Swatch on top of the world

(well not quite, but at least on top of Europe :-)

Jungfraujoch swatch event, June 25 to 27th 1999.


Click on the photos for larger pictures!


On the weekend of June 25 to 27, 1999, a great event organized by the International Swatch Club took place in Wengen and Interlaken, Switzerland.
Before I start with a report about the event, here are some infos about the annual gold- and pioneermember event in Biel that took place before the weekend:  Around 100 gold- and pioneermembers came to that event.  Here is what swatch had prepared for the gold- and pioneermembers:


OK.  So far for the Gold- / Pioneermemberevent in Biel.

About 35 people stayed for the Jungfraujoch event on the weekend.  Not much to report about special swatches (so just hit back on your browser if not interested in some photos).  I just want to tell you about the fun we had :-)  The event was well organized as always.  Thanks again to Laurence, Anita, Patrick, Patrick, and Trish.

On Friday afternoon, we drove to Wengen (which can only reached by train!) We were really astonished when we followed the signs to Wengen and suddenly were stuck in a big parking station near the train station :-)  We suddenly saw many people wearing Swatch outfit; the group from Biel had just arrived in the train station as well.  We took the rackrailway train to Wengen and went to our nice hotel.  In the afternoon, the weather was warm and sunny so we all were happy that not much activity was planned.  We just relaxed in the sun in the garden of the hotel.  Later, we took some pictures:


The whole group (Click on the photos for larger pictures!)
 


June
 


Brian & Christine
 


June & Roy

OK.  Enough with boring pictures.  Sorry about that.

On Saturday morning, we got up very early (at 6am) to drive up to the Jungfraujoch (again with the rackrailway train).  It took about two hours until we arrived at the Jungfraujoch (altitude about 3500m or 10000 feet!).  The guides from the Adventure company were already waiting for us to take a walk on the glacier.  We received some straps and ropes (in order not to fall into the crevasses on the glacier).  Some people looked quite funny:


Brian


Andreas

The weather on the glacier was OK when we walked outside:

We even walked into the crevasses which was a great experience.  We had a lot of fun.

Afterwards, we got a drink on the station and later went to the ice palace where ice sculptures were cut out of the ice, really incredible:


Igloo and...


PENGUINS ;-)

Saturday night was time for a swiss folklore dinner in the Casino Spycher in Interlaken:


Arrival at the Casino

Although swiss (and other) folklore music is not completely my taste (on a note aside: I managed to catch the drum stick of Charlie Watts at the Rolling Stones gig in Cologne on June 20th :-),
the performance was quite good.


Alphorns!


Swinging the Swiss flag


Martin, June & Patrick

The audience was also invited to participate during some songs:


Jürgen and the washboard


Hard working swatch employees :-)


Patrick working even harder :-)


Martin trying to jodel


Polonaise

We had a great time.  Thanks again to all the staff at Swatch The Club (Laurence, Anita, Patrick, and Patrick):


Brian and Laurence

Too bad that such weekends always pass so quickly.  See you all again soon hopefully.

Thanks to Brian for some pictures.

Andreas Wiethoff
June 28th, 1999.

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