Switzerland-- land of cheese and chocolate

The bear statue over the river Aare. We took this while walking over the Kirchenfeldbruke, which is a monumental iron bridge 40 meters above the river and it was constructed between 1881-1883. On the other side is where all the museums of Bern are located. We attended Kunsthalle Bern, which is a modern art museum. Very modern art. Some people like it..Alex and some don't..me.

Our 60 franc lunch. So Alex and I decided to have a traditional swiss lunch...Fondue. Being innocent newbies, we asked the waiter at the Restaurant Anker Bern if one fondue pot would feed both of us and he said no, just enough for one. It was enough for four when it was all said and done. But it was wonderful...there was so much white wine, the fumes were just wafting out of the pot. Delicious.

Bärengraben . The bear is the symbol of Bern and having bears in the

den has been a tradition since 1513.

Kindlifresserbrunnen--the fountain of the child-eater, which represents a ogre eating a naked child. One of the most famous fountains by Hans Gieng. Scary.

I wanted to see this fountain because the girls at work say it should be on

a EDIS shirt that states: "If we don't fix em by three, we'll eat them".

I work with some sick puppies.

Anyway, at lunch I was looking up where this fountain was located, trying to plot it out on the map when I look up and we had been sitting next to it for an hour.

Vikki and Alex...July 19, 2008

We took this picture ourselves on the park bench outside the Bern Bear Pit.

Aare River in Bern...the water runs off the Alps. The color was actually
the color in the picture. It rarely gets above 18C (64F).

A view of St. Vincent's Cathedral. The spire was being renovated and this cathedral is beautiful example of gothic style.

So Alex and I had a wonderful time on the USO tour to Bern. Took about 4 hours to get there. The day was magnificant. Perfect weather and the sky was so blue. The was barely a cloud in the sky. If you look at the picture of the orge fountain, the sky was that blue most of the day. Next Luxembourg...

We Have Wheels!!!!!!

We finally have wheels...Because we are here under the SOFA agreement we could not drive in Germany until we had a USAEUR license. This required us to to go to a 3 hour orientation where we watched a really bad video reminincent of the early 80's videos about drinking, driving and STD's. Then come back another day after studing a 82 page driver's manual (I am not kidding) about the dos and don'ts of driving in Germany. The test is 100 questions long--you can only miss 15 to pass. I missed....15. Just by the skin of my nose the instructor said. Alex passed too and we proceeded to the nearest rental agency to procure a set of wheels--a VW Golf. My little CR-V will be here in a few weeks and it is considered a giant vehicle here. There are around 138 different road signs in Germany...if not more. The priority road is the thing that will get you and the roundabouts...must like the circle thing because there are a million of those here.