Bern in Bern

Day 4 Bern 
The day started with a trip down the place we'd gone the night before as we were looking for Klotzlikker, that fondue house. We were trying to find Ratzkeller, another fondue place, but when we actually did find it the prices were too much for our little pocket sized budgets. So we went on to find a spot called 'holifood', which boasted "the best sandwiches in town". So Jamie and Mikee ordered pouletgrkstenicheichstein (chicken) and Nate and I ordered mozzarella. They were like mr.sub sandwiches with chicken cutlets inside, or flavoured mozzarella cubes melted at extremely hot temperatures, 'extremely hot' being of the variation that I couldn't hold on to the stupid thing. But wowzers it was good!!!

On our wander circuit around old Bern we stopped at a couple shops, one of which was a souvenir shop run by a 64 yr old German University mathematics professor named Johannes. Um, he sure liked us or me and was super friendly and talkative. Apparently I am ZUPERgirl!!! lol alright anyway...

After we ate that, we moved on to find the river aares, looking for the legendary bear pits.  The legend? The Duke who founded the city named it after the first animal slain from the woods: a bear. The bear pit was created when bears were found near the city and they kept them there or something like that. Anyway, the bears died last year I think and new ones were given to Bern by the Russian government. They had cubs this past spring!!! They are super super super adorable and one likes to beat up on the other. Since one of the cubs is named Bern, I'm gonna say Bern lays the smackdown. Heh. 

So we dipped our feet into the river and let the ice cold water clean and rest our feet.  The guys then turned into five year olds and spent the next fifteen minutes splashing water on each other. 

Our next stop was the bank and grocery store, as I had no euros except some huge bills that nobody would take. The bank provided us with some much needed cold water and grocery store stocked us up on food for tomorrows train ride. We then did a little wander through old Bern and rechecked into our hostel where we had two bunk beds instead of one. Then it was off to try specialty chocolates, a butcher shop, and the new westside architectural tour de force that combined shopping mall, swim complex and spa. We never did find that place though... Instead we made our way back with our butcher food and camped in an air conditioned mcD's for drinks until we got the great idea of jumping off the bear pit bridges and treading on the current of the river aares.    

The jump was the scariest part. When you look down, the water seems a lot closer than it actually is. We walked down wearing our swi
gear and shirts, intending to throw our stuff in a big ziplock and take it with us. So we jumped...
GAH. That drop was WAY further than I thought. I had that feeling of weightlessness I suppose because I was expecting to hit water but I didn't. And then when I DID, it was cooooold and I was so far under water with the current sweeping me down stream. It was quite the experience that I'm sure nathan can elaborate on...

Anyway, cold water gave some of us headaches so we headed back to the hostel