Bern, need I say more?

I've been telling Brian how wonderful Bern is. So on Monday we spent the day in Bern and I finally had a chance to show him this great city!

We made a mistake in telling Marion where we were going and that bears would be there. So the entire ride down she was asking about the bears. Naturally, the bears were our first stop.

And look! Two new cubs! Marion was thrilled.

Betti, not so much.

I feel like I say this entirely too much on here about my youngest. Here's the deal with her- she is slow to react to things. She processes and processes and then wham! She hits you with a megawatt smile. I'm just too impatient to wait around to catch the smile part I guess.

Anyway, the new bear park. It is very nice!

Such an upgrade from the pit.

We continued our way through Bern to the Cathedral, stopping to take in the gorgeous scene over the front door and to go inside briefly.

A friend told me that this scene is about judgement and shows the mayor of Zurich going to Hell on the right and the mayor of Bern going to Heaven on the left. Apparently the two cities had a major rivalry.

Now I have no idea if that is true or not, but I like it anyway.

We continued up the main street, Marktgasse, and stopped at Einstein's apartment where he worked on the theory of relativity. Maybe it is because I am an engineer and Brian is an accountant, but we found that place way cool and learned some interesting tidbits. For example, did you know that most scholars believe that Einstein's first wife (who he met at university, go her!) was a partner in his work on relativity?

After managing to learn a little bit about Einstein while dealing with Marion in the tiny apartment, we headed over to the Bundesplatz in front of the Bundeshaus, Switzerland's parliament, to watch the fountains.

After watching some teenagers next to us, Marion decided to take her umbrella and head out to test her luck.






The first time she came back dry. The second time she was *this close* to getting a face full of water. She ran back to Brian, turned around to watch the fountains, and said, "Daddy, I don't think this is a good idea." :)

We ended our day at the park next to the Bern Munster on the riverfront. The sun came out while Betti snoozed in her stroller, Marion and Brian played on the playground, and I watched them all.



*sigh*

I'll miss you Bern.