Museums, Meat, and Onions

It has been awhile since I wrote here, but I'm not sure anyone even reads it because there are usually no comments, so I don't know if it matters or not :)

Anyways, the past two weeks haven't been too exciting. I have been working in lab a lot, which has been pretty good. I am learning a lot and also contributing to the lab here. I started German lessons, which I really like. Unfortunately, Swiss German sounds pretty different than High German, so I think lessons might be less helpful than I think. I also joined a gym, so I have been going there after lab. It is not much different than American gyms, its just smaller, which is fine because its never that busy. The only problem is all the machines are in German so I don't really know how to program them. And all the trainers have really sweet faux hawks.

Last Monday was the Zibelemärit (onion market) in Bern. I guess it is their big event of the year - a whole festival devoted to the onion. It started at 5 AM, but I didn't show up until around 5 PM. The city of Bern was crowded with booths selling onions and onion pie, onion quiche, onion soup, etc. It is tradition for kids to throw confetti at you. They are pretty violent about it - several kids went right up to me and pelted me. The annoying thing was that teenagers would throw it in your face. Little jerks. It is also tradition to bonk people on the head with plastic hammers. While waiting in line to get some delicious garlic bread, I got bonked in the head about 5 times. I also got some fried apple slices, but then I felt nauseous the rest of the night. It was a very strange evening.

I also went to the Zentrum Paul Klee last weekend. It is a new-ish art museum devoted to Paul Klee, a Swiss artist that they are very big on here. The building was really neat (pictures to come). I stopped by the bear pits on my way home to watch a couple chubby brown bears sit on their bums and catch food that was thrown at their mouths. Quite an eventful day.

Yesterday I went to a university event with my advisor. I still don't quite understand what it was, but there were a bunch of old professors there getting some awards. The entire thing was in German. I think I would have been bored even if it was in English, so being in German made it even worse. There was some nice music during the breaks, at least. Andre showed me the meat market in Bern - it was kinda gross, a vegetarian's nightmare. They had entire skinned animals hanging inside booths, and plucked pheasants that still had their long feathery tails attached. Andre took me to a nice lunch afterwards at a really good Swiss restaurant. I have decided that Swiss food is quite tasty, but its mainly cheese and potatoes, so its hard to mess that up. Andre also took me to see the child eater fountain in Bern - its pretty funny (here's a picture http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1161/538662148_6a2a021336.jpg). I guess there used to be a guy in Bern who ate children and they decided to dedicate a fountain to him. The Swiss are so weird. Anyways, that ended my date with Andre.

Tomorrow it is back to the lab. I have the pleasure of welcoming Mike Roy as a guest on Thursday. We are planning to go to the south of France over the weekend, should be fun. Then he is hanging around in Bern with me for the rest of the week, mainly to cook and subsequently eat vegetables. Hooray!