Night Out in Bern

April 10, 2010

We said goodbye to Hans - still a weird CS experience, I'm hoping they will be better from here on out - and headed to the train station around 9:30. Our train was at 10:34 and we were early for it again! We wanted to get good seats so we got on right we in stopped and sat down in a four seater. We had to push and fight for a seat only to find out about 5 minutes later that our seats we reserved. For long international trains people can reserve seats to make sure they get one for an extra 8 euros. Of course we didn't want to spend this money so we opted not to when we got our tickets. This resulted in us having to stand in the cafe area with our bags until spots opened up about 2 hours in to the trip.

When we had to get up to move, a guy sitting across from us got up as well. I had noticed him before because he had a US army bag with him. We got to talking and I made a new friend on the train. We talked to entire train ride and he was really fun to get to know. His name is Jake and he's from Michigan originally. He's super tall at 6'7" and is on a 2 week leave from a one year tour in Iraq as an information analyst. He was actually stationed at Fort Lewis for training, random. I heard some interesting stories from Iraq but we mostly talked about happier topics. We parted ways at Frankfurt, it was his last stop before flying back to Iraq tomorrow.

At last we are on our connection train to Bern, Switzerland and should be getting in around 7pm where our new CS host, Roman, will hopefully be waiting for us!

Finding Roman was the easiest meet up we've had yet. There are "meeting" points in most train stations and he was waiting right under it when we got there. It was great. Roman was really nice and welcoming. He's a super easy guy to talk to and the sort of person you instantly like when you meet him. We stopped by the grocery store - Migros - to pick up dinner then headed back to his place which was about a 10 minute walk from the train station. He lives right by the university in an apartment with 3 other people. Two of his roommates were out of town at the time. This actually turned out to be beneficial for us because we got to sleep in one of his roommate's bed instead of on the couch. We have yet to actually sleep on a couch yet - which is sort of ironic since we are CouchSurfing.

Roman and his roommate Patricia made us dinner and the four of us sat down at the table and talked for a couple hours. It was really fun getting to know them. Patricia went to her boyfriend's after dinner but before she left she offered up her hair dryer for me to use. Amazing! I think I've talked about this before but having a hair dryer is a really weird luxury I didn't think I'd miss. Realistically, it probably doesn't make that big of a difference but I just feel so much better when I get to use one.

After dinner Roman took us out to meet up with some of his friends. The first bar we went to was really cool. Someone took an old high school that isn't in use anymore and turned the gymnasium into a bar. There were a ton of people there but because it was so huge and the ceilings were so high it didn't seem that bad. All of Roman's friends were really nice. It was pretty much a group of guys with one girl other than us - perfect for me. :) We had some drinks, then decided to move on to a wine bar that would be a little more chill and easier to talk. Plus we would get to see more than one scene in Bern. The wine bar was a lot of fun and I was able to get to know a couple of Roman's friends, Martin & Patrick, pretty well. They were both really nice guys and interesting to talk to. Martin was pretty sarcastic so we got a long really well, haha. Patrick was just pretty drunk so he was hilarious as well.

We hung out at the bar until they kicked us out around 3 in the morning then headed to our last stop of the night which was a Mexican bar that is the place to go once everything else has closed. We weren't there for that much longer before they started closing as well. Martin kept trying to get me another drink but since we are poor travelers and I didn't want to make everyone buy me a drink I kept declining. Instead I grabbed a bottle of salsa and said I was fine with that. The girl said she'd pay me 1 Frank to drink it all -- I'm poor, but not that desperate yet. When we left the bar Martin ran up to me and said he'd gotten me a souvenir to remember the night. He then pulled the salsa bottle out from is pocket, haha. Super random. No idea what I'd do with the salsa bottle traveling for the next 10 weeks but I just laughed and said thanks.

By the time I got to bed it was around 5am. A long but very fun night. I wish bars in the states were open as late as they are in Europe. It's so much fun not being the only one that stays up all hours of the night. Europeans are definitely more my kind. Poor Hilary was about ready to fall asleep by the time we got to the last bar, haha. It is pretty hard adjusting sleep schedules so often though. We get up anytime between 7am - 11am and are in bed anywhere between 1am - 5am. My lifestyle in the states was pretty random so I'm used to it, but Hilary actually had a job and school she had to get up for consistently.

Tomorrow morning we get to have a traditional Swiss brunch with a different group of Roman's friends which I'm super excited for. Yay more food!