Not being that far removed anyway, it was high time we tripped over for another weekend of shenanigans in Switzerland. The 5am start was never going to be anything short of abominable, but like a true Aussie battler I donned my lucky socks, downed three cups of tea and a handful of vitamins, and with the other gals made a hasty dash for the train.

Eventually we made it to Vevey, on Lake Geneva, and announced ourselves to our fellow hostel roomies by almost tipping our set of bunk beds over. The hostel itself seemed to be pretty hip hop and happening though, decked out in those funky egg-shaped chairs that made an appearance in Men in Black. The facilities were about a thousand times better than our ‘home’ in sunny Konstanz (which we’ve recently re-named Bratislava - see Eurotrip!).

The first thing the four of us did was march over to the bathroom and survey the amenities with a critical eye: Laura cooed ‘Oooh! Check out the cute little fold-down chair in the shower recess!’ Deathly silence pervaded the room as we each in turn digested this new piece of information. Then, simultaneously: ‘Oh God. Does that mean it’s a hand-held?’

But luckily it was a permanent fixture and there were no further complaints, save for a few mild lamentations of ‘um, hello…HELLO WATER PRESSURE?! Where ARE you?!’

Is it possible that in my rants about Swizterland that I forgot about Bern’s famous bears? But on the other hand, what city in this part of the world hasn’t taken the bear as it’s token - take Berlin and Munich for instance. It’s like attack of the life-size papier-mache lunatically-coloured bears over there…