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Pop Culture

Trevor Noah and Roger Federer board the 'wrong train' in perhaps the greatest tourism ad ever

It's clever, funny and incredibly effective.

MySwitzerland/YouTube

Roger Federer and Trevor Noah filming a Swiss tourism ad

What do you get when you combine comedian Trevor Noah, tennis legend Roger Federer and the world famous clock-making, chocolate-brewing, Alpine-skiing symbol of neutrality, Switzerland?

Apparently, a delightfully charming train ride through the Swiss countryside and perhaps the greatest tourism ad ever made.

Both Noah and Federer shared a tourism ad they collaborated on for the Grand Train Tour of Switzerland, and people are loving it. It's one of those ads that people don't care is an ad because it doesn't really feel like an ad and it's so enjoyable to watch. (It's also incredibly effective—like, give us alllll the train rides through Switzerland, please.)

The ad plays like a mini-documentary of Noah and Federer filming a Swiss tourism ad gone wrong. The two men—both of whom are half-Swiss in real life—appear to hop on the wrong train while arguing about whether or not the ad they are filming is funny (or whether it even should be).

What follows is a tale involving Swiss punctuality, hospitality and stunning natural beauty, all wrapped up in wholesome hilarity.

Check it out:

Thousands of commenters have chimed in with how enjoyable and effective they found the ad:

"This clip is brilliant and I am definitely going to travel on that train in Switzerland in the near future. Excellent work," wrote one commenter.

"Usually, I hate tourism ads because they're always so clichéd and unoriginal, but this one hooked me from the beginning," shared another. "Switzerland is such a beautiful country, and this ad singlehandedly convinced me so. Looking forward to this train ride sometime in the future! :)"

"This is criminally short!" wrote another. "I wish for a full hour! I can’t seem to get enough of them."

Noah and Federer shared their experience making the video with Financial Times, and their "behind the scenes" stories are as delightful as the ad itself.

Federer, who is an official Switzerland Tourism Ambassador, shared how much he has enjoyed making Swiss tourism ads with Robert DeNiro, Anne Hathaway, and of course, Trevor Noah. He said the shoot with Noah brought him back to his own childhood.

"I was always on trains, leaving home, looking out of the window, seeing the trees and the fields go by and thinking, 'Will I be a good tennis player? Will I not? Will I win, will I not?'" he said.

Several parts of the ad point to how strict the Swiss are about being on time, and Noah shared that there were a few instances while filming when a train really did almost take off with them inside.

"They weren't even going to hold it for us," he said. "We were like, 'Oh, we're making an ad,' and then they were like, 'Yeah, and the train has a schedule.'"

"We were laughing," Noah said, imagining what would have happened if a train really had left with them on it. "Like, would that become the meta joke? Does that become the joke in the joke?"

If you enjoyed the train tour ad, take a few minutes to see Noah and Federer share how it came to be and how much fun they had making it.

This article originally appeared on 4.5.23

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In 2008, this city decided to embrace street art. It was a beautiful decision.

In the heart of Glasgow, Scotland, you'll find a tiger, a few swimmers, a giant woman, and a pair of break-dancing puppets.

No, this isn't some sort of lucid fever dream. It's street art. And in Glasgow, it's given the city center an eye-catching face-lift.

Photo by Jeff Mitchell/Getty Images.

While street art is now a common occurrence in Glasgow, that wasn't always the case.

Graffiti and urban blight began to creep into the city center during the 2008 economic downturn. The city council stepped in to promote public art as not only a way to clean up the city, but also an opportunity for local artists.

“The reason we promote murals is to brighten up drab and dark areas in the city, gable lanes, and other parts of buildings and also to deal with graffiti hotspots," said the Glasgow City Council group manager, Jane Laiolo, in a video about the project. "And it’s also an opportunity to develop artists from former graffiti artists in many cases to becoming small businesses in their own right.”

Photo by Jeff Mitchell/Getty Images.

That's because local grants and scholarships help fund these large scale, dynamic projects that turn once dreary street corners, alleys, and walls into imaginative, delightful works of contemporary art.

"I try to do things that are fun and interesting,” said Smug, the artist behind many of the murals. “ I’m aiming for kids ‘cause everybody loves 'Toy Story'… Everybody loves 'The Simpsons.' It’s stuff that the kids like. It’s stuff that adults like. And not that I’m trying to be a people pleaser, but it’s stuff that I like as well.”

Artist Rogue-one brightened up a popular but drab pedestrian underpass with shadow puppets.  Photo by Jeff Mitchell/Getty Images.  

