Berning Down the House

Yesterday was wonderful :) I spent about four hours online, just booking hostels. I booked all the way through Itay and Greece, which has turned into about 18 days. That gives me time to come back up to Bern, visit with Mike and Kirsten again, and then book through the Netherlands and Germany. Maybe a little more in France too, depending on time. In any case, after the Internet Extravaganza, we went out for a walk in town. It was really cool. Later on in the afternoon, it started to rain off and on, but it wasn't bad. Pretty refreshing, actually. It was still warm, and I do love a warm rain. We wandered over to the bear pits, but the rain turned them all inside. We walked along the river, through a petting zoo, bought some coffee at a cafe and ate our lunches. Then we hiked to the top of the largest hill in Bern (and took a tram up the peak) and had an overlook to die for. There was a huge children's playground, with the largest Rube Goldberg device I'd ever seen. It was a system of tracks and machinery where a ball rolls along the track until a stopping point, when a person has to turn a crank to activate the next section. Hard to explain, but super fun. We probably spent an hour playing with it. In any case, we climbed a huge tower and had a beautiful view of the city and surrounding hillsides. After that, we went down, grabbed some food on the way back, and crashed when we got back to the apartment. Tomorrow, I'm off to Genova, where I can daytrip out to Milan as well.