Bern Munster Cathedral and iceskating

So I really have to confess that I overdramatized in my last post.  Sure, I wish that somehow Scotty could have beamed me to Utah for Lindsay’s wedding, and I was a little sad when I saw the pictures, but really, I didn’t dwell too much on missing it.  How could I when some friends helped me to have a terrifically sensational two days.  First on Wednesday, my friend Kathrin brought her daughter Melinda to my house to watch the kids while she and I took the train in to Bern.  Basically she’s the awesomest person in the world. 

I can’t remember what this building was—but I think it was some sort of government building. Then we went to the Munster Cathedral. 

“The unique Bern Münster dates from 1421. Looking a bit like a great Gothic rocket, this former cathedral boasts the tallest spire in the country. It also shelters some important medieval art, including painted sculptures over the portal and fine stained glass windows.”

“The most exceptional feature of Bern's Münster is the magnificent depiction of the Last Judgment over the main portal, which contains more than 200 carved wood and stone figures. Justice occupies the center, flanked by angels and the Wise and Foolish Virgins. Above is the Archangel Michael, with a sword and scales. The saved are on the left and the damned are on the right. Such a significant survival of religious images is rare in Protestant Switzerland, but apparently the graphic depictions of salvation and damnation appealed enough to the Reformers to spare it from destruction.”

   

Gargoyles are awesome.   

“The Münster's 100m (300-foot) bell tower is the highest in Switzerland and can be seen from almost anywhere in the city. The tower's viewing platform provides a panoramic view of the Bernese Alps, the old town, Bern's bridges, and the Aare River. Getting there costs a small admission charge and a spiral climb up 254 narrow stone steps.”

 

“The Münster's 10.5-ton bell was cast in 1611 and is the largest in Switzerland. You may wish to plan your tower climb around its resounding ringing!” 

So we WERE there when they rang the bells, and we ran down the REALLY narrow spiral stairs to right next to the bells, and of course had to cover our ears when we were that close, but it was sooo awesome to feel the enormous vibrations in our chests and bodies.  Really amazing.I really like this door, and think maybe when we build a house I’ll put one in just like it.

This is the ceiling.  I tried to take a close up but it didn’t turn out, but there are statues at each intersection of the lattice. Then we just walked around window-shopping and smelling.  I had to go into one of the chocolate shops and it was awesome.  I couldn’t even buy anything because there was simply too much—impossible to decide on any one thing.   But later I did buy this little cheese-pie thingee (can’t remember what it was really called) and it was delish.

   

So anyhow, I got to spend a wonderful day in the city seeing the sights, tasting the tastes, smelling the chocolate, and visiting with a wonderful friend.  It was GRRRReat!  Unfortunately, I didn’t think to take any pictures of her and me, so we’ll have to go back and do it all again and get a picture of us.  Darn it.  :)

Just as a random note, remember how I said the cars are small here.  Some are very VERY small.  This one I like to call a raindrop car, but it’s really called a Twike.  If you’re at all interested in cars, you should go to twike.com and see them.  (Brett made me.)  One kind can be pedal-powered, but the other kind runs on a battery I think.  Very eco-friendly and all that jazz.  Guess how much one of these little babies cost?  I’ll tell you.  $16,000.  Wow. Then the next day, my friend Melinda came over to hang out with me because she’s has a holiday from school and she’s awesome like that.  We took Jethro and went into Bern and went iceskating (thanks to Brett who came home because he was feeling sick and then watched the other kids for me).  :)  It was so fun.

It was the coldest day of the last two weeks though, of course.  But we had fun anyway.  I told Melinda my sister was getting married that very day and that since I wasn’t there with the rest of my family she had to be my surrogate sister.  She said she’d be honored.  Yeah, she’s pretty much the most wonderful girl in the world.

 

Then Melinda and I took the train to another friend’s house where we had a movie and snacks with some of the girls in the ward.  I don’t know how I suddenly somehow became cool enough to hang out with teenagers, but I’m glad I am (or that they’re nice enough to tolerate me ;) ) because they are awesome.  (And I mean that when I say it—I used to think the worst calling in the world would be Young Womens, but here I think I would have an awesome time!)  When I left to go home at 9:30 or so, Melinda and Talitha walked me to the bus stop and it was grand.  They are funny and fun and I felt so light-hearted.  And I looked around me in the darkness and thought, I can’t believe I’m really in Switzerland.