To make it easy for locals and tourists alike to experience the murals, the Glasgow tourism department put together a walking tour.

Tourists and locals can pick up detailed maps and follow the short route to see more than a dozen murals. It's a great way to experience the city and interact with many of the local shops, eateries, and residents at the same time.

While nothing beats the real thing, you can take a virtual walking tour through the Glasgow city center and check out 15 photos of the stunning pieces:

1. Never smile at "Crocodile Glesga" in Charring Cross.

Artist Klingatron took advantage of the environment and incorporated existing brickwork into the scales and used an area missing a brick for the eye.

Photo by Jeff Mitchell/Getty Images.

2. Beard + Bird = One amazing mural.

Photo by Jeff Mitchell/Getty Images.

3. Take off into the great unknown with Glasgow's "Space Man."

This colorful piece on Argyle Street is by Ali Wyllie and Recoat.

Photo by Jeff Mitchell/Getty Images.

4. Or hitch a ride on the "World's Most Economical Taxi."

Muralist Rogue-one is the man behind this popular, charming mural. Those bricks behind the car? They were painted on an existing brick wall.

Photo by Jeff Mitchell/Getty Images.

5. Sea creatures have a space in city center too. Be they tentacled....

Photo by Jeff Mitchell/Getty Images.

6. Or speedo-ed, like these swimmers by artist Sam Bates (aka Smug) to celebrate the 2014 Commonwealth Games.

Photo by Jeff Mitchell/Getty Images.

7. Smug also painted these murals that show off Glasgow's flora and fauna in all four seasons.

Photo by Jeff Mitchell/Getty Images.

8. And don't worry about the giant woman in his "Honey I Shrunk the Kids." She promises to set you back down.

Photo by Jeff Mitchell/Getty Images.

9. With some of the murals, it's hard to tell what's real and what's not.

Photo by Jeff Mitchell/Getty Images.

10. But if you're lucky enough to see a zebra with a martini ... that's probably a work of delightful fiction. Probably.

Photo by Jeff Mitchell/Getty Images.

11. Students of past and present dot the mural at the University of Strathclyde.

Photo by Jeff Mitchell/Getty Images.

12. And this campus mural, dubbed "The Wonderwall" is a tribute to some of the school's great thinkers and incorporates three seven-story gables.

Photo by Jeff Mitchell/Getty Images.

13. This gentleman is one of the "five faces" in a series of portraits done on pillars.

That gauge must have taken a long time to work up to. Photo by Jeff Mitchell/Getty Images.

14. Ever seen a giant panda on an urban street corner? Now you have.

Photo by Jeff Mitchell/Getty Images.

15. And what's street art without a street musician or two?

Photo by Jeff Mitchell/Getty Images.

The street art of Glasgow inspires and enchants.

This project has brightened up the city and bolstered the artists in the best way.

“I think the general perception of all these murals is very positive," said muralist Rogue-one in a video about the project. "I think a lot of people are quite positive now. They come and say hello to me.  Taxi drivers ... say they love them and there should be more of them."

And since some of the works are temporary, new art appears all the time. It's the perfect blend of surprise and delight ... and tigers. Can't forget tigers.

Photo by Jeff Mitchell/Getty Images.

Heroes

18 amazing photos of Greenland and how it's about to change.

This is probably the picture that comes to mind when someone starts to talk about Greenland.

Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images.

Stark, pale blue glaciers. High, rocky mountains.

Greenland is a poster child of climate change.

A scientist studying layers of ice in a glacier. Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images.

It sometimes seems like the only images we see are giant fields of ice — and maybe, if you're lucky, a scientist in snow gear plunging an indescribable instrument into a snow drift, like some sort of future explorer on a distant planet.

It's easy to talk about Greenland as if it were some alien world.

But Greenland isn't just glaciers and snow.

An aerial view of Ilulissat, Greenland. Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images.

While it's true that about 80% of the country is covered by glaciers, many small towns and cities dot the coastlines.

More than 55,000 people call Greenland home.

Loretta Henriksen with rhubarb gathered from her garden. Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images.

About 16,000 of them live in Nuuk, Greenland's largest city.

Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images.

Nuuk is also Greenland's capital and home to the University of Greenland.

In 2013, photographer Joe Raedle went to Greenland, where he found children playing on playgrounds...

Playtime in Nuuk. Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images.

Families eating together in a cafe at a mall...

Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images.

A young woman on a set swings...

Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images.

And people relaxing with cups of coffee.

Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images.

Out in the country, Raedle also snapped a shot of Greenlander Pilu Nielson playing with his dog near the family farm.

Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images.

Nielson's family raises sheep and grows potatoes near the city of Qaqortoq.

As it turns out, Greenland can be, well, pretty green.

Trout caught in a stream near Qaqortoq. Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images.

And climate change ... may actually be making the land greener?

Arnaq Egede walks along her family farm, the largest in Greenland. Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images.

That's part of what Raedle went to Greenland to document: how the people are adapting to changes in their environment.

It probably doesn't come as a surprise that in recent years, Greenland has been getting a lot warmer.

Two men playing guitar in the summer sun, 2013. Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images.

The trend was already apparent when Raedle visited in 2013, and it hasn't let up since. In, fact, in June 2016, Greenland's capital hit its highest ever recorded temperature.

How climate change is affecting Greenland is more complicated than the thermometer, though.

On the one hand, climate change has been hurting traditional hunting practices. On the other, warmer summers have extended farmers' growing season.

A supermarket in Greenland. Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images.

While Greenland's famous glaciers have been shrinking at a record pace, that's also opened up new land to farming and mining.

A geologist looking for samples to better understand the glacial retreat. Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images.

Greenland also has rich mineral deposits, including uranium, which could bring jobs — or exploit local workers. Many people, including some in Greenland's government, are being cautious about jumping in.

But climate change's biggest effect on Greenland may be the ocean.

Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images.

Almost 90% of Greenland's export economy is made up of fish and shellfish, especially cold-water shrimp. Climate change may bring new species, but it may also endanger these precious stocks.

In a perhaps bittersweet twist, Greenland is also starting to get a lot of climate change tourism.

Photo by Uriel Sinai/Getty Images.

Tourists want to see the glaciers before they're gone. In 2010, Greenland had an estimated 60,000 tourists, according to Smithsonian Magazine — that's more tourists than there are Greenlanders!

Climate change is going to change a lot in Greenland, but Greenlanders seem adaptable.

Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images.

"We're used to change," said Pilu Nielson (the farmer playing with his dog). "We learn to adapt to whatever comes."

It's easy to feel like climate change is something that'll only really matter in a hundred or a thousand years.

But these pictures show it's changing lives now, especially in Greenland.

Heroes

A national park worker opened a bumpy envelope to find an adorable note — and a surprise.

Susan Gardiner was opening the mail for Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks when she came across an envelope with a large lump — and no return address.

"I was a mail carrier for 15 years before that, so yeah, you’re always cautious of mail that has no return address," Gardiner told Upworthy.

After carefully opening the letter, the park administrator said she "got a chuckle over what [she] found inside."

It was a sequoia cone, taped to a note:


It's actually a sequoia cone. Still cute though. Photo by Meredith Elgart/Facebook.

The note, in a child's handwriting, was sent anonymously.

“I had to share it because it was so moving and so cute," she said. "So I shared it with the interpretation department, and they said they would get the cone back to where it belongs.”

True to their word, rangers placed the cone back near the General Grant tree.

The General Grant tree in Kings Canyon National Park, the second-largest tree in the world. Photo via Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, used with permission.

"We are so glad this young person thought about the park's preservation messages," an official wrote on the park's Facebook page. "Thanks for leaving Sequoia and Kings Canyon Parks as you found them. And, thanks for sending this back, buddy!"

This is a small piece of good news, and one that America's national parks could certainly use.

Though their season is only a few months in, parks across America — particularly Yellowstone — have already played host to a series of incidents where tourists violating park rules ended in tragedy.

In May, a baby bison that was picked up by Yellowstone tourists who spotted it alone on the side of the road had to be euthanized by rangers after it couldn't be returned to its herd.

And on June 9, 2016, a 23-year-old man died in the park after wandering off a boardwalk and falling into a hot spring.

The return of the sequoia cone, meanwhile, is likely to make a lot of squirrels very happy.

A squirrel eats a meal near the General Grant tree. Photo by Farmatin/Wikimedia Commons.

"Everything in nature is connected," Dana Dierkes, public affairs specialist at the parks, told Upworthy.

Dierkes explained that while pocketing a single giant sequoia cone might not seem like a big deal, for the rodents who depend on them for a food source, maintaining an untampered ecosystem is critical for their survival and success.

All it took was one child — and their parents — who decided to do the right thing.

Gardiner and Dierkes both hope the letter writer's honesty and responsibility will serve as an example to other visitors.

"I was a Girl Scout, and one of the things I learned in scouting is that the only thing you take is pictures and the only thing you leave is your footprints," Gardiner said. "So if you take stuff, there’ll be nothing left for other people to enjoy."

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