The Trip of a Lifetime: July 1 to 7, 2022 - Bern

July 1, 2022: Frank Clark: The Story of my Life
Oops. Forgot this part…Captain’s log: star-date 75; Bern, Switzerland
We left Paris on a train for Bern, Switzerland. As we flew past fields of sunflowers, I was reminded that today is the start of the Tour de France. I love watching them glide through the bright yellow fields on their way to the Champs Elysee.
In less than an hour, we started to see less deciduous trees and more conifers as we slowly climbed up the foothills. Then we came through a tunnel and voila - Switzerland! In Geneva we had 13 minutes to make our connection and they had announced the wrong track, so we almost missed our train.
Now we not only have Euros and Dollars, but also Swiss Francs to separate. Switzerland doesn’t look like I pictured it so far. No towering white capped mountains. We are probably in the “low country” where all the people live. Bern is beautiful though. It’s cold here. Going down into the 40’s tonight. They had fireworks. We watched from the balcony of our very expensive, but pretty spacious hotel room.
Roz is in heaven. They have soft pretzels here. Giant soft pretzels. You can never go wrong asking for a local beer. I had some in France, and that continued into Switzerland. Not so much in Spain.
bis morgen

July 2, 2022: No captain’s log

July 3, 2022: Captain’s log: star-date 77; Bern, Switzerland
Today turned into a maintenance day, for the most part. I walked to the train station in the morning and got pretzels for breakfast and tickets for tomorrow’s great adventure. We needed to do wash and I do what I always do; type “laundromat near me” in Google Maps. It often takes us to a sketchy area, and today’s was just that.
We wound up in the Lorraine Neighborhood, a ten minute walk from our hotel, but in a different world. There was graffiti on homes, which I find rude. I like graffiti in public areas and on buildings that welcome it, but this was in your face, I’m defacing your home because you can’t stop me.
In the laundromat you couldn’t use cards and there were no change machines. I took a twenty franc note from Roz and said I would go to the cafe down the street and get coffee and bring back change for the wash. The owner told me the laundromat is part of a co-op and he provides change for them. I took the change back to Roz and went back and had my coffee.
The neighborhood had a lot of political posters, no war (I’ve been anti war since Vietnam0 - rainbow banners (I don’t care if you are gay), but also some pro war/revolution posters. I wonder is it two sides; pro-war and anti-war? If it is, that’s good. Or is it one side with two faces? If that is the case, it is very, very bad. Before the Second World War, peaceniks Hemingway and Orwell both got involved in the Spanish Civil War. It doesn’t make sense.
There were a lot of counterculture types strolling about, and I’m cool with that. A couple of the people in the laundromat were very angry. They banged on the machines and yelled things in German. I’m not cool with that. The clothes took forever to dry, so I went back to the cafe to grab a beer snd soda.
I asked the guy about the neighborhood, and he said, “Here we have no boss. We do what we want to do. There is no capitalism here and the authorities leave us alone.” I noticed a socialist newspaper for sale on the counter. It turns out we were in the Bern version of CHAS. The tables and chairs in front of the cafes were all chained down. The entire area was dirty. And no, the nice young man at the cafe was wrong. Capitalism is still here at the laundromat.
bis morgen
Sorry folks- it copied all my notes into the post.

July 4, 2022: Captain’s log: star-date 78; Bern, Switzerland
We set out for the Montreux Jazz Festival this morning, despite the fact that rain was forecast in the late morning and mid-afternoon. All the big acts happen in the evening, and been sold out for months, but we were told there would be plenty of music both in the venue and around it.
We had a five minute connection in Luzanne, and miraculously we found it and made it. The trains run smoothly here. I hope they aren’t taking a page from the former leader of their neighbor to the south.When we got into town we bought a sandwich and beverages for lunch. The sandwich was some kind of salami with eggplant and a spicy sauce, on ciabatta. It was great.
We had our lunch on a bench next to the lake and also in front of a McDonald’s. A family of five started walking past, all in matching Mickey Mouse t-shirts. The kids were young. As soon as they saw McDonald’s they freaked and soon the parents were cajoled into taking them in. There are McDonald’s everywhere in Spain, Morocco and Switzerland. And Europe is swarming with Mickey Mouse t-shirts.
After lunch there was about a half hour downpour, but the rest of the day was rain free. The venue opened at noon and by 4:30 we had heard no jazz. There was a PA system that played a loop of disco songs, a guitarist and snare drummer who were doing a Dylan song when we passed, and a rock band playing on one of the stages.
I guess the rain fouled things up for the afternoon. I’m sure it is cooking there as I’m writing this tonight. We heard no jazz but we bought three t-shirts for 150 Swiss Francs. And no, they aren’t made of gold. We each got a new hat, and we got to wander around beautiful Montreux on Lake Lausanne.
By the time we got home we were exhausted and decided to grab takeout and eat it in our room. There is a KFC at the train station so we went in. I ordered a wrap and Roz ordered a six piece spicy chicken wing dinner. The total came to $42!!!!! When you pay with a card over here, it asks you if you want to pay in dollars or the local currency. Soon they will have a third option. “Do you want to apply for a home equity loan?”
bis morgen

