Hi all
A lot to catch up on so this may be a bit summarised - or maybe not as i have had a substantial amount of Schwartzwalder wine. Sorry but hey at least i have a few pictures in this thing now - God bless family and their PCs.
Left Annecy (late cos i had to return the ASUS EeePC laptop i bought - nightmare if you no hablo francaise - should've just kept the damn thing and suffered though all the French programs)
I had pre-booked a hostel in Bern so had to get there before nightfall. Because speed was of the essence i headed to Bern via Geneva which is pretty close to Annecy. Train trip was gorgeous - lots of alpine village terrain you know chalet style houses and cows with cowbells e.t.c. Train stopped in a random Geneva train station though - in a seedy part of town. That made it fun figuring out how to get to the main station so i could shoot to Bern. Luckily i am so smart and could figure out the Geneva public transport (it is superb and a lot of instructions are in English). You hear sooo many different languages when you are in Geneva.
After a pretty non-eventful train trip to Bern (i slept most of the way with my sunnies on - the guy sitting next to me thought i was blind!) i arrived in Bern bahnhof. So nice to be in a familiar place. And the familiar language - HEAVEN. Bern was going off getting ready for the European Soccer cup. Europe goes absolutely crazy over it (but with class of course). They make all kinds of soccor themed baked goods and other merchandise - Zurich train station even had giant footballer replicas erected!!!!
Made getting to the hostel a bit more 'creative' as roads were closed for the set up of the giant screen and stages e.t.c. Finally made it with the help of a cute fellow foreigner (not staying at the same hostel - sigh).
Cos i was so close (Zurich is about and hour and a half from Bern) I decided i would drop in on the whanau so after a bit of emailing back and forth i ended up in Pfungen the next afternoon and got to spend a wonderful night in familiar territory living a non-backpacker existence. We all went out for Italian courtesy of my öber generous uncle and aunt(I shared a seafood grill platter with my aunt Gisela) and it was just fantastic - washed down by a gorgeous glass of limoncello. mmmmmmmm. Didn´t want to leave after all that - my Grandma and her husband are excellent hosts and my extended family are all so generous and lovely! Thank you. But the show must go on as they say - and it's only about 6 weeks til i'll be back there.
