Trip to Kambly. Catherine and boys arrive!

May 18

Today we went to the Kambly factory after a short stop in Bern to activate an Orange SIM card for my unlocked iPhone. Thankfully both parental units are card carrying Swiss, otherwise no SIM card for me. The young lady at Orange apologized for her English, but since it was vastly superior to my German skills you know what language the conversation was in. 

Once paid and with new SIM inserted in the iPhone it still refused to see a network. The assistant reset the iPhone and the results persisted. She put the SIM in her phone and the same results occurred, but in German and it made more sense to her as she commented it just needs time to become active. She suggested we give it a few hours, and if it didn't activate to come back and see them. 

By this time the rest of our travel party had caught the itinerary train to Trubsachen to tour the factory as we were trying to barter an agreement between Orange and the iPhone. 

Grandpa got stuck with us, thankfully! He led us on a rapid tour of Bern to see the kindlifresser. Think of it as an ogre who eats children. I can only imagine the parents who came up with this idea to keep their children in line. But hats off to the individual who crafted this fountain. 

Here's a close up of the hungry individual atop the fountain. 

Next it was off to the drachenäscht (dragon nest) which is a toy, comic book, games, hobby, etc. store. Then a hasty return to the train station to catch the train to Trubsachen. Once there we ran into our traveling companions who'd left us in Bern.   They gave us our lunch and some recommendations. After wandering around the Kambly factory and sampling the wares--my they were tasty--we made a purchase of those that most excited our palettes. 

Here are D and J in front of the tins they really wanted. 

But it's hard to justify that amount of money for the minor amount of tasty goodness. Especially when you can get 500 grams for less; one of those cases where more truly is less.

Then it was back to Bern to meet up with Catherine and her boys fresh from the airport as well as the rest of our traveling party. On the train ride back D and J asked for some lunch. Guess they didn't eat enough cookies like I did. J would only eat the cookies that he deemed had enough chocolate. D was less picky, but she didn't attack the freebies as ravenously. 

So we broke out the landjäger (think smoked jerky), bread and apples. J was in heaven and said "Now this is what I call a lunch!"

Danielle was OK with the bread and apple, but wanted no part of the landjäger. Sorry I caught her mid-chew, but check out the scenery. 

We finally all reunited at the Institute building. Then we, all 5 grandkids and 3 adult children schlepped 10 large reusable shopping bags along with the luggage from Catherine and her boys. It wasn't bad until I led our group astray and got off at the wrong train stop, sorry. So there we were minus the tour guides and trying to figure out how to get to the house we were staying in. After a text, there was a phone calling to inform me of my faux pas and to tell me how to correct it. Unfortunately only time would correct my egregious error, in the eyes of my children, because we had to wait for 40 minutes for a return train to take us 4 minutes down the tracks. Were we could hop on a bus with all of the baggage and ride it to the end of the line and walk down hill about a quarter of a mile. Here's a picture of all the grandkids in front of the house. 

I think A is trying to fly!