Zurich

I spent the last two nights in Zurich and loved the city and my couch surfing host. The only thing that I did not enjoy was the cost of being there! In order to save money, I was there I purchased a 24 hour Zurich card which gave me unlimited travel on the public transportation system and free entry to several museums. I definitely got my money's worth out of it. I used the transportation system at least 4 times (which would have cost over $10 alone), went to two museums (which would have been about $15), and went on a 90 boat cruise through Lake Zurich (not sure how much that would have cost). Ok, the boat cruise wasn't really a "cruise" but more of a passenger ferry, but the promote it as a cruise and 98% of the people on the boat were just taking a trip around the lake, not getting on or off.

I loved my days in Zurich and was sad to go. One reason was that I really enjoyed getting to know my host, Katinka. She was a lot of fun and we stayed up late chatting both nights I was there. I also discovered a new kind of tea that may just be my favorite. It's Lipton's Moroccan Infusion (or something like that). Eddie looked it up on the Lipton website for me and it looks like they don't sell it in the US, so I am going to stock up and send myself boxes so that I will have it in the future. :) If any of you find it in the stores there please let me know as it'll save me the trouble (and cost) of shipping it over. Below is a picture of the box, in case you need a visual to help you out. :)

I left Zurich around noon today and arrived in Bern at 1:30. I checked into my hostel and was out in the city by 2 wandering around! I had a wonderful day in Bern as well and really enjoyed the old town. The city is named after a bear that the founder killed back in the day (Bern, bear, get it?) so there are bears everywhere. They even have a Bear Park where they have bears held captive and on display - like a zoo. They also have a lot of fountains everywhere. I am not quite sure why, but I took pictures of almost all of them and they are up in my album on facebook.

When I arrived to town I thought I needed cash, so I pulled a bit out from the ATM. Well I pulled out about $20 more than I needed and since tomorrow I leave Switzerland I got to spend $20 a little bit recklessly today. It was fun. Granted I didn't really go "wild" as I bought a new pen (my old one is dying), a pencil (so I can do my Sudoku puzzles), some groceries, postcards, and stamps. My big splurge was to buy some cheese from a street vendor. It's not Swiss cheese in the way that it tastes, but it is cheese from Switzerland. :) Yum.

Tomorrow I head to Italy and enter my seventh country of the trip. Tomorrow will be two months until I am home and is the halfway point in my trip. I have a 7 or 8 hour train ride tomorrow so I will make use of my time to write during that time about my halfway point and update you all on my schedule and plan for the next few weeks. :) I am finishing uploading a few new videos at the moment, but new pictures are up already, so please look at them! I am going to try and post links to all of my albums on the right sidebar of the blog so you'll be able to easily access them there, but I need to figure out how to do it still. :) Enjoy!