This is me, Signing off.

As I wind down my last 24 hours in Switzerland, I can't help but to be sad I am leaving. Although I don't have much here, hardly what we consider a life, I am leaving a lot behind. I know I could never live here for the rest of my life, but if I could do this experience all over again, I wouldn't hesitate.

My roommate is offering me a free place to stay if I come back to visit, and I hope that I can take her up on that offer. Who's with me?

I know I listed many things about Switzerland that I will miss when I leave, so here's my short list of what I won't miss about this place:

1. The extremely rude people who have pushed their way in front of me.
2. The cost of everything.
3. The smokers.
4. The weather (the constant rain and clouds) and never knowing if I will regret wearing long sleeves that day.
5. The cashiers checking my signature with the one on the back of my card - I've already purchased my items, are you going to tell me I can't have them because my signatures don't match?
6. Everything closing at 5, and on Sundays.
7. The person living above me who rearranges her flat at 5AM.
8. The washing machine and having to line dry my clothes - it can take up to four days for my clothes to dry in between rain and bringing them in at night.
9. The food - I'm so sick of the same food everywhere I go, and I'm sick of always eating pasta and bread because all the other food can be nauseating after a few days.
10. Paying up to six francs for water. Without ice.

Enough of that, I'll ramble about my last two days. Oh and you'll have to wait for pictures to be posted until I get home. I've taken over 400 since Sunday and the Internet is far too slow to finish uploading the ones from last week.

Yesterday I rode on the Swiss Chocolate Train. I spent most of the day on the train, about about 3 hours between the Nestle Chocolate Factory and the Gruyere Cheese Factory/Gruyeres.

The train we took was an old 1950s style train, even with the old-looking upholstery. I snapped a few pictures.

The Gruyere cheese factory was slightly more interesting than the chocolate factory, mainly because we got to see the guys working, whereas in the chocolate factory, we just saw a few videos. However, we did get to taste chocolates. After the third, I regretted drinking all my water before the tour.

After the visit to the Gruyere factory (the first tour), we got to spend time in Gruyeres. It was a cute little old-fashioned town below the Castle of Gruyeres. I took a tour of the castle since my Swiss Pass let me in for free. This was probably the most fun part of the trip. I couldn't believe I was standing in an 11th century building - the US wasn't even heard of!

On the train, I met three Mexicans (one traveling and the other two together) and two Australians. They were all a bunch of fun to talk to. One of the Mexicans was about to start college here in Switzerland - she and her mom were traveling around before she started school next week. She even asked me where she could buy a flat iron. Now that was a question I could answer.

The lone Mexican was traveling the country for two weeks and told me about this museum in Lausanne that held art done by criminals/mentally ill/crazies. He told me it was mind-blowing, and I definitely want to visit this next time I'm here (it was too late when I got to Lausanne yesterday).

The Australians are traveling around Europe for about two months. They were loads of fun during the chocolate tour.

This morning I visited Schilthorn, another mountain in the Alps and a film location for one of the James Bond movies. I ate the "James Bond" buffet breakfast up there, it was a good mix between an American breakfast and a Swiss breakfast.

The Schilthorn stands at 2971 meters/9,747 feet. This was the most amazing view I've gotten on a mountaintop yet. I could see all the way down to the lake in Interlaken, which is about an hour away from the top of the Schilthorn.

It was warmer on the top of the mountain than it was at the stops on the way up. The temperature at the top was about 8 degrees Celcius/46.4 degrees Fahrenheit. Also, I did manage to suck up my fear of heights and walk off of the terrace and out onto some rocks. I got someone to take a few pictures of me for proof.

On the way back I met an American! He was from California. It was nice to compare stories for a while in fluent English.

When I got back to Bern, I finally got to visit the bear pit. Only one of the bears was out. Tourists were throwing apple slices down for him to eat. I managed to get a few pictures before the last set of camera batteries died - I wasn't going to pay another eight francs to get just a few more pictures.

As mentioned in an earlier blog, the city was named for the first animal that was hunted here, which was a bear. In German, bear is "ber", hence the name Bern. The canton's flag has a bear walking on a golden road with red behind it.

Tonight I get to eat fondue. My boss is throwing a little going-away dinner for me and they're making fondue. Of course, I'm making a little cake as a thank-you, so I need to get on that before I run out of time.

Ciao, Switzerland, it's been fun. Don't worry, I'll be back.


Auf Wiedersehen!
Love,
Jessica

P.S. I won't cry if you won't.