Dave's Insufferable Euro-Blog: The Swiss Saga, Day 3: A Clockwork Brown, Or: Relatively Interesting

We took the train to the city of Bern (Motto: “Berninating the countryside!”). Went on a walking tour, saw a Gothic cathedral, a view of the river, and a clock tower. Inside the clock tower, we saw the huge complicated mechanism that turns the clock, and watched it ring 12 noon. So you know, medieval clockwork consists of a fascinating series of metal gears and joints and flywheels, every last one of which could totally kill you or at least take off a couple fingers.

Afterwards, visited the apartment that Einstein lived in when he was working on the theory of relativity. It...well, it looked like a 20th-century apartment. We watched a little video on the life of Einstein, but it was really just one of those "go there so you can say you've been there" kind of things.

Finally, we took a trolley to the Paul Klee Center to have lunch. I didn't feel like eating any of the pretentious, expensive art gallery food they served, so I went and checked out the gallery before leaving to grab some food elsewhere. The art gallery was on the theme of weird bio-genesis-microcosm-squiggily-artsy-dealies. The captions and musings were in French and German. I can read (if not speak) French pretty well, but I got a headache trying to read a bunch of artistic nonsense like “la recherché artistique est reconstitutee par l’excellence de la tranche de fromage attaché aux pieds pendant qu’on se trouve la biogenisisme,” in the most artistically nonsensical language of them all. I was given money for lunch and dinner, and ended up eating cold bread and salami sandwiches for both. However, this method cost me only 20 of my 60 CHF for the two meals, so I’m gradually accumulating souvenir money, which I could say with a straight face until approximately six hours later, when I had blown it all on booze. Well, I don’t know about you, but I must have been traveling at nearly the speed of light, because it seems like the day just flew by! (Little astrophysics humor for ya. You can keep that one, it’s free.)

Note: What follows is a real-time account of the evening's debauchery, written at approximately 3:00 AM of the night it describes. It appears unaltered from the original transcript. The following contains graphic youthful stupidity. Viewer discretion is...well, since you've read this far, viewer discretion is obviously nonexistent to begin with. Enjoy!

In the evening, drank truly insane amount of vodka and went out clubbing until 2:00 AM. Not feeling so good. OooOooooggghhh. Some fun, but didn’t score with any of the chicks (I.E. totally rejected). Had to borrow clothes in order to be fashionable (who knew I needed to bring a button-down shirt on travel in order to be admitted to a club?) Blew nearly all my spending money. Oh well, you’re only young once. Drank half (or so) a bottle of Smirnoff lime vodka, went to a French restaurant at 10:00 PM and drank a screwdriver, went to a British pub and drank a “Archer’s and lemonade”, went to a club and drank one and a half more screwdrivers. One girl was a really weird drunk who wouldn’t listen to anyone when she was drunk. She wandered off and I hope she found her way home. Remember to ask her tomorrow if she got home okay, assuming she’s alive. I knew I should have gone with her. Now I’m worried that she froze to death trying to get back to the hotel and her death will hang over me like a pall for the rest of my days. Wow, I’m incredibly coherent when I’m drunk and it’s 3 AM. Death before grammar errors!

We apologize for the previous. But the truth had to be told.

And for some more truth, check these fantast-pics!