Sunday, June 19, 2016

Day 13 (Bern)

Now that we have been home a full month, it's high time I posted about our last day of our trip......

Bern 
Day 13

The couples woke up early our last morning in Bern and went to do some work in the Swiss Temple.  They missed the session but were able to help an Italian sister do some sealings for her family.  The kids had a really good experience.  In the meantime Rick and I took the littles to the convenience store down the street from our hotel and got some breakfast.  Afterwards we found a little park behind the huge mall that our hotel was connected to.  We let the kids play for about an hour (with one potty break and a diaper change) and then met up with the couples back in our room.

After getting all back together we hopped on a train for a short 10 minute ride to get to old town Bern.  We split ways and did our own thing with the plan to meet back after a few hours for dinner.  It was lunchtime when we got there so Rick and I found a little food market and had to decide which ethnic food truck we were gonna have lunch from.  We decided on asian food and got curry chicken with noodles to share.  It was super yummy!


While we ate lunch we watched these old guys play a life size chess game.  The guy in the red won!


After lunch we were perusing around the shopping market.  Rick is always enthralled with the cheese!  We also saw some CRAZY FOOD stuff including a squid mix!


A selfie at Old Town Bern


One shop we stopped at was run by a German fellow.  I loved his metal whirligigs and bought three to hang on my patio.  Rick had a fun time bartering with him.


One of Bern's many public fountains filled with fresh mountain water.


The public urinal for men open on the sides so you can look directly in.  Just a little weird.



Bern means bear in German.  The town got it's name from the first animal that the king killed when arriving in this area.  Here we are at the bear park.


Some sights of the city.....




In the old part of Old Town (there is a new and an old Old Town) there were different shops underneath the street.  I found a bath shop and had to check it out.  Plus I had to spend my last Euros before the day ended.  I got me some nice bath balls!  We did a lot of walking and even went to the side of Old Town that we visited last time we were here.  We wanted to see if we could recognize places from last time and we did!  Unfortunately, the hat shop was gone and I couldn't buy another hat.


One last photo of the market before meeting up wight the kids.


We found both families at the water fountain.  The kids were running around playing in their skivvies (again)  Henry got so wet his diaper fell off so he went streaking the the water!!  Little cutie!


We had dinner at a place that served fondue (without the alcohol).  Rick had been wanting fondue since we got to Switzerland but nobody else wanted any so we hadn't had it.  Tonight was the night!  It didn't smell very good (because, well, cheese stinks!) but it had really good flavor!  



We also ordered the restaurant's specialty which was Rosti.  Mine had potatoes, bacon, eggs, and cheese.  I had to send it back and have the bacon cooked a little more but it was delicious and very filling!


This was Rick's.  His had noodles meat and cheese.




One last family picture of our trip outside of the restaurant.


Rick had a few Euro's left so he splurged on a waffle.  I don't know how he could eat another bite!


We went back to the hotel and got all packed up for the next day's flight back home.  We all came underweight with our bags which was amazing since we had a bunch of souvenirs to bring back.  Our flight went from Zurich to Atlanta for 10 hours.  It was great though because the plane was very open and there was lots of extra seats for us to lounge on.  Our flight from Atlanta to home though was packed and we were stuck sitting in cramped quarters the last 4 hours of our journey.  It was a marvelous trip with many wonderful memories made!!!