EM Soccer Fever in Switzerland

My husband was on an excursion last week with the senior citizens of our village and they made a visit to the town of Murten (Morat - French). This is a smallish town situated on its own Lake just on the language borders. As you can see even in this sleepy town they are ready for the EM 2008, the shops being decorated in the proper way.

This is the lady that works on one of the tills in our local supermarket. I know her quite well, my son worked in the same supermarket for five years when he was studying at the university, on Saturdays and holidays. I asked if I could take the photo with her EM apron and she laughed and said of course. I even got permission to show it on Internet. Although she had quite a bit of stress on Saturday morning she gave me the time to take this photo. She told me they were given the aprons last week to be worn during the EM. In the supermarket itself I was astonished to see so many Swiss wearing a red t-shirts showing the white cross, baseball caps with the Swiss emblem and it seemed that the Swiss nation discovered their nationality today. Needless to say in the shop itself marketing was being applied where it could be.

If you need a candle for the table outside on the patio, or otherwise, they were there showing the countries colours and flags. The price of a flag for the car has now got cheaper and for one swiss france fifty you can have one. We still have none on our car so we just enjoy watching the flags on the other cars. Of course there were football shirts, shorts, socks being sold, in children's sizes as well as for adults. I did get a few strange looks in the shop this morning when I was taking my photos, but carried on regardless.

I met this one just as I was leaving the supermarket. He was positioned in front of the drug store and was surrounded by all sorts of medicine and ointments for his muscle aches, bruises and other football injuries. I was talking to our apprentice in the office on Friday. He is very happy as he will be going to the match Switzerland v. Turkey with his father - cost of a ticket CHF 150. I think I prefer to watch at home on the television. Of course in the office we also have a bit of football fever. One of my colleagues showed me proudly her fingernails.

And on one of the tables in a department, they had made their own decoration. End of my first report from a small country in Europe that is usually famous for its cheese, cows and watches and now we also have footballers. Would mention more than half of the Swiss team play in another country.