Gold & Pioneer Event 2008
part 6: Collectors Train through Switzerland
...but even better, it was a real steam
locomotive train! The kiosk would take place on the train, so we would travel
all the way through Switzerland while collectors could purchase old,
rare and interesting watches in the kiosk. A brilliant idea,
especially my kids loved the idea! During the morning, a James
Bond quiz with lots of detail questions about the Bond villains was
held, fortunately, our group "The Penguins" was well prepared :-)
If you want to play the quiz for yourself, you can go to the website
of Swatch The Club and try to "crack the safe"...
Around noon (and after lots of purchases
at the Swatch
kiosk), the train stopped at Schloss
Laufen near the famous Rheinfall (rhine
falls) in Schaffhausen. Time for an extended lunch break and a
closer look at the Rheinfall.
The steam locomotive Pacific
01 202 was built in 1936 in Germany, the total weight of the
locomotive is close to 200 tons! Here are a few closeup pictures.
Antonio and Skander from the club and Dan from the US
After lunch, the winners of the James Bond
quiz were announced and it turned out that we had won!!! The
first prize was a Meet & Greet with "Jaws" (Richard Kiel). He
was very friendly and told nice stories. And he is 2.18 m (7'
2")
tall! The conversation with our kids was not too easy as they
just started to learn English :-)
thanks Michael, this will be a nice xmas card!
The Meet & Greet was over too quickly
(maybe 10 minutes) and it was time for the group picture afterwards:
The following hour was reserved for a
visit down to the rhine falls. Picture time!
This time, we were interviewed for TV (I wonder where this footage will
turn up :-)
As you can see from the pictures below,
the rhine fall is really impressive
and it makes you feel small and vulnerable...
Here is a short video from the rhine falls
and the steam locomotive:
The evening and "goodbye" dinner took place atop the roofs of Bregenz, at the Burgrestaurant Gebhardsberg. Time to say "Farewell"...
"Power off" after three exhausting days :-)
When we left the restaurant, every club
member received the Gold & Pioneer special 2008. This year,
it is a unique Chrono Plastic Gold
& Pioneer 2008 (SUIZ400) limited
to only 222 pcs.
The
watch comes packaged in a numbered suitcase. It is a special
model as it is a variation of the new James Bond watch Dominic Greene (SUIB402).
The differences between the two watches
are as follows: The colour of the
dial is changed from white to
gold and on the bezel, the letters "G&P 08" can be found. There is
also a new
loop "007 Villian Event 2008 Gold & Pioneer"on
the strap. As the dial and bezel are different, this is really a
super special watch!
The Gold &
Pioneer event 2008 was one of the best and one of most spectacular Club
events that I have been to since 1996! (Kiruna will always be #1 :-)
Antonio really had not promised too much in Madrid when he said that
the G&P event would be full of surprises. Where else can you
see the Leningrad Cowboys front row in a small club and have a Meet
& Greet with "Jaws" on the next day? And on top of this great
programme, the organization was absolutely
perfect. Always on time! (this is somewhat unusual
for Swatch events :-) I also have never been to an event in the
last years where I heard so few complaints during the two days... :-)
So a big thank you
to everyone who made this event possible, you could really notice that
Swatch had invested a lot into the planning of the event.
Thanks to everyone from Swatch The Club and from Ixxalp!
You can browse more impressions and
pictures from the event at www.always-surprising.com
and www.swatch.stawi.de.
Andreas Wiethoff,
26-SEP-2008.