Bears, beers, and Bern.

On Wednesday, I traveled to Bern, Switzerland, to meet up with some friends, teach private lessons, and explore the city.

My friend and tour guide took me to her university. I am always impressed by and a little envious of the university buildings seen in Europe. 

I mean, come on. This looks like a palace by American standards. The interior was no less breathtaking. Walking in the halls, I could imagine being a researcher there, having deep, philosophical, academic thoughts.

The city featured many delightful facets. An old clock tower, so often a centerpiece of European cities.

Evidently there is a man whose job it is to wind up the clock every day. I wonder what he does with the rest of his day. Is he considered a full-time employee by the city?

Here was an abandoned building, made particularly striking by the reflection of the sky in its windows.

I love language humor. This bar plays off the word "wunderbar," meaning "wonderful."

Many stores along the main drag were below ground. Their entrances were reminiscent of cellar entryways. Naturally, they would do a lot to mitigate the look and appear less spooky.

We found some nice spots to get broader views of the city…

At one point, my friend told me the legend of how Bern got its name. The founder of Bern was lacking creativity, so he instructed his hunter to enter the nearby forest and shoot the first animal he saw, which would then become the namesake of the city. As you might figure, the hunter found a bear; thus, why the flag of Bern has a bear on it.

She related this story to me, which I found quite interesting, and then we stood for a while in silence. Eventually, she pointed to into the distance at a large building with flags on it. "See there? They have beers there. We'll go see them." Neat, I thought. Bern also crafts its own beer. I'm a fan of seeing craft breweries.

We walked for a while, crossed a bridge, and I looked down. "Aiya! There's a bear down there!" I exclaimed.

"Yes," she responded, with a sentiment of Obviously in her voice. "I told you, we would go to see the beers."

"Wait… I thought you were talking about that building where they craft beers, and we would go have some to drink."

We laughed a long time over this language confusion. "Well, they do serve beers there, I suppose you could go have one," she offered. I demurred, opting to get closer to the bears. From then on, we would always get a chuckle out of each other as she continued to pronounce the animal as "beers." Interestingly, the German word for bear is pronounced almost the same as the English word, but for some reason she couldn't shake the pronunciation that was embedded in her mind.

One of the bears was taking a nap. I envied him, as I was myself in the mood for one.

We concluded the tour with a visit to the rose garden, which featured a stellar view of the city. 

We sat there for an hour or so, chatting and snacking on food. It gave me a chance to reflect upon the weekend and my present course in life. We had first met back in November, and even then I was in a rather different place in my life. 

She commented that I felt a lot different from the last time. My usual confidence, my energy, my outgoing spirit was missing. This made sense. I was currently passing through a phase of introversion, and felt it keenly at Forwards, where I wasn't actually a teacher but everyone treated me equivalently. The group was keenly aware of my presence. Without the benefit of my teacher hat to put on and inhabit the extroverted side of my character, this level of attention withered my introverted side. (The jet lag no doubt made it worse.) Flowing into Sideways, I was still unable to find my stride as I struggled to sync of up with my teaching partner. Facing a mounting set of issues, I never peaked and shared my usual, spirited self with the group.

(As this post is written retrospectively over a month later, I'm pleased to say that this problem fell away within a week.)

For the first time in my life, I am much more fully committing to teaching full time. I have, for the most part, let go of the idea of working as a construction engineer, of using my degrees from school, of having something resembling a traditional life. While I continue to apply for jobs and occasional envision myself settling down in the near future, the dearth of opportunities makes this scenario an unlikely one, so I am left to continue making the best of my present situation, which involves traveling the world to teach dance. 

What a meandering, unexpected path my life has taken! How was I to know what would come when I first signed that leave of absence form and departed from the university campus? And now here I am, touring yet again in Europe, this time for four months. I live on the road, surviving off my earnings as a dance teacher, following a path I never thought conceivable for someone like me. I remember back in 2008, when I won my first competition at Emerald City Blues Festival, I first contemplated the idea of being a real dance teacher. And talking with Lucky later that year, him regaling me with grand stories of his travels in Europe. How I would have laughed if I told myself I would be doing the same six years later. 

