Tour de Suisse (brought to you by ... cheese)

And today marks a fabulous Father's Day. You see, Father's Day in Switzerland was ... the 7th of June. I think we went out for brunch as it was the first weekend that Alison and N. were here. It wasn't a Father's day brunch. Just brunch. But today! Wow. We finally got to see a bike race up close and personal. We've been to the Tour de France and could barely see anything it was so crowded. We've been to the Nature Valley tour in Minnesota, a smallish US pro race.

But today, we were a part of the Tour de Suisse. And because it's Bern, and Switzerland, and not Paris and France we could get right up close to everything that was going on. In the morning we walked around the area and saw some of the set up going on in order to get a feel for where to go. We then all came back in the afternoon. We actually didn't even spend all that much time watching the race. Because, well, how long can you stand there and watch the riders finish individually? Since it was a time trial day, not so exciting to watch the race. But the behind the scenes action was great.

Fabian, or Fabo as he's called here now-a-days, is everywhere in the news. He's on every billboard in town. His was the only team bus that was difficult to get near. Everything else was accessible. Kind of funny stuff. Hey wait, was that Oscar Freire walking by?

Another odd story, I listened in to a cell phone conversation in Swiss German: "Hey Fabian, so and so wants to know when you will be exiting the team bus to begin your warm up ..." Given that information, that's when I showed up at the Saxo Bank bus.

And I'm kind of bummed. I was looking for the Garmin bus but didn't see it. We walked down to the end of the street where all the teams were camped out, but missed their bus. Turns out, it was BEHIND another team's bus. So we didn't see it. By the time I heard where they were, they had already packed up - time trial, you see. When the last rider on the team is done, they just pack everything up.







And finally, #'s 1, 2 and 3: