Swiss Chocolate

So it has now been over a week since I last wrote on here...again, I apologize.
We left Amsterdam the same way we came in- exhausted and clueless. We did not have exact plans for the next four days before we had to be in Bern, Switzerland. So just as before, we winged it!
Skip's family friends invited us to stay with them in a small town in Germany, just over the Dutch border. They welcomed us with open arms. Mr. Barthel works for the Canadian military, so they live right near a NATO air base and have for the past year and a half. They cooked us some amazing meals, and introduced us to some more tasty German beers. It was nice to be with some fellow Canadians and to hear stories about what it has been like for them to live in this small German town.

We ended up staying with them until the Wednesday. They were just so hospitable and sweet that we didn't want to leave! We borrowed their bikes and used them to tour around their town, stopping for some German pastries along the way. On the Tuesday night we went to check out a trivia night at a bar in Maastricht. BEAUTIFUL CITY. Even at night you could tell just how stunning it was. Skip and I decided then and there that we are returning for a longer and more proper visit. (The German's have this huge celebration called Carnival during the months of February and March, the biggest weekend is at the beginning of March. Apparently it's just like Halloween, but ten times crazier...Skip and I are coming back for it. Haha) Wednesday night we flew from Dusseldorf to Basel, just outside of Switzerland. Unfortunately, we decided to sleep in the airport that night (No sense in booking a hotel for 5 hours. Besides, this is a must for backpackers at some point on their travels...)

Waking up to the bright lights of airline check-in desks, we quickly jumped on a bus to the train station to go to Bern, our final destination. In a daze (neither of us had properly slept) we saw the gorgeous city of Bern through the tram windows. Not really appreciating it at the time, we immediately checked in to our hotel. We didn't make it past the bed once we stepped in to our room.
The next few days were going to be tiring-- we are in Bern now for 11 days to work at the ISU European Figure Skating Championships!