Lindsay's wedding pictures

You know how sometimes you simply have to cause yourself pain because the trade-off is worth it? That's what looking at these pictures is for me. The suffering is intense, but I just can't stop looking at them anyway. My dear, wonderful sister Megan posted these from her camera because she knew that I wanted to see some as soon as humanly possible (what a WONDERFUL sister!!!).
Now, looking at pictures of Lindsay and Sterling just make me happy--see them just coming out of the temple into the falling snow? Awwww!

But then I see this picture of my dad and mom with all of their grandkids EXCEPT my kids--well, it makes me want to cry a little.

And then, all the sisters and my mom, and no... me. Sob.

Oh, well, I don't look good in red anyway.

Happy Lindsay is getting married day!!!!

My little sister is getting MARRIED today!!!! Aaaaahhh!!!

And I'm not there to see it. sniff sniff. At least I can post this picture and pretend we are there. :)

Fasnacht

According to Wikipedia, Fasnacht- or carnival- is the time of the year when the reign of bad spirits of the cold and grim winter period is over and these spirits are symbolically being hunted down and expelled. So each year people dress up as demons, witches, earthly spirits and dreadful animals to enact this scene of symbolic expulsion.

All I know is, it makes for a very fun parade with lots of cool costumes, confetti throwing,

music,

wigs and face-painting,

wooden masks (one of my favorite parts),

REALLY cool costumes (I know I already mentioned cool costumes, but look at these ensembles!),

and cute little gnomes. Wait a minute! Who's that really cute one on the left?

Oh, it's Hazel!! In Brett's own words: "She's the cutest little blob I've ever seen." It did rather look like she was wearing a fat suit since she had on her puffy winter coat under Jethro's shirt. :)The parade and the crowd wound up here at Hazel's school.

There they had refreshments available, including cheese! (this is Switzerland, after all)

Mmm, see the raclette above? It's heated till it's all melty and bubbly on top, then the guy scoops it off onto your bread.A cool thing about this parade was that it wasn't just the parade participants that dressed up, it was everyone. Too bad we didn't know ahead of time. But there's a Fasnacht parade in Bern in another week (this one was just for our little village), so maybe we'll have to find some clothes to dress up in for that one. Look at some of the sweet outfits--

I don't know what he was--but I liked it.

So you can go away cold grim winter spirits! You're all symbolically and officially expelled!

Jethro skips school

So Jethro was very naughty and skipped school yesterday to go hang out in Bern. Okaaaay, that's not actually what happened. Here's the real story.

Jethro rides the city bus to his school. For the first week, Brett went with him in the morning, and I picked him up at noon to bring him home. Then, he went by himself for a week. All was good.

Yesterday at about 9:00 I got a call from Jethro's teacher. She said, "Jethro is ill," and I was like, "oh? okay." but then she repeated herself and I realized she was asking me, not telling me. (She's not really a fantastic English speaker) Anyway, this was alarming, since Jethro had been sent to school about an hour earlier. So his teacher called the school principal because she still had her class to take care of, and I called Brett so that he could begin worrying.

I wasn't actually that worried --I mean, not about Jethro's safety. I just thought that he'd probably not gotten off at his stop, and so was still on the bus waiting for it to loop back around or something. But of course, I was hoping that he wouldn't get really upset or get lost to the point that we couldn't find him for a long time. (I really need not explain my worries--I'm sure you can imagine.)

Anyway, first thing I had Ethne kneel down with me and said a prayer, and the last thing I said was to please help somebody find Jethro. Then Jethro's principal called and asked for a description of what he was wearing so that he could call the bus station and the bus station would notify all the drivers. And if he wasn't found -I don't know within what timeframe-- they would have to notify the police.

So awhile later I was talking to Brett again to update him, and I got another call (I didn't even know that our phone had call waiting, but happily it does) and it was a guy from our church ward, who we had had dinner with the Sunday before, and he said he was at a grocery store near our church building and he was with Jethro. I was sooooo relieved and grateful. I called the school and told them that Jethro was on his way. So the friend put Jethro back on the bus to his school, and Brett borrowed his boss's car and got there soon after Jethro did, and Jethro came home for the day. (He only goes to school half-days, so he wasn't missing as much as you might think.)

