Hiking & Bern

Know I should have posted sooner but I was too darn tired. I fell asleep at 4 o`clock in the afternoon when we first arrived here and I slept straight through till 3 AM. It was really impressive if I do say so myself. But I woke up to the most amazing sunrise so it was worth it. My sister and I had decided to spend our first official day in Switzerland doing absolutely nothing. To recover and plan for the rest of our stay. Though that wasn`t to be. We ended up going on a hike with our host, Mariann, and her 79 year old mother. I`m surprised I was able to even keep up with the two of them. That mother was leaving me in the dust! Do not ask me the name of where we hiked, you`ll kill me. The best I can say is that for the way down (because we hiked pretty far up) we rode on the world`s tallest outdoor elevator. It was so scary! I usually do not have a problem with heights unless I`m going down and jeez were we going down. The elevator was about three miles tall (I`m going off what my sister said so don`t blame me if I`m wrong) and lasted 30 seconds. We went fast enough to give me a heart attack but it was so smooth that I hardly felt anything. And that`s quite something from and elevator hater like me.
So of course the hike gets us all hot and sweaty, so our wonderful host takes us to the lake. 50 degrees of freezing and a blessing after that hike. I swam out to some sort of island a good distance off of Lake Lucern`s beach and dove into a good many feet of freezing water. Our host`s son joined us too and did some freaky dives that had gooseflesh traveling up my spine. He gave me plenty of more reasons why boys are so crazy. All in all it was fun and my sister dropped dead asleep afterwards with no problem.

Today was not as successful. My sister and I got so amazingly lost that even I was surprised. Our goal in Bern was to find the Organization of Swiss abroad to pick up some money for the program. We recieved directions from the organizationg the night before so we figured we`d get there with no problem. Heh, but it`s hard to tell head from tails on a map you can`t even read. It was all in German. But still we went on! Thinking we could alwasy give up on pride and act like cheesy tourists asking for directions.We ended up going the opposite way we were supposed to from the train station and ended up following the river until we found a street that was actually listed on the small map we were provided with. I cannot tell you how may times I wished I could give my teeth for a proper map with all the street names listed on it. But still, we got there after a good two hours of wandering. After that, I knew exactly where I was going. I had my headings and a basic understanding of the streets. We did not get lost again and went on our way to visit anything that caught our attention. We walked down the historic main street to the cathedral and then to the bear park. After that we went in hunt of the Botanical garden where we spent a good many hours (it was so big!). Then we found our way to the Government building to find our way back to the train station. It was an epic battle to not doze off on the ride back, we were more than a little tired. Tomorrow our plans are to find a chocolate and cheese factory, we`ll see how that`ll turn out.

Hugs and kisses to those back home.
Alejandra