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Published: September 18th 2008
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Fountain in Bern
The little guy there with the umbrella, getting soaked from below... priceless. Yay, my plane didn't crash or run out of fuel or get hijacked or go bankrupt!
So I guess this is going to be the last of the series of my European adventures. Don't run away yet though! I still have plans to add a bunch of photos to fill in the last few weeks that I haven't been adding any. I'm also going to do at least one more post with some overview maps of the trip and some trip statistics that may or may not be interesting. And then I'm going to add an album of my best photos so that you can enjoy them in a larger format than the small size you currently get.
But that will all be coming within the next few days.
For now: I think I left off last time with my arrival in Bern, Switzerland. The remainder of that day, September 14th, I went for a wander around the city. Bern only has a population of 110,000 or so, which is fairly small. The old city is very well preserved and quite large though, so there was lots to see. This was a Sunday though, and almost everything was
Bern
And the cathedral under construction... as always. closed and the streets were nearly deserted. The train station was the only place where anything was happening, and it's a small city in itself. The other sights I saw were some fine views from the riverbank (the river is cut down into a steep, narrow valley through the city); a museum on the Alps; and a fountain built into the ground in the square in front of the parliament building.
This fountain was rather amusing: there are a bunch of water spouts laid out in a big square pattern in the ground, and they squirt out water in a variety of patterns or at random. On a hot day it seems like it'd be a great place to get wet and cool down. This day was cool and rainy, and one father was walking through the area with his umbrella over his head, and his young son following behind. The father could clearly see where the water spouts were and so avoided them, but the son hadn't figured it out yet. At one point the poor little guy got a blast of water right up between the legs!
The 15th I also spent most of in Bern. I
Bruno
The only resident of the bear pits right now. visited the Bear Pits, which have existed almost since the origin of the city in 1191. Bern takes it's name from "Bear" (according to legend the first animal killed in the area on a hunt by the founder of the city was a bear), and the animal is also on the city flag. Right now there's only one bear in the pit, since it's under construction, but usually there are 6-12. You can even buy bear food and hand feed the bears for $3. I figure you could "hand-feed" the bears for free if you really wanted to.
I also spent a long while investigating the city and found numerous statue/fountains, the famous old city gate clock tower, and stumbled on a harvest market / petting zoo. There must have been some contests going on, because one wheel of cheese had a medal pinned to it, and one cow had a wreath of flowers around her neck. There was also a rather interesting marching band nearby, where every single member played the same instrument: the cowbell.
Late that evening I headed out and caught the 10pm train for which I had a ticket. Not my first choice of
Ogre Fountain
I think he's eating the children again. time, but I was able to get a $45 ticket on this train instead of the usual $139 that it would cost to get to Frankfurt. Needless to say I slept only poorly on the train and was pretty tired when I arrived in Frankfurt at 3am. Luckily there's a hostel right across the street from the main Frankfurt train station. Unluckily it was totally full, as is the rest of the city due to some trade fair / expo thing going on. Luckily they let me sleep on the couch in the corner of the common room, where I managed to catch a few more winks.
The 16th I spent in Frankfurt, which is a very North American city in some ways. The old part of the city is incredibly small (about 4 buildings and one cathedral), and there are skyscrapers everywhere. Haven't seen those in a long time! As I wandered around, found another hostel and decided to see if they had a bed for the night. They did! Huzzah, I wouldn't have to sleep at the airport! I moved in there, then sleepily saw some of the city, sampled a German cookie or two (decent, but
not that great; 7/10), and spent the afternoon at the large botanical gardens. This place was relaxing to the point that I dozed off on a bench at one point, but also interesting enough to keep me for a few hours looking at exotic plants and seeing what interesting photos I could take of them.
My lack of sleep caught up with me around 7pm, but that actually worked out quite well since I was getting up at 4am the next morning to catch my flight anyways. Check-in at the Frankfurt airport was quick and painless, and after twiddling my thumbs for a while the flight finally left at 7:45. It was a long trip back, almost 10 hours, but there were a couple good views out the window of mountains, glaciers, and sea ice in Greenland and then the barren lands of northern Canada. Unfortunately Iceland was covered in clouds so I was unable to see the place I had started 3 months previous!
My first duty back home was to have a cookie, of course. I think I've been lowering my standards! European cookies may be bigger, but they're not better... I think I need to
We have a winner!
At least, I'm assuming this fine beast won something for some reason. re-rank dad's homemade cookies to 9.99/10.
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