So this is Jethro' s story-- he missed getting off at his stop because there were quite a lot of people on it and he couldn't see out the windows (that may be true, but it also may be true that he just wasn't paying attention). So, later he got off at another stop, and went across the street to get on the bus to go back (which is what we had instructed him to do in this situation), but unfortunately he got on a different bus--a different route, you know, the wrong number. So, then he was going somewhere different, and when he realized he was in the wrong area he got off and wandered around for awhile. Then he recognized the church building and walked to the bus stop that we go to every week after church. That was when he saw the guy from our ward and went up to him and told him, I guess, that he was lost. I don't even know how that guy got our phone number. I don't know why one of the maybe 10 people in Bern that knows Jethro happened to be right there right then, I just know that Heavenly Father answers prayers and I am sooooo grateful.

P.S. Brett went and had a little parent-teacher conference tonight with Jethro's teacher and she said that Jethro is a wonderful student and they discussed some options for what they want to do with him as far as how long he'll stay in the German-as-a-second-language class and whether he'll go into second grade or third grade when he goes back to regular school again for the remainder of the year and whatnot. The school year starts in January here instead of August, so it's kindof mixed up from what I'm used to.

(by the way, Brett is such a bad translator! Not because he can't understand or has a hard time with either language, just because he...well, it's like when he's on the phone with someone for two hours, and when he gets off, I say, "What did he say?" and he says, "He says he might get a truck" or something like that. And that's IT! And I say--You were on the phone for TWO HOURS--how can that be it?! And he says, "I summed it up." Speaking of translating, it reminds me of how funny it is in church when someone gets up to bear their testimony or give a talk and they start saying something that is a bit off (you know the type...every ward has one, or two that always bear their testimony and it's always a bit...you know). Then the missionary that is translating for me (who is from England so I love listening to his accent all through sacrament mtg) becomes all awkward and is like, "I don't know why he's saying this," or "I don't really know what he means" and it's funny.)

What I thought was really cute was when Brett got home Jethro and Ethne ran around the corner to meet him in the entry-way/hallway, and Hazel and I stayed in the front room but of course could hear everything, and Jethro asked what his teacher said, and Brett answered "She said she's really disappointed in you Jethro. She said you're a very bad kid." And Hazel was looking at me, with this look like she knew that he was joking, but still almost aghast at the report. Then Brett said, "Just kidding - she says you're a good kid." And Hazel smiled so big and gave me a hug of excitement. And Ethne came in and said, "She said Jethro's a good kid!" and they were both so happy for Jethro. It was really really sweet.

P.S. again. Today for dinner we had white chili and Ethne asked for a second helping. She said, "More thili" with her little lisp, and I said, "More silly?" and she said, "More THHHHHHili!!!!!" And I said, "More SSSSSilly?" and she said, "More of what you have." ha ha!

P.S. again again. The other night we were having apple cake for dessert (it's delicious, I'll have to post the recipe), and I held up my bowl so Brett could put more in it for me, and he picked up a piece on the serving spoon, held it over my bowl, then picked up the piece from the spoon with his hand--there was a teeny little crumb-slice still on the spoon which he dumped into my bowl, put the actual big piece back onto the spoon and returned it to the cake pan. It was so hilarious I laughed so hard. Maybe you had to be there.

one last p.s. I have more stuff to post about, including pictures, but unfortunately Brett broke our computer. Ruff. so until he fixes it I just have to do what I can on his work computer when he comes home. That's why I haven't been able to post for awhile.

Prophets

When I was in Utah I found Sheri Dew's book, 'No Doubt About It' at the DI. (Yay for Utah thrift stores where you find cheap church books!!) I have been really really loving it. Yesterday the chapter that I read had several stories about President Gordon B. Hinckley, and I started missing him. I don't know anyone who didn't love him in a special way. He was so warm and optimistic.Then I thought about how much I love President Monson too. I found out that he and I share a birthday when I was about ten, and ever since then I've always felt a connection. He is a wonderful and charitable man, not to mention the chosen prophet of God. And besides that, he's very funny. Watch this video for some HILARIOUS clips.

And another one to inspire you today.

I love my family.

Bells 2009 from Kayli Bell on Vimeo.