Fred still couldn't believe that he had actually made it to his first pissup and smiled brightly as he passed the "Grüezi Bern" sign. Just some more minutes, and then he would meet his online friends in real life! He parked his car, grinned into his rearview mirror and was so excited that he nearly stamped straight through the fences to get to their meeting point, the "Allmend Stadium". But he was afraid the Swiss trolls were already lurking somewhere, waiting to catch the next tweetie, especially after fancypants had managed to escape, so he took the common way, and tried to walk as unsuspicious as an undead thread can.
"All I have to do now is to find happytraveller or zezl or some other pissup-member", he thought, and hoped that he wouldn't make a fool of himself by addressing innocent non-tweeties. But before he could start to worry seriously about that, he saw two people waving and shouting his name - and thanks to Ozluv's picture gallery easily identified them as Romily and angel5. He waved back furiously and dived into a long round of welcome-kisses and so-good-to-see-you-hugs before everyone sat down to watch the rugby match.
zezl
(the tough girl in the red shirt :-)
None of them exactly understand the rules, so they weren't sure when to yell for zezl - but that was just half of their problem, the other half was that some of them didn't even see zezl!
"Look, she is over there", explained Rosy_Cheeks to Fred, "she is the one who just got tackled down and is lying under that heap of players at the moment"
"But that's horrible!" Fred moaned and stared at the sight in shock until he finally hid his eyes under Civilbeast's multicoloured T-Shirt, and explained "this is too painful for me to watch! the poor girl!"
Civilbeast patted Fred's back. "Hey softie, I know this world of rugby-playing-pvc-dominas might be a bit too much for you, but better cheer up now and see who is arriving - there is fancypants coming our way!"
Another round of welcome-hugs followed, with Fred & Civilbeast feeling more and more like the cocks of the walk.
"Let's get to the town center and find ourselves a nice café to have some Schokis and Erdbeertörtlis", Happy suggested after the game ended. Everyone agreed cheerfully and the whole gang gathered their jackets and bags and hopped on the bus. After a tray full of Schokis and Koffis they went for the classic Bern sightseeing tour: down to the "Bärengrube", up to the "Rosengarten" and around the "Berner Münster", passing dozens of small streets and alleys on their way. With all the old houses and towers and stairways, the town looked so cute and picturesque that they sometimes got the feeling they were walking through a doll city full of dazzling sights. Indeed they were quite a sight themselves, with Fred wobbling through the little Gässlis, angel5 flying loops around the water fountains and Romily scanning the horizon with a mega-binocular on the search for mountain peeks… not to mention Rosy's rosy cheeks, Happytraveller's happy grin, fancypant's fancy pants and last but not least Civilbeast's psychodelic shirt.
Civilbeast,
Happytraveller, Romily and fancypants
watching the Bern city run
Several hours and sights later, they tiredly stumbled towards the restaurant "Le mazot", greeted funaddict with another hug-round, and finally collapsed on their reserved chairs. They just had enough energy left to order their dinner: Fondue! And not only one big pot of cheese, no, four different pots: mushrooms, moitié-moitié, morchel and herbs! the cheesy tasty chatty lovely meal was just ideal for an evening like that. Slowly but surely they all got their power back, and even managed to get up and walk to the "Pickwick Pub", to have some after-dinner-drinks and meet two more online friends, who weren't exactly tweeties but who perfectly fitted into the gang nevertheless: mrvindictive and fredsplendid.
Cheesybeast
& angel5: cheese!
The day had been so wonderful that nobody wanted to end it, but unfortunately no one remembered the trick to turn the clock back to Gumly Gumly. So they had to say goodbye for the night and all went to bed in their guesthouses - and one has to admit that they really stayed at the hippest guesthouses in town, so hip that the names weren't even listed in the guidebooks: the "Biwak zezl" and the "Happy mountainside pad".
After some hours of sleep, the gang reunited for brunch at the Happy pad, where Monsieur Happytraveller prepared the most awesome Aussie breakfast for them: bacon, eggs and beans, served with a dash of fresh mountain air and a spoonful of Red Hot Chilli- and Alanis-songs. With well-filled stomachs they went out on their quest to find those famous snow-covered peaks one last time, but obviously the alcoholic mist that still wavered around them dimmed their sight, and so all they could find were grinning cows, glowing fields of dandelions and gorgeous sights of the Berne valley. Which wasn't that bad, either.
mrvindictive,
Mr. & Ms. Happytraveller, zezl, Romily, CivilBeast,
funaddict, fancypants and fredsplendid
And just after they got back to the Happy pad, and sat there thinking that the weekend couldn't get much better, mrvindictive grabbed his guitar and fredsplendid his mandolin, and the duo started to play some non-traditional housemusic, starting with "Whiskey in the jar" and continuing with "Oh Georgia". Red wine was passed around and the clocks stopped ticking for some moments while the snowcovered mountains lurked through the little wooden windows curiously to see what was going on inside.
~the end~