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SWITZERLAND.... location... Bern and Zurich:
So when I arrived in Bern the weather finally turned. My sunny vacation turned grey and gloomy. Anyways once again I stayed at a couchsurfer's place who was a lovely person. I spent the first day in Bern seeing the city and the Old Town and took a walking tour from the tourist map. It was a nice walk though the weather was rainy but at least it wasn't pouring down, just enough to get a little wet but not enough to stop me from seeing the city. Though the view of the city from the Rose Garden could've been better on a nice clear sky you could still see a lot and it still looked beautiful. So on my walking tour I saw the main sights there were to see including the M¸nster Cathedral (which is apparently always under restorations), Town Hall, The Church of Sts Peter and Paul, Concert Hall Casino, Clock Tower (Zytglogge), Einstein's House and the House and Square of Parliament. Oh and of course the Old Town which is the main shopping district and is also filled with many cafes and restaurants. You also will never go thirsty in this city as every 100-200m there is a drinking fountain, nice looking ones. Actually a lot of cities in Europe have drinking fountains everywhere in the city, it's such a good idea.
Anyways later that evening Reto (my host) promised to take me out in the evening and said that Thursday nights are the best nights to go out. We headed out with his brother to a pub called Turnhalle, directly translated is gymnastics hall. It used to be a school and now the gym hall is a pub. It's quite a nice place and apparently a mixed crowd of people. People ranging from artists to musicians to regular people. Oh and across the road from this bar was another called Boomerang. It's Australian/Czech owned so they sell a range of Aussie food and drinks as well as Czech. We then headed to other bars throughout the town but all the bars were empty for some strange reason and no one knew why. Maybe it was due to the weather or something else. Oh and in Bern they only introduced the "no smoking inside" rule a couple of months ago and not all of Switzerland has introduced it but hopefully by the end of the year it will happen. Anyways as there were no "happening" bars we just walked around which was nice as the city is lovely in the evening. I encountered a homeless guy sleeping on some stairs during our nightly tour and had to step over him while he was sleeping to continue up the stairs. He didn't even budge! Oh I forgot to mention that Bern used to be a Medieval city so it still has a medieval feel and look about it in the Old Town. The 2nd day of Bern wasn't much. The weather improved a little so I went to the Zoo and saw lots of different animals (moose, seals, frogs, fish, horses, leopards, goats, etc) and took many animal photos. It was a nice place to walk around as it was quite a big space. It didn't have hundreds of animals but was still good. That was pretty much Bern.
Now Zurich, the weather was horrible during my day out in Zurich. It rained so much in the morning that Matthias (my host) and I got completely drenched! Yea I had no raincoat or umbrella. We decided to go to the National Museum so that we could dry off and stay inside, couldn't really see the city in this weather. So learnt some stuff about the history of Switzerland after a few hours there. The rain stopped when we got out so we took a walk in the Old Town with its little side streets (love the side streets) and then by the river and lake. Saw the Grossmünster Church (it's a symbol of the city with its twin towers) and Framünster Church which has amazing stained-glass windows by Marc Chagall. During this whole day the rain kept starting and stopping so just when we thought the weather improved it would start raining again so didn't manage to see everything that we wanted to see. Anyways walked along the main shopping street (Bahnhofstrasse) and past the National Bank as well as the City Hall. Oh but the best thing was towards the end of the day when some of the clouds had cleared a little you could actually see the alps in the distance, like quite clearly! It was such a gorgeous view.
Anyways at 5pm we went to a pub to watch the Germany Vs. Russia qualifications game in football. I had a Swiss beer (can't remember the name) which was good and cheered along with the rest of the German fans in the pub. Germany scored in the first half but as it was nearing the end of the first half, the channel suddenly switched to the Swiss Vs. Luxembourg game. Not happy Jan! So we left (along with many other people) to find another pub that was showing the Germany game. We found one and settled to watch the rest of the match. At this pub there were 4 Russians on one side and the rest were German supporters, it was quite fun. There were some close shots but then the Russian supporters left in the last few minutes as they knew that they had lost the game. So Germany won 1-0 and they played in Russia too! The German fans went wild and cheered and then all left the bar haha.
We went back to Matthias's place. Oh and his friend who was also watching the football match joined us. We had cheese fondue for dinner. It was so good, yummo! and with a side of salad to balance out all the cheese and also had some Riesling. It was my first ever cheese fondue and it is very Swiss so thought I must try it, though these boys are both originally from Germany and only moved to Switzerland to work =p Anyways it was a great first cheese fondue experience and a great night of discussions about Australia and Germany. I will definitely be having more cheese fondue in the future. So Zurich didn't involve a lot of sightseeing due to the weather but I still managed to see something and it was just nice to hang out and chat in a place where it was warm and dry.
But do you want to hear the funny thing. The day I left Zurich to Innsbruck, the sun was shining beautifully in the bright blue sky.... so typical! Such a change from the day before. Let's hope that it'll be nice and sunny in Innsbruck so I can see the city at its best! Oh and on the train to Innsbruck we passed by the alps. It's such a great scenery on this train ride, beautiful pictures!
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