Bern - SWITZERLAND

FRIDAY 12TH FEBRUARY 1999

The sun shone in all its glory for the first time in days and a cloudless blue sky raced across to the horizon. Today we were going to dig the combi out of a bank of snow and take off towards Fribourg and Neuchatel. Taking 30cm pinnacles of ice off the car was a bit of a worry, but in the end Dave started the car and we ploughed our way back out onto the road. The temperature was closing in on -15 outside and whenever you'd breath on the windscreen the condensation would instantly turn to ice. A few hundred metres down the road we realised that the water must be frozen as the engine was overheating. And just like two years ago it was so cold that the antifreeze didn't work!!

After half an hour of stopping and starting we took the van into the sun on the hill above Frank's apartment and parked it on the flat. Although this turned out to be a bad idea as the sun soon turned to shade and every time we'd try to pull out the wheels would spin. I spent another gruelling half an hour with a shovel from a nearby house digging up the ice, where with each new movement we got ourselves in another unfortunate position. After a lot of to-ing and fro-ing we made it out and into another position further up. Cold and defeated we returned to the apartment and gave up on our little outing.

Whilst Dave typed in more Moroccan inserts into the web site I lazed about reading and listening to music. By 4pm I was back to the grindstone working hard to catch up on the last week of entries. Frank returned with his friend Stefan at about 7pm when I was told to take up my womanly duties in the kitchen. Frank was wondering where he could find a chain long enough!! I cooked some jumping Cajun chicken with vegetables and a touch of tomato and cream. A kind of Mississippi meets Paris and thankfully it went down well with the locals. Whilst cooking I enjoyed a bottle of honey brewed beer and then started on a special bottle of red from the garage. Indeed we had been spoiled silly over the past couple of days and were invited to stay as long as it took for the van to thaw out.

After dinner we all went off to Stefan's for coffee and dessert, then ascended on to the streets with all the other young revellers in town. Before we new it we were being ushered into the Latino club and whisked into the vibrant world of South America. The rhythmic sounds and moves of salsa bellowed of the dance floor where funky Frank and sexy Stefan strut their stuff with handfuls of young ladies wanting to dance by their side. Most of the clientele there were from some of the cities dance clubs and they mostly knew each other. It was nice to be in a setting where the people were just there to dance, practice new moves, drink colourful cocktails and long enjoyable glasses of Swiss beer. Five of us returned through the sweet Bernese snow in the back of a Mercedes taxi and by 3am my head hit the pillow falling fast asleep.