Part 8: Rotary Weekend in Bern

October 16-17:
The first weekend of Fall Vacanes the Swiss Rotex hosted a weekend in Bern for all the exchange students. Zion and I decided to go to Bern early and walk around for a bit, because neither of us had ever been past the train station. Unfortunately, it was raining pretty hard, so rather than trudge thru the downpour, we stopped to get coffee. We found this really cute little café (quick vocab lesson, "café" means coffee in French), and sat and talked until it was just drizzling outside. Then we braved the weather and walked around the outdoor market set up in the middle of the city. While we were browsing, we found these little Edelweiss hats, and so of course Zion and I had to get matching ones. :) Around noon we met up with the other exchange students at the train station, and headed out to visit a cookie factory. The best part about this factory was that there were free samples of every cookie there. So Zion and I embarked on a "no cookie left behind" feeding frenzy. The cookies were delicious, but by the end we were beginning to question wether eating our way thru six plus aisles of chocolatey goodness was such a great idea. After all that sugar, we heaved our way back to the train, and then walked for a good 30 min to this camping chalet thing that was out in the country a little outside of Bern. Once we got there, we played some games, and got to know each other. (Because there are only 11 out of the 100-something exchange students in the French speaking area, I didn't know very many of them.) Later in the evening, we did this activity where we had to act out a movie; without talking. My group choose the Wizard of OZ which in theory shouldn't been very difficult, however, only Zion and I had seen the movie. But we made it work, and after the skipping down the road, nobody had any trouble guessing the title. Everybody had brought desserts representing their home country, so we had a super tasty smorgasbord of treats (not that we needed anything after all those cookies) to end the evening. The next day, because it was still raining, rather than go hiking, we went bowling. Pretty American, but hey, it was fun. :) Then it was back to Sorens. Next post has a video from the weekend