Captain’s log: star-date 79; Bern, Switzerland
I ran this morning! First time in a while. I went down to the river on the town side and ran along a path that probably goes as far as the river does. It was beautiful and I feel like I am back. I feel so much better during the day when I start with a nice little run. Roz is sick again and we have been trying to find a substitute for Alkaseltzer Plus. At the end of my run I searched a couple of pharmacies for it but I came up empty.
For breakfast I had a pretzel baguette sandwich, which had a layer each of cheese, lettuce, tomato and pickle. This may be the best bread I’ve had on this trip. Bread in Spain and France are all about the crust and crust is wonderful. The problem is the throat cancer made keeping teeth in my mouth a challenge.
I lost a composite filling at an Italian restaurant on our last night in Rome a few years ago, and another one soon after our ship sailed on this one. The pretzel bread has crust like a Philly soft pretzel. It is also as delicious as one. I am definitely making these when I get home. It’s funny; I didn’t expect to find my favorite bread in Switzerland….
Roz stayed at the hotel today and I went out and did the self guided City Walking Tour. It took me to parts of the city I hadn’t been to before. It was supposed to be easy (they always say that in Europe), but I soon got off the city tour path and onto the Paul Klee path. It was all good and I got to explore some new, beautiful parts of the city.
For lunch I had a skinny, multigrain baguette sandwich of roasted vegetables. I never quite know what I’m getting when I order something, but I’m, seldom disappointed with what I get. Then I had a salami sandwich on a pretzel for dinner. I am a happy boy.
I’m as pretzel happy as I was when we lived in Cape May Court House, New Jersey. When we first moved there, there was a Wawa at Route 47 and Hand Avenue. We often got soft pretzels there. Then it closed and we were bummed…until a guy named Raj opened up a convenience store in its place.
He and his wife were the nicest people. And they started selling soft pretzels that were better than Wawa. My favorite was the onion pretzel and Roz’s was the everything pretzel. There is food we miss from where we grew up in Philly and food we miss from Miami, but probably the only food we miss from South Jersey is the pretzels at Raj’s store.
Hope Roz feels better by tomorrow.
bis morgen

Captain’s log: star-date 80; Bern, Switzerland
I went out and did the wash this morning and lat Roz sleep in and recover. It was another three hour ordeal, and some clothes were still a little damp. I went jogging while the clothes “dried.” The plan is to continue running every day for the rest of the trip.
Roz started feeling a little better and got cabin fever, so we walked a section of the old city we hadn’t been to before and then went to the Albert Einstein House. I had forgotten that Bern was where he worked as a patent clerk and did some of his most earth-shattering work. It was interesting.
We packed tonight. When this trip started, we couldn’t see the end of the journey, but after tomorrow, we will only visit two more countries - Holland and England. Then we get on the boat to head back to the US. I miss home. This trip has been awesome, but Dorothy was correct…
We have learned so much on this adventure. Most of it about ourselves and about Europeans and people in general. And, oh yeah…the food. I will be taking back a lot of food culture from the places we have visited.
bis morgen

July 7, 2022: Captain’s log: star-date 81; Saint-Louis France
I went for a short run this morning based on what I was doing and where I was going, which was to pick up breakfast at the train station. Roz had a pretzel and I had pretzel sandwiches. She sounded awful this morning, but we had to press on. I stopped for coffee at a bakery on the way back to the hotel. They made my coffee from a self-serve coffee machine!
It’s funny. I’ve had no problems communicating in Switzerland, even though I s[peak absolutely no German. That wasn’t so in Spain and France, where I have some knowledge of the languages. Maybe it’s because we were in the tourist area of Bern. And maybe it’s because in France and Spain, the locals wanted to make me work for it. I don’t know.
We had a My Daytrip driver take us to Saint-Louis, France today. He was an interesting guy who has worked all over the world. He told me many facts about his home country. One is that they send you to a psychiatrist after your second speeding ticketing over a one month period. Another is they routinely deport people who are convicted of even minors crimes. And it is very hard to own a gun. I thought they all had them.
Our hotel is really cool. We won’t have much time to check it out though. Our shuttle picks us up at 4:15 AM. We got here fairly early, so we walked to a footbridge over the Rhein and set foot in Germany. The woman at the hotel desk to me there is a market there. It was a mall! Not much else there, but we made it to another country…and I stopped for a beer. It was delicious. Long live the reinheitsgebot!
We stopped at a local tavern for dinner. I got a tarte flambé, which is an Alsacean thin crust pizza. It was yummy good. Roz ordered a burger, got a fried chicken sandwich and didn’t like it. Off to bed…
jusqu'à demain