Monday: I relaxed in the morning, then in the afternoon I went window shopping around Amsterdam. In the evening I went to the hotel room of some of the Litchtensteiners I met before heading out to a bar with them.
Tuesday: I decided that I wanted to go see the football match that was being played in the evening. It took me about an hour and a half to find out exactly who sold tickets to the match and finally buy them. I took the rest of the afternoon easy, and eventually headed out to go see the match. Basically, everyone on the metro was going to the Amsterdam ArenA, so just about all of them were chanting and jumping (there will be a YouTube video eventually). I had a beer before going into the stadium, since the beer they serve inside is *gasp* non-alcoholic beer. I missed the national anthems, but got to my seat just as the match got underway. I sat down only to have to get up a few minutes later, as Klaas-Jan Huntelaar scored the opener at the 4th minute. A beautiful pass from Sneijder opened up the Swedish defense, giving room for van der Vaart to pick out a lonely Huntelaar. In the 37th minute, again Sneijder with the key pass to Ibrahim Afellay who was two on one with Huntelaar on his right. The keeper was aware of the pass option, and even so, Afellay was able to tuck it in at ground level in the far corner.
In the second half, the Dutch domination continued. Afellay did his show off far on the left flank with some nice standing tricks, just to get the crowd going, before crossing it to a completley open Huntelaar, who simply headed the ball in past the keeper (56'). The final goal for the Netherlands came in the 59th minute, a beautifully weighted pass from Sneijder (my personal Man of the Match, with key passes on all of the goals) to Huntelaar freed him to run up the left flank, and pass it to Afellay going by three swedish defenders, who, although his first touch wasn't great, kept his calm and easily put the ball past the keeper. The Dutch then lost their concentration and allowed a very easy headed goal from a free-kick (69'). The great Ruud van Nistelrooy got subbed in towards the end of the match, and as soon as he approached the sideline to wait for the substitution, the whole crowd started chanting "Ruud, Ruud, Ruud". After the match, I went to one of the on-site bars, as the metros are overcrowded. I chatted with two Swedes that were in Amsterdam to see the match and visit the city for a few days. We headed back to the downtown together, and they wanted to see the Red Light District. I took them to some of the streets I had seen with my two Montreal friends a few days earlier. They seemed to find the area pretty interesting as I lost both of them to the red lights within only two street corners.
Wedesnday: I headed for the Centraal Station to catch the first of my four trains to get to Sion, Switzerland, (Amsterdam - Frankfurt - Bern - Visp - Sion) which took a total of 10 hours. When I got here, there was a lovely home cooked meal, which was a great change from all the restaurant suppers I have been eating.
Thursday: I spent most of the day at the vineyard, picking grapes and dumping cases into bigger containers. This is Michel's (the grandfather of the two Swiss that came to visit us in Montreal the last two summers, Emilie in 2009 and Gabriel in 2010) commercial production, which is handled by a dealer and sent off to Martigny for vinification. All of the pickers were of course invited to a wonderful Raclette supper, which was delicious and very filling after a hard days work.
Friday: Michel and I went to pick nine cases of Cabernet Franc grapes. We vinified it at one of his friends house. The first step, after picking the grapes, is to pass them through the crusher-destemmer, which, as the name implies, crushes the grapes to make must and removes the stems (which are undesired in the must). Nine cases of grapes half-filled a 200 liter barrel. We then added sulfite and yeast was added later in the evening. In the evening, I was invited to a play by Grégoire, Emilie and Gabriel's uncle, with who I am staying, and two of his friends. The play was quite interesting. In the first part, it is a normal play about work overload and a worker's trouble keeping up with his changing work environment. In the second part, the same play is repeated, but the public is invited to stop the play when they had an idea about how the main character could better cope with his situation and come act out their idea on stage. Of course, the other actors play along and try to stay as true to character as possible, though there is obviously no script. There were maybe ten interventions from the public and though some of them were unsuccesful, most helped out the main characters standing with his colleagues and his boss.
Afterwards, I went to a bar in Sion for a couple of hours with Emilie and two of her friends, who then brought me back to Ardon, which is where I am staying.
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