A GIANT inflatable dog turd by American artist Paul McCarthy blew away from an exhibition in the garden of a Swiss museum, bringing down a power line and breaking a window before it landed again.

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The picture of a poster is a campaign they’re running here. Those ads are everywhere but I don’t really understand what they’re trying to say. I’ve been learning a bit of German while I’ve been here, and I’m pretty sure those signs say “I eat butter” and “I don’t”. Who would advertise that? Man, I sure am hungry, I’m going to get a tasty stick of butter!

The Munster (if the u had 2 dots over it, it’d be german for cathedral) that they have there is the tallest one in Switzerland, although it was only about 100m high they said. The clock tower, which is right down the street from Albert Einstein’s old apartment, supposedly helped him come up with the theory of relativity because he thought if he was taking the train at the speed of light then the clock tower would still be counting time at the same speed even thought it was moving faster for him. Or something. I’m no physicist.

The symbol of Bern is the bear, so they have a bear pit in the middle of town
Also of interest in Bern, I walked past a McDonald’s (but resisted the urge to eat anything) and I saw on the menu that have a sandwich called Mythic Chicken. I have no idea what this is, but now I’ve got a reason to go back to Bern to investigate. I might even wear my Mythic Pants.

Not only have I not found the sushi or crazy seafood buffet here, but I think I’ve also managed to lose about 10 pounds because the portions of food here are so small. It’ll be nice to get back stateside for christmas and get a monstrous 10 pound texas barbeque burger.

You know, I need some walking around money, I guess I’ll get a thousand bucks out of the atm?

Gstaad is a ski resort town up in the alps, along the same lines as Aspen. I found a sweet apartment to stay in, which is part of the teacher’s dormitory of an old school that isn’t in use. It’s about twice as big as my apartment in San Diego was, it’s got a nice outside balcony, and it’s in the middle of the alps! This picture is the view if you’re standing on the balcony of the apartment. Best of all? It only costs about $400 US per month!

If you’ve never heard of Gstaad, I’ve got some other pictures up from my last trip here a few months back: http://www.valtrain.com/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=12085

I’m pretty exhausted from the trip over, so I’m heading to bed but that picture was so awesome I felt compelled to send it out immediately. In summary, come visit!

Gstaad is a pretty small ski resort town up in the Alps. Unfortunately, there’s not much skiing in June in Gstaad and the place is pretty deserted in the off season. It’s in the German part of Switzerland, but they all speak Swiss German, which is not only completely different from German German, but it even differs from canton to canton in Switzerland. In short, nobody can understand anybody as far as Swiss German is concerned. I saw Ocean’s 13 while I was there, which was English audio but with German subtitles. There was one scene where they were in Mexico speaking Spanish, and I suppose normally the subtitles would have been English but they were still in German so for a small 3 or 4 minute scene I had no idea what was going on.

On the way back, I was flying out of Geneva but the plane was delayed which meant I would miss my connection in London. I decided to spend the night in Geneva and try again the next day. British Airways put me up in a pretty swank hotel in Geneva and actually paid for all of it, which rocked. Geneva is quite the opposite of Gstaad, it’s a huge city right on the water and there always seemed to be something going on. I got to check out some of the touristy stuff and I’d definitely like to back for longer. I wish I had gotten a chance to make it to Zurich this trip, but there’s always next time…

Some pictures for the gallery