04 September 2007

Day Eight: Sunday, August 26th Bern, Switzerland & the ride there









A clue to my whereabouts...












Oh lord. What a day this was. I left Karlsruhe at around 9:30am. My plan was to drive to Bern, Switzerland to the campground where I could wash my clothes, get on the internet and pick up some cash my friend wired me from home. I again took the long way and got there much later than I planned. Around...hmmm...9pm maybe? It was of course too late to get the wire and I realized I was in a pickle because I didn't really have enough cash on me yet for a hotel room. So a couple of friends tried reserving one for me.

In the meantime, I walked around town. It really is beautiful. I got some superb shots of the main plaza or whatnot. I had a couple of beers at this cute cafe. It's fucked up, though. In Switzerland, they use francs which I did not know. (oopsie!) I wondered why everything was so expensive. (Warren warned me about that also, so at least I wasn't totally shocked, thankfully) Also, some people speak French, some speak German so that made it difficult to get comfortable. But the town was very cool. There was so much to see that that I never got to. Here's why.

I walked around for awhile. As usual I got carried away and even with the intersection of the place I parked my car at written down, I couldn't find it. It was like 11pm by then and I still didn't know where I was going to sleep. I started to get flustered. It was one of about a half-dozen times I'd get dramatic and say to myself, "I'm going to die here right in this spot I know it! I will never, ever find my way back! NEVER!" Of course, I always do, but hey...I'm allowed to freak out every now and then. It keeps me on my toes.

Anyway, I finally get to my car after weeping a bit. YES, weeping. Then I get to the hotel. They won't let me check in and the guy at the hotel is a dick. I explain my situation and he doesn't budge. I thought to myself, "Can't he empathize with me? Doesn't he have a daughter/mother/sister?" while being saccharine sweet to this cocksucker the whole time. Man, that makes me spittin' mad!
Long story short, your good friend, daughter, sister...whatever...she went to sleep in the back seat of a VW Fox at 6:00am. And you know, I slept pretty well. Except I had a nightmare that I parked across the street from a crack house. Which, of course, I didn't.

Maybe it was because everyone gets up so freaking early there! I hate to cite another Tim Burton reference, but it reminded me of Edward Scissorhands. Everyone emerged onto the street at almost the same time. (around 5:30am!) I thought that was eerie. A couple of other films that come to mind are The Invasion Of the Body Snatchers and The Stepford Wives. Ha ha ha.


Bern was probably the most complicated town to navigate in a car. It's surrounded (or intersected) by the river on 3 sides so it makes it very easy to get lost.
Let me put it this way:
After being driven to tears looking for my hotel and/or car for hours I found a couple of security guards and asked them to help me find it. The woman said she had to go that way anyway. Well, "that way" was only 3 blocks from where we were and it took us no less than fifteen turns to get there, so you can see what I mean about being complicated. I would've stayed a little longer, but I had my fill of driving around in that town.

Off to...somewhere in Germany!