I have been grateful for the mixture of adventures and relaxation found in my weekdays between dance events. These moments of quiet help me gain perspective on my life: to see how far it has come, to theorize on where it is headed next, and to appreciate where I am currently.

A day of respite.

After a long, challenging weekend of teaching at Sideways, much of the teaching staff embarked on a trip to Mt. Rigi near Luzerne.

We enjoyed a beautiful boat trip…

The weather was quite clear, affording us stunning views of Luzerne's environs.

Along our way to the top, we got caught up in a snowball fight. It began with -topher and me lobbing snowballs from a really long distance, trying to hit each other. I won the contest. (Hah!) With the contest finished, we closed ground and descended into chaotic, closed-quarters snowball combat.

What a lovely gang! Once we summited (which wasn't particularly hard), we got to playing! Plastic shopping bags were brought along to serve as makeshift sleds. With the help of my scissors to split them open (again, you never know when you'll need a pair…), we started the races.

It didn't always go particularly well -- they were plastic bags, after all.

But, we all persevered.

A popular style was to go down two people at a time, in order to build momentum.

We eventually grew tired of that, and graduated to many other forms of sledding down the mountain. We got creative. Going down headfirst on your belly, holding your legs behind you. Going down on your back headfirst. Skiing down with a plastic bag under each foot. The group had tremendous fun coming up with new ways to slide down the mountainside.

We also made snow sculptures, such as an igloo.

Overall, a tremendously fun time. It was a relief to interact with people as friends, to play together, especially after spending so much time working together and being professional and serious all the time. 

A rare species of bird discovered.

Mom asked us put out a bird feeder a few days ago. We provided an excellent setup: suspended between the house and a grove of trees, positioned just outside the breakfast table window, and rigged with a system of pulleys to easily raise and lower for restocking of seeds. For the first couple days, it did not attract any bird traffic.

This morning, everything changed: we were treated to sighting a rare, flightless bird.


The black bear; a male juvenile.

My dad spotted it first. He was grabbing a sugar for his coffee; it took him a while to look up and notice the bear. I was roused from bed with calls of "THERE'S A BEAR IN THE BACKYARD," accompanied by frenzied barking from Reka. She has a bark reserved for when she feels really threatened or senses danger: it's throatier, more urgent, and louder. She was using that bark right now.

Alfred (I named him Alfred) peeked into the windows, curious what the fuss was all about.

"Hey guys, what's up?"

After establishing that he was not about to be chased off, Alfred hopped up on his hind legs and took hold of the feeder in his paws, pulling it down to the ground.


This one was only a child, but clocked in at around 300 pounds by my estimation. A clawed, heavyweight creature standing up at 7 feet tall is an awesome sight. It's bizarrely human-like in that moment.

My dad caught a video of him going to town on the feeder. He would sit on his haunches, sometimes with legs splayed out in front of him, nose burrowed under the little metal roof. Once with a mouthful of seeds, he would draw out his head and munch away, letting his gaze wander. He seemed so at ease, sitting there, utterly unphased by the frantic and aggressive vocalizations from the dog.



No amount of shouting, barking, or clapping of pans could deter him. Eventually my mom resigned herself to the gradual dismantling of her beloved bird feeder (which was, by definition, a bear feeder, having never served any birds) and returned to preparing her breakfast.


An odd truce was struck between the two breakfasting individuals.

All we could do was wait. He left once the feeder was completely emptied. 

We learned later that everyone at Bear Lake does not bother with a bird feeder while the bears are active. If you put it out, they will figure out a way to knock it down. Put it up a tree? They'll climb it. Up a steel pole? They'll keep slamming it to knock it down. They will dismantle any protection scheme with brute force and patience.

The tag on each ear signified two strikes against Alfred; twice already he had run into trouble with the human population. He was a city bear that had been relocated up in the mountains. A third strike and he will be put down. My mom, taking an eventual liking to Alfred, did not file any official complaint.

Perhaps hard to believe, but it was my first time seeing a bear at Bear Lake, and certainly the first time being so close to one. Despite the namesake, Bear Lake does not have a particularly high concentration of bear sightings / incidents. Most of the bear population is wild and steers clear of any human areas.

Not a bad way to start off the day.