Bern

So, I live right outside of Bern and it’s always surreal to me that that is where I go to take the kids to doctor’s appointments, where we go to take the recycle stuff, where we go for errands/things we can’t do in our own little village.   I mean Bern is really OLD and a COOL place that people visit from all over the world.  It’s really really neat—of course there is the cool architecture, fountains, statues, and when you walk through there is often musicians on corners—a cello here, a Chinese instrument over there, a little gypsy band there.  EVERY time I’m there and I walk through the Aldstadt or through the markets I think that I should have brought my camera.  So this week I took the kids on the bus (I always go on the bus when I need to do something in Bern because it’s just so much easier than trying to navigate and find a parking spot) and Brett rode his bike and met us behind the Bundeshaus for lunch.  I did take my camera, so here are some pictures from Bern (though not as many as I thought I would get, because it is not so easy taking pictures and keeping track of your kids at the same time).

First I got a little camera happy with the flowers in the markets.    This is where we ate lunch—baguettes with Nutella.  :)  Jethro and the kids had a good time playing with the chess game.    Jethro actually convinced Brett to play a game with him.  He was thrilled.    Pondering his next move.

  Chasing pigeons. 

    Of course I had to take a picture of the Zytglogge, (even though I have several other pictures here).    This is the BärenPark.  This was the Bear Pit which was replaced by the above Bear Park in Oct 2009.  I don’t know when this picture comes from—early 1900’s?  Brett has a picture in front of the Pit when he was on his mission. This last picture is not from right in Bern, but right by where I live.  I pass this schloss every time I go to the grocery store.  It’s so pretty. So, anyhow, after I trucked the kids all over town, when we got to the secondhand kid’s store we were looking for it was closed for holidays (the schools are on holiday right now for three weeks)!  Ruff.  BUT, it was still a really fruitful trip because we went to a secondhand bookstore which sells their English paperbacks for one frank—ONE FRANK!!!— and we got there twenty minutes before it opened (stores in Switzerland are open very infrequently) and so we sat around waiting those twenty minutes and as soon as it opened and we went inside Ethne decided she had to use the bathroom RIGHT THEN so we had to go back out and find a store that had a bathroom.  But anyway, we found the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Harry Potter books which made Jethro the happiest boy on earth since he has the first book and loves it to death.  In the two days since then, he has read the second, third, and half of the fourth and we haven’t really seen or heard him, except when he starts jiggling and saying “this is soooo awesome!!!!”  We also got three other books so we were all very happy.

And that’s my story about Bern.