Cities of Heroes

Today I went to Bern to meet in person for the first time a friend that I've played an online game with for months. I forgot everything I should have brought with the exception of my Swiss Pass: My wallet, Swiss Francs (although I had dollars, euros and pounds), and although I brought my camera, my battery remained charging in the apartment. Curses!

But I met Justin (Zhoos-tan), who lives in France with his wife, at the bahnhofplatz. We wandered somewhat aimlessly a bit while we got our bearings (which took quite a while)... we went to the Cathedral, went down to the Aare... took some cool photos. While at the Cathedral, there was a man waving a scarf, ranting and seemingly talking to unseen people near him. Justin wanted to take a picture of the famous doors, but was afraid to go close! But then the man was distracted by a woman and Justin swooped in for a couple of shots.

Then we took a long freaking hike UP to the Rose Gardens, which had surprisingly few roses, but the view from up there was beautiful. We sat there and rested our feet for a while before taking a peek at the Bear Pits (no bears though). Lunch (shweinshnitzel) and then deciding to go to Murten (Bern isn't the most exciting town but is nice).

The rail station was INSANE. The non-Bern soccer fans, dressed in red, were holed up in there surrounded by police since they are not apparently allowed to mix with the Bern fans before a game to avoid trouble. They were screaming, chanting, singing and lighting flares inside. We had to squeeze between some ticket machines and the wall to get to our train.

Murten was awesome - great weather, great views and some great chats as well. Fortunately, Justin had his camera so eventually I'll get copies of the photos we took with his. We had dinner at the middle eastern place (actually I've eaten there before) and had a really good doner kebab pizza! Doner meat on a pizza. It was really good!

Murten was even better than my last trip - lots of young people playing volleyball, a very outgoing little boy (maybe 2 years old) that would swing by for visits... we never did make it up on the walls of the town, though.

I got back to Zurich about 11:00 pm...