Well, I figure I should bring everyone up to speed from Bern to our first night in Paris. It's hard keeping up on these things so a lot of stuff gets backlogged. Suffice it to say that the entire trip has been amazing. We've had slower and faster days, exciting and relaxing days - but we've had it all. We've realized that sometimes it pays to just relax in your hotel room at the end of the night with a slice of local pizza and watch a movie. That, of course, doesn't mean that we haven't experienced every city we've been in - well, execpt maybe Bern.
Bern was an interesting place, to say the least. On the train ride from Milano, I chatted with a native Swiss named Steven about everything from music and careers, to the pros and cons of the American and Swiss school systems - one can't help but feel jealous at the fact that most Swiss citizens are trilingual by the time they hit college. Normally I hate talking to strangers, but Steven seemed like a genuinely nice guy. I spent a good three hours talking it up with him before we parted ways at a stop in Thun, Switzerland.
We arrived in Bern, assaulted by the COLDEST weather I have ever felt. At no point did I feel like I had a snow jacket and jeans on because they provided next to no protection against the stinging chill that the air in Bern provided. We pulled in around 9:30pm and were surprised to see how much younger the population of Bern was in comparison to our time in Italy. The station in Bern, Baunhhof, was directly next to a central bus station. Teenagers and young adults were running around from bus to bus and congregating in front of the trainstation in masse. It was a little intimidating to anti-socialites like Chloe and me, I'll be honest. Exhausted we crashed at our hotel, Hotel City am Bahnhon (Hotel City on the trainstation).
Our first day in Bern we chalked up to laziness. It was horridly cold outside and we were exhausted from an entire day of travelling the prior day. We sampled some Swiss-Chinese food which suprised me quite a bit, and then wandered around a little before we sought refuge in our hotel room; it was so hard to explore when you couldn't feel your nose and hands. We relaxed in our comfy hotel room for most of the day, playing games and watching TV shows we had missed in the states. We went out that night to grab a pizza which, while good, didn't really amaze either of us. We turned in that night hoping to make the most of our last day.
Our last day in Bern was interesting but expensive. Apparently, Europe's largest mall is in Bern, so we decided to check that out. Our maps said it was only 10 minutes away, but like everything in Bern, it was expensive: a 10-15 minute taxi ride cost $40. After recovering from the dull pain of having spent $40 on transportation, we explored the mall. It was what you would expect, for the most part. A lot of high end clothing stores intermixed with media and book stores. The design of the mall was impressive; it was very angular with criss-crossing elevators that generally serve to disorient you. After a while, we grabbed a bus ($2.60) back to the station and our hotel. The rest of our night was a rather enjoyable date-night. We saw The Wolfman at a local theater (theaters near our hotel generally played one movie per building, which we found interesting). Half way through the movie, lights were thrown on and a strange "enjoy your break!" image came on the screen - apparently Switzerland still holds to the age old concept of intermission! Either way, the movie was great and we enjoyed ourselves immensely. The theater was beautiful, and while the screen was smaller than in the states, everything else was top notch. We finished the night eating at a Swiss-Mexican restaurant called "Desperado." Try and imagine what Swiss-Mexican food might taste like... Yeah, not very good. Charming restaurant, but the food was incredibly bland and, of course, pricey. We turned in that night looking forward to the bright lights of Paris!
My conclusion on Bern is mixed. I ultimately feel that we should have done more, but the cold was so stifiling that we never felt motivated to walk around at great lengths like we did in Rome and Milan. Had I to do it over again, I would probably have chanced it and maybe went out the first day to Interlaken; but maybe that is just my idealism. The fact is that it was far to cold to spend vast amounts of time outside, and I feel like our down-time in Bern served to charge us up for these days in Paris!
The next morning, Valentine's Day, we promptly cought our train to Paris. It was a long four hour trip, but train rides are decidedly more bearable than plane rides in that respect. It was great seeing the beautiful snow-covered Swiss and French countrysides on the way to Paris. I would like to do a car trip through continental Europe sometime, so long as I can avoid driving in any major cities! We were surprised to find that Paris was just as cold as Switerland, but it would be difficult to keep us inside during our stay. We (possibly) had our first run in with some anti-American sentiment when we tried to get a taxi to our hotel. When I showed the driver the address he motioned down the street mumbling something about "10 minutes" - our iPhone GPS said it was a 45 minute walk, which it turned out to be. When I indicated that it was cold and we just wanted a ride, he said a few things in French and didn't really seem motivated to take us anywhere. After debating a little, we grabbed a different driver who was more than happy to take us to our (amazing) hotel.
Our hotel, unfortunately, is poorly positioned. If you look at Paris's city center like a circle, we are at the bottom and all the major sights are in the north and east. Nothing was in walking distance and it had already become mid-afternoon by the time we got in. It was Valentine's Day, afterall, so we had an amazing dinner at a cafe near our hotel. We both had 3 cheese penne pasta, which smashes anything I've ever had of the same name in the states; the cheese was amazing, though at times surprisingly rich. The cafe was bustling, but still quite relaxing. Our experience interacting with the French has been great so far. Everyone has been more than happy to accomodate us if it seems to we don't speak French. I generally adhere to the rules of keeping it simple, concise, and lots of hand gestures - it has worked well so far.
We had planned to do the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame, but apparently everything is closed on Sunday. But we walked around our neighborhood a little bit, excercising my ability to come off as French by keeping all transactions to "merci" and "bon jour." We were more tired than usual, so we settled into our hotel around 8 or 9. Like any good Valentine's Day, we snuggled up and watched Kill Bill, Vol. 1 before falling asleep around 10. In a perfect world, the Eiffel Tower would have been opened and we would have broke bread beneath its massive gaze, but this wasn't to be. We enjoyed our dinner and walking around the neighborhood just as well.
Today we have a ton of stuff planned that I'll bring to post next time. We are going to experience everything we can in Paris, because the energy here is amazing.
Hope that wasn't too long winded! We miss everyone in the states and we'll see you all in a short six days!
//Sean
