Switzerland, day four

On Friday in Switzerland, I found myself on a true adventure. I decided to take the train to Switzerland's capital, Bern, and explore the old city. Here's the thing about Bern, though: they don't speak French there.

Here are all the German words I know:
guten tag
auf weidersehen
ja
nein

Here are all the Swiss German words I know:

You may notice that there are no words on that second list. Apparently, Swiss German and standard German don't share many things, and foreign speakers of standard German often can't understand Swiss German. This probably didn't matter, since I don't understand any German. But I was going to be brave! I communicated almost entirely by pointing and grunting all day, and it really worked out fine.

First on my list of things to do in Bern was a visit to the Kunstmuseum. It's renowned for its collections of Paul Klee works, among other things, so I was pretty excited. Unfortunately, this museum had quite possibly the most ridiculous layout I've ever experienced. About 1/2 of it was three separate special exhibitions that each had separate admission fees, but getting to the collections that weren't special exhibitions often involved traipsing through the special exhibitions in a hurry so security guards wouldn't get mad at you. Also, all the works of the old masters are in the basement, and it's very tricky to get there--you have to make an effort. And then you're kind of just like why is this in the basement when you have like twelve Kirchners in the spacious upstairs and Kirchner probably wouldn't even mind being in the basement whereas it feels weird with these aged altarpieces. Don't get me wrong, I saw a lot of works there, and I especially enjoyed discovering several of the early modern Swiss artists. They seriously just need to rethink how they put their collection together.

It was then time to head outside to see the old city of Bern. The area is a UNESCO World Heritage Site (awww yeah) because it is so well preserved. Many of the old, old, old building façades look the same that they have for hundreds of years. And there are some really awesome fountains.

Bern's church is very famous, but unfortunately there was a ceremony going on and tourists couldn't go in. Of course, the outside of the church is a large part of what makes it spectacular.

From the old city I crossed the bridge to try to see the famous Bern bears. They used to live in a pit, until someone decided this wasn't actually very kind to the bears, and now they live in a different larger enclosure that also doesn't look super amazing for the bears but is at least not a pit. I did not see any bears. It's like they hibernate in the winter, or something.

I'm pretty sure this is the historical pit.

At the bear enclosure visitor center, however, there is a delightful spectacle called the Bern Show that you can enjoy in one of many different languages. Here are all the reasons you should go see this 20 minute multimedia journey:
1. It is cold outside and you can get the one franc student/kid/senior/military/whatever price and warm up.
2. You enjoy being terrified of giant talking chairs that pop up out of nowhere. 

The Bern Show was actually the most traumatic thing I've experienced in a long time. This is probably because I was the only one inside. Basically, the history of Bern is narrated, but random things (including featureless soldier forms pounding drums, building interiors, flags, and the aforementioned chair) keep dramatically appearing onstage completely mechanically from the wings and making loud noises. Do not--I repeat, DO NOT--go see the Bern Show if you have no company, friends or strangers, because it may make you hate the history of Bern.

I decided to head home after the Bern Show... there was just no topping that. I would like to take this opportunity to mention how spectacular Swiss public transportation is. I got from where I was staying (in Duillier) to Bern entirely on public transportation. Easily.

This is a modern train station. America has a long way to go.

Switzerland, day three

On Thursday, I went into Geneva again with the goal of visiting the Palais des Nations in mind. 

Unfortunately, the Palais only offers two morning tour times, and I arrived 15 minutes too late for the first one and 75 minutes too early for the second. Never fear: after acquiring my ticket, I marched next door to the Musée Ariana I had noticed earlier, a museum of glass and ceramics. 

Here are the reasons one should go to the Musée Ariana:
1. You're super into glass and ceramics.
2. It's cold outside and you need to kill time before your tour of the UN office in Geneva.

All jokes aside, however, this museum was fairly interesting. Decorative glass is always pretty nice, and the man at the front desk was extraordinarily friendly. Unfortunately, I didn't get to completely explore the collection, due to needing to make my tour time! If you're ever in the neighborhood, check it out.

So back to the Palais! The Palais des Nations was built to house the League of Nations (the creation of which is one of my favorite lol US History stories), and is currently home to the UN functions that happen in Geneva! It's full of history and important people and is also a really nice building.

The Broken Chair symbolizes the dangers of land mines and stands outside the Palais.

As a visitor to the Palais des Nations, you can take a one hour tour where a guide will show you the most important rooms of the building and give you a detailed oral history of the facilities at the same time. It's all really quite fascinating, though the small children on my tour didn't seem to agree with me. But how can you not get excited about the fact that there's a room you can't go in because part of the UNITED NATIONS HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL is meeting right under your nose?

I've never been to UN headquarters in New York, and I don't know how they deal with visitors there, but after this visit I would very much like to take a tour of those facilities. You get to see where so many incredible things happened, and you get to see people working together. Like seriously, folks. The fact that this messed up world has something like the UN is just so, so cool.

The only weird thing about my UN experience was that our tour guide kept asking us fairly easy quiz questions that nobody apparently knew the answer to--like if anyone knew the name of the Secretary General of the UN. Nobody volunteered Ban Ki-moon. To be fair, however, I guess I knew the answer to this question and didn't respond, so maybe everyone else was just kind of shy like me. I'm not sure. It just made things vaguely uncomfortable because I think the guide thought we were idiots.

Meeting room!

In any case, the Palais was magnificent, I'm really glad I went, and history is awesome.