the troop.

That's all I have for now. Cheers!
~Dan
~Robert

Note: Keep the comments coming!
From Dan: Boogly boogly boo! Canada better get ready.
WE ARE BEING PUSHED OUT OF HERE, I'LL INCLUDE PICTURES FROM THIS POST LATER TOMORROW, SORRY!

Friday, July 27, 2006
Today was also a laid back day, for me at least. I am currently ill and was very sick this morning. The other scouts arrived today from the Lötschenpass hike. Some other scouts and parents went on a day-hike to Jungfraujoch. Later in the evening we experienced an awesome campfire.
I still have no information on the Bunderspitz, Lötschenpass, or Jungfraujoch hikes, I'll try to get that later tonight.
This post is a day late because of the campfire last night.

Campfire
This campfire was the loudest ones I've been to. Because many of the scouts come from non-English speaking areas, the staff avoids using complicated phrases, and does a lot of cheers, "the wave", et cetera. But this campfire was just... CRAZY! Through many of the skits you could see the great American influence on the world. Our skit was doubtlessly the best, and the croud absolutely LOVED it, I recieved many compliments after the campfire about it. I'll go over what we did in it.

The Skit
Dan: We are Troop 1018 of Dranesville, Virginia, of the United States. (croud cheers, for a surprisingly long time)
Dan: Now, as you all know, America is the home to Microsoft. (croud boo's, this is a good sign)
Dan: For this one... special occasion, Bill Gates has given us permission to show you the first version of your Scout Leader on Microsoft Windows Just don't tell the European Union! (as per the EU vs. Microsoft lawsuit). The Troop 1018 Players proudly present "If Your Scoutmaster Ran on Windows". (again, a surprisingly long applause)
Chaz: Look! There he is now!
Harry: Let's go see him! (Dan/Chaz/Harry run up)
John: Welcome scouts. You've got mail!
Dan/Chaz/Harry: Yes! Awesome! Great!
Dan: Yes! I got a MAGAZINE!
Harry: I got a letter from my father!
Chaz: Aww... I got SPAM again! (holds us can of SPAM, laughs and applause follow)
(Dan/Harry/Chaz walk off stage)
(Chaz runs up)
Chaz: Scoutmaster, Scoutmaster! A strange man's coming in to our campsite, he's right behind me!
John: Don't worry... I've got VIRUS protection!
(Peter walks up)
Peter: Hey, uh, I was wondering if you--
(John cuts him off with a punch to the face, Peter falls down, "ooh"s, laughs, and applause follow)
Chaz: Thanks Scoutmaster. (Chaz walks off)
(Chris runs up)
Chris: AAAAHHHHHHHHH AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH SCOUTMASTER!!!!! I CUT MY FINGER AND IT'S BLEEDING EVERYWHERE, WHAT SHOULD I DO?!?
(John pulls out paper hourglass, and flips it around a few times, this lasts a long time, the longer it lasts, the more laughter from the audience occurs)
John: Is is bleeding... BADLY?
Chris: YES YES YES HELP!!!
John: Huh... (pulls out hourglass again and flips it some more, waits about 20 seconds, by then Chris is on the ground passed out, lots of laughter)
John: You need First Aid! (croud laughs for about a minute non-stop)
(Chaz/Dan/Harry run up)
All three: Ahhhh!!!! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ahh! (lots of freaking out)
Chaz: SCOUTMASTER! Patraic fell out of a tree!
Harry: Mark fell off the Fründenhutte!
Dan: Branson got crushed by a glacier!!!
John: Scoutmaster overload... Scoutmaster shutting down.
Dan: We can's have this now!
Chaz: Oh no!
Dan: I know... let's... REBOOT HIM!
Chaz/Harry: Yeah!
(The three kick John in the behind, John looks up, lots of applause)
All three: Come on....
John: Welcome scouts!
All three: Yes!
John: Illegal shutdown detected! Scanning hard-disc for errors! (groans, laughs, applause)
All three: Aww....
John: One percent... two percent... three percent...
Chaz: Gah, this could take forever!
John: Four percent... five percent... six percent... (continual laughter)
Harry: I know! Hit F1!
(Chaz pokes John)
John: Illegal operation in J9_46KxO.ini (John pulls a blue sheet over himself)
All three: Oh no... oh no... it's the... BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH!!! AHHHHH!!!!!
(The three run off, lots and lots of laughter followed by a huge applause came, it was great)

So that was the skit, and it rocked. The Hong Kongese troop in front of us especially liked the part with the "Blue Screen of Death". We also did a rythym/song thing that was short and sweet, the people loved it too. The rest of the evening had many short skits, songs, and even fire breathing. The whole production had hundreds of scouts and leaders. It was an exhilarating evening.

Conclusion
Later tonight I will have a post about what we did today, this includes the High Ropes Course which was awesome. I'll also try to get info on the hikes I missed.

That's all I have for now. Cheers!

~Dan

Note: Keep the comments coming!
Remember: You can refer to older posts through the Archived Posts and Previous Posts sections.
Dan (myself) says "To mom and anyone else who may be concerned, I've finally gotten over the fever (it was 37.6°C, about 99.5°F or something), I only have a few remaining symptoms that will be done with soon. Also, Lori, respond to your email!"
We are supposed to get snow on Monday!