Sunday, September 29, 2013Y
Bern continued and Strasbourg!
Hi guys!
So last time I wrote I had just gotten to Bern. I know I said I'd go to Zurich but I was kind of tired of a) having to change my euros into francs and b) having to live the expensive life. So, I'm back in France in the city of Strasbourg for three days! Anyway on my only full day in Bern, my host gave me a couple of cool places to go. I took the tram to the train station, and Bern is so small that you can really walk anywhere you need to. My host told me about this little café called Adriano's which is really famous in Bern. I ordered an espresso and a salmon, onion, cream cheese and caper bagel. The bagel like wasn't a bagel, and also it was huge. I forgot to take a picture because I was so hungry. It was also really hard eating it with a fork and knife. That's one thing that's still really weird for me being in Europe, having to eat pizzas, cheeseburgers, and fries with a fork and knife. Also people dont dip their food items into condiments, they take their knife and spread it like butter on bread. It's still really weird for me...anyway, I did take a picture of my coffee :P
Also, I ran into my host and her sister eating lunch there! I sat with them while I ate, and after that they told me I should check out the Berner Munster, which is a Cathedral in the center of the Old Town. There's a tower you can pay to go up in, and it's 43 flights of stairs...My legs were shaking by the time I got up there, but this view!
Also in case you keep forgetting what I look like, here's a selca of me that I took in public~
I didn't take a picture of the whole tower because it was being renovated. OK this must be the month for renovation because every cathedral in Strasbourg is being worked on now too...anyway after that I walked around by the canal(?) (not sure if it was a canal or river) and up to a park with one of the best views of the city. It's called Rosengarten (Rose Garden....obviously) There were fountains, roses, sculptures, it was so beautiful! I also stopped at the café there and ordered a 50cl Cola because I was so thirsty. It was way too much soda...I was burping the whole walk down.
Like seriously what are you looking at over there, guy.
I didn't take a ton of pictures here, just so I could preserve my phone battery, but the flowers were beautiful!
So by the Rosengarten, there's a FREAKING BEAR ZOO. I guess Bern is famous for this...I was so excited to see bears because I don't think I've honestly seen one in real life before.
Hey bubba~
Right next to the Barenpark there's a tourism center, and in that tourism center is a restaurant called Altes Tram Depot. You'd think that a restaurant in a tourism center would be full of nothing but tourists, but my host recommended it to me and apparently locals go there all the time. I had sausages, musard, and saurkraut, along with a giant glass of carbonated apple juice. Oh my god so delicious.
If I hadn't lost my grip on my knife and got mustard all over myself it would have been a perfect meal. After that I had some francs left, and since I was leaving Switzerland the next day I decided to use the rest on the only option that makes sense: chocolate.
I probably spent about 20 francs on chocolate but who cares right?
These were fan-freaking-tastic. Also they were gone way too soon.
The next day I woke up at 7 am to catch my 9 o' clock train to Strasbourg. I had a 10 minute connection in Basel that, of course, I missed because the platform number was wrong on my ticket. I had to wait two hours for the next train, and when I got to Strasbourg, since my host wasn't going to be home until after 5, I took refuge in a Mcdonalds for 3 hours in order to use their Wifi. I'm not sure if McDonald's tastes the same or different here, because it's been so long since I've eaten it.
Mmmmmm, jump in and savor....the fries were pretty tasty.
So my host met me and then we walked to her apartment. She is so friendly (and prepares really beautiful breakfasts each morning!)
I went out to find dinner and walked around the region of Strasbourg called Petite France.
Also in the middle of Petite France, there's the Notre Dame de Strasbourg.
In other words, it's the biggest freakin' cathedral I've ever seen. I turned a corner and BAM there it was.
I was walking around trying to kill time before this kaitenzushi restaurant opened. For those of you who don't know what kaitenzushi is, please find the nearest place to you and GO TO IT. You go in and sit around a long conveyor belt. On the conveyor belt are different colored plates of sushi, usually with one or two pieces or a single roll. You eat as you go and stack the plates when you're done, and the price varies depending on the color of the plate. I think they were judging me because as soon as I sat down I grabbed like six plates.
I really love this type of dining, it's so much fun!
After that I was craving sweets, so I went to a grocery store and bought two boxes of cookies and a bag of Curly (which I haven't tried yet) I tried to make it look like I had another purpose for being there than to fuel the pig out fest I was about to have, so I bought some shampoo too.
The next day my host had breakfast for me, and at the table were these little cubes of cheese! I had no clue what it was, so I didn't eat it. Tomorrow I will!
So I went back to the cathedral to actually go inside. It's Sunday, so there was actually a service going on. I watched a little bit and took some pictures.
There's also a platform you can pay to go up to. 400+ stairs...my legs are really getting a work out on this trip. On the platform I met two really nice American women and they took my picture!
After that I walked to the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art.
There was a Rodin here!
I ate lunch at the café in the museum. Typical french cheese plate and a glass of wine. So tasty but man I have had way too much cheese this past week.
So my phone was about dead by then, so I went back to the apartment to recharge it. I got to skype with my friend Jackie (I miss you!!!) so that was good. After that I went back out to a restaurant entirely dedicated to chocolate.
OK I was so freakin' confused by this...she gave me a spoon too, so for a second I was eating it like soup, but then my friends told me to just drink it from the bowl. It was gingerbread hot chocolate..yum!
These were like little cakes , and that's berry sauce on the side. After that I went on a boat cruise but I didn't take any photos because it was a covered boat and there would've been a glare. So I'm pretty tired from today, tomorrow I'm going to go to a park with a zoo, the Alsacian museum, and hopefully this saurkraut restaurant I've really been wanting to go to.
Talk to you soon!!!
Olivia
2:56 PM
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