My Legs Still Hurt

I‘m gonna make this one quick I think. Yesterday my host sister took me to the French part of Switzerland with her friends, and we were six altogether. We went to Estavayer-le-Lac which is so pretty. It’s this huge lake at the bottom of some hills (they’re bigger than a typical hill though). The whole time I was there I was just reading my book, which I loved! We settled down under a willow tree and they went swimming (I wasn’t feeling so well so I didn’t go with them). I also still don’t know how to speak German but they spoke a bit of English to me. It was so nice! We were right by the lake and just laying there with a book (fantastic book I should mention), was so great! We spent the whole day there then took a few trains to Bern where I met up with my host parents. There is this music festival that is happening, I think today is the last day, but it’s called Buskers and I highly recommend you google it (Buskers Bern). They have visual art performances and, sculptures and musicians there. It was in the streets of Bern which was amazing. Apart from the music and art they had of course food but they were food from other country tried. There was Indian food, Peru food, Ethiopian food, and so many others that I can’t remember. My host mom got Afghan food and gave me some. It was good (not at all spicy and it was like a... calzone...the pizza that’s folded over but with potatoes, spinach and some sort of cheese). I didn’t have a lot though. We stayed there for around 2:30 hours then went home. I was exhausted. There were so many stairs! To get down to the lake you had to go up (down first obviously but the ones going up really hurt) about 70 stairs (not lying) then there are stairs to the subway like trains and at the end of the festival I was very mad going up more stairs. It was not a good time, everything else was though. Looking at this now it’s not short. There has been something I’ve been wanting to talk about for a while now but I can’t remember what it was. Anyways...I’m on a train right now (11:03AM) and we’re (Joanna, Roman, and Christa and I) going to their oldest brother’s 30 birthday brunch somewhere near St. Gallen I think. Oh! So looking out the window every town has a church/bell tower and it always at a new hour which I think it’s cool. And I’ve driven by a lot of towns now and I’m not lying...every town. Yesterday on the train to Bern coming back from the lake there was no room on the train so I had to stand in the little section between cars where the doors are with some other people. Two interesting things happened to me during this time...
1.) I found out that all the men when they’re 18 have to join the military for...can’t remember but not very long or they have to do some sort of community service. Women can also to the military but its not mandatory.
2.) A girl was trying to get into the compartment where I and four other people stood, but the doors are automatic and she didn’t know thing so she had the hardest time trying to pull the door open. Eventually she did but the person right beside the door didn’t help her (I was about to but she just opened it). But she had a lanyard that said CERN on it. I started talking to her and she was from Chicago and she as doing a summer internship there. (CERN for those who may not know is a laboratory that has the Large Hadron Collider where they take particles and get them to go almost the speed of light and then make them collide into each other. They discovered the Higgs Boson there. Physics).
This is rather a long one. I think I’ll end it here.