first train ride

Big, fluffy snowflakes outside the hostel window

The French Protestant Church

Beautiful Bern

A Bern bear! They have a couple city "mascots", since Berns name comes from "bear"

In the hills...not quite the Alps

Easter Bunny!

Egg bashing at the Kornhausplatz

Steph's 21st birthday party

Nate cutting the "cake" with his switchblade (they're legal here)

French homies

Joyeux Pâques! [Happy Easter!]

I hope you all had a good weekend and enjoyed fellowship at church and with your families!

I fellowshipped with Nate and Steph...as usual...but we had a great weekend! We had Monday off, and since it was Steph's birthday, we decided to celebrate with a weekend trip to Bern, Switzerland.

We headed out early Saturday, and after a frantic search for the “lost ticket”, we boarded our TGV train and sat down for a relaxing 5 ½ hour ride. Although Bern isn’t in the Alps, we got to see them from the window of our train, and it was an incredible sight. They were huge, snow-covered mountains reaching up into the clouds and sloping down into a big blue lake—absolutely breath-taking.

We arrived in Bern that afternoon and spent the rest of the day wandering Bern and stocking up on Swiss chocolate before the stores closed for the weekend. Our hostel was fantastic (probably nicer than our apartments) and to top it off they played English movies at night.

Sunday morning I rolled over in my bunk to see big fluffy snowflakes falling outside my window, and I felt a little bit like I was back home. We went to church at the French Protestant Church, which we were lucky to find because we were in the German part of Switzerland, and all I understand in German is “danke”. The service was nice and the church was beautiful; apparently it’s part of an old monastery from the 1200’s. After church we headed over to the Kornhausplatz to figure out what “egg bashing” is. We found out that it’s a tradition that takes place every Easter, where everyone brings painted hard boiled eggs to the square and then walks around bashing them against other people’s eggs. First you tap the tops together, and then the bottoms, and whichever egg is still intact at the end is the “strongest egg”, and therefore the winner. And after, to celebrate, everyone drinks beer and eats their eggs. We decided that we’re bringing the tradition to Redeemer next year, so start preparing your egg bashing skills now, ‘cause I plan on dominating.

When we got back to the hostel Nate made a little Easter egg hunt for us in our room and then we dug into our Easter chocolate. I dare say that at the end of the trip, I, Danielle Weesjes, was almost sick of chocolate…probably because we lived off of Nutella sandwiches all weekend to save money. The Swiss chocolate was good though—definitely made up for the fact that I didn’t get an Easter bunny this year. Later on we went to a nite club to celebrate Steph’s birthday, and that was a blast! We danced the night away on a spinning dance floor, and worked off a bit of the chocolate we ate.

Monday we had another relaxing day walking around in the snow and just enjoying the fresh air. We headed back before supper and were in our beds just after mid-night. All in all, a good time was had in Bern!

We decided that Steph’s birthday wasn’t quite over yet, and had a surprise party in my room on Tuesday nite, complete with a little cake from the boulangerie next door, a home made party hat, and some of the cheapest presents she’ll probably ever get. It was a lovely party though, and we finished it off like we do most nights, with tea and another re-run of The Office.

And now it’s back to school for a month! My brain is already reeling from all the grammar rules it takes in every day, so the count down is already on for Spring Break. Three and a half weeks to go!

Oh, by the way, important note about my address: I think I’ve been getting all the mail that’s been sent so far, but I forgot the street number in my address last time I posted it, so here’s the FULL address:

Danielle Weesjes
Fondation Marjolin
Ap. 503, 37 rue Eugène Carrière
75018 Paris, France