My visit to Lyss and Bern Switzerland, January 10-February 8 2007 Click here for full gallery

Lord Scottish was my host in Switzerland. I'd visited him a year previously but only for a few days. This time it was for a much longer visit of two months, and his parents graciously allowed me to stay in their extra room. I had a blast in Switzerland, it's such a gorgeous country.

One of the first things I did was to go ice skating with some of his friends, however he had studies, so I went by myself. Some of the other guys spoke english, but it was an interesting afternoon, since I had just started trying to learn German. (they speak Swiss-German in this section of Switzerland)

I started a German class that met in Bern, five days a week, so I had a good opportunity to travel the train system and see one of the larger cities in Switzerland. I liked Bern quite a bit.

Another of Bern. The people who own the building in the center have declared themselves independent of Swiss laws. They Swiss government apparently accepts this partially, but they still have to obey the major laws. So no killing, etc. But, it basically means the place is a drug house, hahaha. Such shady characters out front, and tons of graffiti all over the building. But it's pretty interesting looking.

This is a picture of the town of Lyss, where I was staying. Lots of interesting architecture and all very quiet and calm.

Right near the house I was staying at, there was a farm, with cows and chickens. Every time I passed I couldn't help but moo and cluck at the animals, and most of the time I'd at least get them to turn and look at me. I'm sure if any Swiss people saw or heard they were wondering what was wrong with me, haha.

On one of the train rides I got to see this gorgeous rainbow out of my window seat. The Swiss countryside was really amazing to see. I never got bored of just staring out the window on those train rides.

We went skiing in Gstaad, an incredibly rich city for snotty rich people to congregate. Luckily it also has amazing ski slopes, which is why we went. I'd never snow-boarded before, but Lord Scottish decided he was going to stay and study, and he had his own board, which he let me borrow. So the free snow-board trumped the pay-ski's hahah. I wasn't that great, but by the end of the day I managed to go for further distances without falling. I had to have help to get up the ski lift. It wasn't like normal ski-lifts where you sit and it takes you up, your feet dangling below. Nope, this was a rope you hold on to, and essentially snow-board up hill. There hadn't been snow recently, so all of it was fake snow, and there was only enough right below the rope, if you went to either side, you were in mud. Well I just couldn't seem to stay in a straight line, and managed to fall off the snow part and get dragged in the mud. I didn't go on that lift again until one of the other girls with us offered to go up with me to help. Well we managed to get a lot further up than my first try, but I still managed to knock us both off the lift and into the mud! We laughed about it and walked over to the slope, but it was SO steep I wondered why I had wanted to go up there. The view was incredible and it made me sad I'd left my camera down at the base, but I would have totally broken it if it'd been in my pocket, with all the falling I did.

Instead of a ski-lodge, most of the restaurants in the area are large buildings, and offer the upper floors to rent. We were a large group from Lord Scottish's church, so we rented the entire upper area of a large building. It had some interesting cow figurines in the common room, so I posed with this one with the lovely Swiss cross on it.

All of us crammed in the van headed to the slope itself.

This is a panoramic of the bus stop in Gstaad.

One night we all learned an Israeli circle dance of some sort, it was really fun to learn and spin around to the music.

Some of my new friends from the ski trip.

This is right outside the building we were staying in.

Also nearby

I decided to make an American Pie while in Switzerland, to show my host family that Americans do have good food. I found a great recipe for triple berry pie. Here is me at the start with all the ingredients which cost about one hundred USD, hahahaha.

Finished pie. It was so dag on good. I think it managed to convince my host family single handedly that Americans have good food.

If the pie didn't do it, this breakfast dinner sure did. Buttermilk pancakes, bacon, and eggs scrambled with onions, mushrooms and peppers.

I went for a walk near Lord Scottish's house, and got a chance to see some really awesome scenery. This forest really made some interesting patterns with the sun.

So much so that I had to take and HDR version.

We had a week-long LAN party, this is just one corner of the basement. I had my computer set up to the left of the edge of the picture. We mostly played Company of Heroes and Battlefield 2. It was so much fun, and my skills in CoH went through the roof from all that practice. We would pretty much play the whole day, stopping only for food or sleep.

We took a trip to Solothurn, this is a three-sixty of the main part of the city.

Then we headed into the woods to see a long canyon.

We walked down this really narrow canyon, and there were rocks piled up on top of each other all over the river.

Also, there is a hermit that lives in the canyon, that has candles for sale. People buy them for one euro, then place them all over the canyon in nooks and crannies (the red in the picture below are the candles). At night you can see candles everywhere, I didn't get to see it, but Lord Scottish said it was surreal.

This is a one-eighty view of the canyon. The small triangular house is where the hermit lives.

This is a three-sixty from standing in front of the hermit's house. I wish I would have had the exposure a bit lower, as the white is way too bright, but you can get a good idea of how awesome it was.

I managed to find one of the space invaders in Bern.

This is a one-eighty of Bern from the other side of the river.

Bern's animal is the bear. It's on their flag. Oh, and they keep LIVE BEARS IN A PIT in the city. I assume it's for feeding naughty tourists to.

We also went to Biel. There is a tram that goes up the side of the mountain and it's quite scenic at the top. This picture is taken from the front of the tram.

At the top of the first part of the mountain, you could look out and see all of Biel.

Then you can go even further up, to find this cool lookout tower.

Lord Scottish halfway up, too afraid to make it to the top.

At the top, this is the view.

We started back down, and stopped to get some food and drinks, where I tried my first "negro head" (this is the actual name people!). It was delicious! Marshmallow cream inside of rich chocolate.

Switzerland is one of my favorite countries I've been to. I was worried that my previous visit was too short, and I was just enamored with the brief impression I got, but after staying for two months I can safely say my initial impressions were correct. Switzerland is awesome. I'm definitely headed back as soon as I can.

There are a lot more pictures in the full gallery, so be sure to check that out. This page is just the highlights.