happy days with the bernese
Jul. 7th, 2003 11:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nibotjumped the Canton, took off on Sunday on the train for Bern after a little debate over whether we should drive, whether we could rent a car on a Sunday, whether we could get the prerequisite motorway stickers. The canton of Bern straddles the German and French parts of Switzerland and it's pretty much a German speaking city, so I enjoyed the ability to actually parse successfully the signs and the announcements, although my German has apparently evaporated to almost nothing.
By far the highlight of the trip was the river Aare, flowing swifty through town in aquamarine torrents. There's a public swimming place with pools and with thousands of people basking in the sun and with signs saying ``Swimming in the Aare is extremely dangerous and only recommended for advanced swimmers.'' (They must be serious — it's even included in English) But you can walk upstream and leap into the Aarne (which at 18 degrees C is itself a rather invigorating experience) and then its swift current pulls you and your friends along at turbo speed.. the experience is the swimming equivalent of running on a moving sidewalk. Then you have to use all of your might to swim back to the side of the river and catch one of several poles .. grasp out, miss the first one! aim for the second, some fifteen meters later.. grab it and suddenly you pivot downstream from the pressure of the current and you have to pull yourself up, get your feet on the rocks. Then you run upstream and do it again.
Matt had heard from Chad that there was a bridge across the Aare from which one could jump, and we found such a bridge, maybe 15 feet off the water but just downstream from all the signs that warn swimmers to get out of the water to avoid getting sucked into the hydroelectric plant a few hundred meters downstream. We watched the boils and the vorticies in the water below from the bridge, decided that it was simply not possible. Then Chan decided that it just had to be done, so he climbed up over the hand railing and leaped into the water, all on digital video of course, and swam to the side with ease. Then of course we all had to do it. After plunging into the water I went this way and that but then emerged and swam vigorously to the shore. Such is the fun to be had in Bern.
For dinner we enjoyed some Swiss delicacies in the sun in the central square just under the gaze of the Federation's capitol; fondue (apparently a major faux pas to consume in the summer time) and this potato stuff called rösti washed down with the local brew. We licked ice-cream cones happily as we made our way back to the train station.
By far the highlight of the trip was the river Aare, flowing swifty through town in aquamarine torrents. There's a public swimming place with pools and with thousands of people basking in the sun and with signs saying ``Swimming in the Aare is extremely dangerous and only recommended for advanced swimmers.'' (They must be serious — it's even included in English) But you can walk upstream and leap into the Aarne (which at 18 degrees C is itself a rather invigorating experience) and then its swift current pulls you and your friends along at turbo speed.. the experience is the swimming equivalent of running on a moving sidewalk. Then you have to use all of your might to swim back to the side of the river and catch one of several poles .. grasp out, miss the first one! aim for the second, some fifteen meters later.. grab it and suddenly you pivot downstream from the pressure of the current and you have to pull yourself up, get your feet on the rocks. Then you run upstream and do it again.
Matt had heard from Chad that there was a bridge across the Aare from which one could jump, and we found such a bridge, maybe 15 feet off the water but just downstream from all the signs that warn swimmers to get out of the water to avoid getting sucked into the hydroelectric plant a few hundred meters downstream. We watched the boils and the vorticies in the water below from the bridge, decided that it was simply not possible. Then Chan decided that it just had to be done, so he climbed up over the hand railing and leaped into the water, all on digital video of course, and swam to the side with ease. Then of course we all had to do it. After plunging into the water I went this way and that but then emerged and swam vigorously to the shore. Such is the fun to be had in Bern.
For dinner we enjoyed some Swiss delicacies in the sun in the central square just under the gaze of the Federation's capitol; fondue (apparently a major faux pas to consume in the summer time) and this potato stuff called rösti washed down with the local brew. We licked ice-cream cones happily as we made our way back to the train station.
