Photograph by coyanis64

We love the Swiss capital, and not just for its beautiful streets and quaint tile-roofed buildings.

Here are some of the reasons we adore Bern:

1. Physics Lessons. Where was Einstein when he created that famous E=MC2 formula? Bern, of course. And that’s where the first Einstein Museum is too. Maybe you’ll learn what sort of physics gave him that great hair. The Einstein Museum is located at Helvetiaplatz 5.

2. Animal Talk. Now through July, visitors to the Museum of Communication can get a glimpse at the phenomena of communication between humans and animals at a special “Animal Talk” exhibit. Find the Museum of Communication at Helvetiastrasse 16.

3. Jazz Out. The Bern Jazz Festival is back for its 32nd year, now through May 20, with a spectacular line-up of jazz greats and newcomers.

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Photograph by i.langsdson1

April is just around the corner. We’re thinking of the world’s best April Fool’s joke, warmer weather, and student riots. Ok, we know that riots don’t quite fit with Easter egg pastels, matzo ball soup, and cherry blossoms, but we just read Love in the Days of Rage by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, a chronicle of the student riots that took place in Paris in the spring of 1968.

Always the poet, Ferlinghetti presents the riots, and the political ideas they incite, through the romance of poetry and lovers. The book focuses on Annie (an American painter) and her lover Julian (a Portuguese banker and anarchist) as they experience their love affair in the midst of political chaos. The affair takes the foreground, but it inevitably encompasses their political present, making the novel at once tender and thought-provoking, two things we love and don’t often find together.

Still not sold? Even if you don’t love a political uprisings or a love stories, you will love the writing itself. Ferlinghetti’s poetic style translates to a lyric prose that begs to be read aloud. It’s as though he created a watercolor painting in words, and it embodies all that we think of spring, and of Paris itself.

Besides, who doesn’t love a good student riot?

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Photograph by Alon A

Last night we scaled the north face of the rocky, icy Eiger. From the safety of our chairs, of course. Though we didn’t accomplish any death-defying feats we sure felt we did at a special screening of The Alps, MacGillivray Freeman’s new IMAX film.

It was breathtaking. It was exhilarating. We loved it. We got amazing views of Grindelwald’s storied Eiger, notorious for deadly showers of falling rock, unpredictable weather changes, and slick ice that make it difficult and exhilarating for climbers.

The movie chronicles the climb John Harlin III made in honor of his father, a famed alpinist who met his tragic demise 40 years ago when his rope broke during a climb of the mountain. With overwhelming views of the mountain face, stops in enchanting mountain villages, and various other surprises, the film shows just why John Harlin II loved the Alps, and why we do too.

It almost made us want to climb the mountain ourselves.

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photograph courtesy of snow_rice

Wasn’t Candyland a great place? Sure, it was just awful when you were just spaces away from winning and then got stuck and couldn’t move, but that rainbow slide? Man, that was cool. Sometimes we still wish we could live in that world, where swamps are muddy with thick, rich chocolate.

If you’re like us and pine for chocolate swamps, Saturday may just be our lucky day. The third annual Chocolate Festival is back and bigger than ever, complete with a massive chocolate fountain and a “chococinema” devoted to chocolate related films.

The Chocolate Festival will take place in Versoix, just outside of Geneva, with buses (chocolate buses?!) transporting chocofans to and from the temporary chocotown.

So if you’re like us and find green beer just a little bit gross, take a dive in a chocolate swamp. It may not be any more glamorous, but it’ll be a whole lot sweeter.

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We love functionality and we love all things colorful, so when we find functional items in fancy color palettes we do a little dance of joy.

Here are a few things making us dance this afternoon:

1. In addition to being practical and lovely, the Pure Nomad Hotel Box confirms yet again the triumphant state of Danish design. These pretty-patterned cartons make home storage a work of art, and fun too. They stack, they collapse, they contain. We love ‘em.

2. Brits travel in style with Globe-Trotter luggage, handmade trunks that are durable, lightweight and (drum roll please) great looking. We like their Cruise collection. Anything that comes in colors like Jewel Pink and Cruise Blue can’t be bad, right?

3. We love Catalonia for its energy, and we love that this energy is transmitted to Camper’s line of shoes. These shoes are fab. We especially like the orange ones, as well as the “twin shoes” in green.

Perhaps it’s time to dance again, this time in new shoes.

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photograph courtesy of minicloud

When it’s gross and rainy we dream of the sun. More precisely, we dream of stifling, heat-heavy days in Pamplona during the fiesta of San Fermin. Yes, that’s right. On cold, rainy days we fantasize about long lazy summer afternoons spent camped at a café sipping coffee or cognac, awaiting the wild magic of the nights to come.

We’re determined to have our fantasy, too. We’re going to Spain, and we’re taking our boy Ernest with us. Or, rather, he’s taking us. If snow or rain is keeping you indoors too—for that matter, even if it isn’t—grab a copy of The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway and join us in another time and place.

We love this book for its vivid portrait of Pamplona and its famous festival, but more so for its carousing, its culture, and, of course, its good old-fashioned bar fights. While not the most lighthearted book you’ll ever read, it has a little something for everyone: romance, history, parties. It’s all there, and it’s set in the summer. In Spain. What more could you ask, really?

So on dreary late winter days, grab your coffee—or cognac, we won’t judge—and your book, and migrate to a café in sunny Spain for a fiesta.

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Oh, those fun-loving Swiss. We adore them for their ingenuity, their courage (even in the face of death-defying extreme sports), and most importantly, their determination that the party must go on even in the face of, well, disaster.

Sadly, we must report that the Slide Disaster Contest scheduled to take place on Eggli mountain in Gstaad this weekend has met its own disaster. Inclement weather means that there will be no spectacular and innovative descents made by daring inventors of original (and probably dangerous) sliding apparatuses. And worse yet, no winner, err…Master of Disaster.

Those heading to Eggli, well-designed “sliding objects” in tow, don’t fear: the after-disaster party on Saturday March 3rd will still happen.

The Swiss, you see, do not meet defeat lying down. Their contest may have met with disaster, but they will party on. And you, oh deflated Masters of Disaster, should too. So take your unused sliding object, make yourself an honorary Master of Disaster crown, and get thee to Gstaad on Saturday evening for the party. We guarantee it will still be filled with the daring and the crazy—and, to be sure, a disaster or two.

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photograph courtesy of crapyard

If you’re going to London–heck, even if you’re not–we think that you should read Mrs. Dalloway. In part because Mrs. Dalloway author Virginia Woolf was a lead figure in the famed Bloomsbury Group, the influential network of artists and intellectuals who met in the London neighborhood of the same name in the early 20th century; in part because it’s simply a great read.

It’s a novel detailing a single day, a glimpse into London society on a sunny day in 1925 when protagonist Clarissa Dalloway is throwing a party. It’s a true masterpiece of modern literature and it’s entertaining to boot.

And what’s more, it transports its readers to London, if only for the day.

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