In mid-November, Sarah’s class had the opportunity to go to Bern for a field trip, but the teacher needed a few parents to go along to corral the herd. 🙂 Chris worked from home that day so that I could be one of them. Going on field trips in Switzerland is always fun. There are no big yellow school buses to ride, we just get on the normal city bus, hop on a train at the station and away we go! Public transport is a beautiful thing. 🙂
We had to walk a bit through the city of Bern to get to the auditorium where the event we were attending took place. Sarah’s teacher had heard about a special program where school classes could come up with a way to take care of the environment, submit it to a committee and then get a chance to attend a special event with the famous explorer and environmentalist Betrand Piccard. Most of the classes had actually completed their projects by the time of the event, but he had only heard about it just before the deadline, so they got to attend even though their idea would be implemented in the future.
There was a beautiful fish pond in front of the building, and the kids just had to stop and admire them. As we walked in the building, I turned around to make sure none of the kids were behind me. And who did I see walking along but Alexandra Volz!!! One of my District Leaders on my mission.  He lives and works in Bern, and his employer was one of the organizers of this event. What a fun, fun surprise. Unfortunately, we didn’t have much time to chat, as he was there for work, but we ended up on the same street car headed towards the train station afterwards, and I was able to have a nice catch up with him. Such an awesome guy!
It was good I saw him near the entrance, because I never would have noticed him inside the huge auditorium.
There were three levels and every seat was filled. Hi Sarah!
The main attraction at this event was Bertrand Piccard. If you don’t know who that is, don’t worry, I didn’t either. 
But google him, he’s amazing. He gave a great speech to the kids about not giving up and always striving towards your goals, no matter how many people tell you it isn’t possible. You may not achieve your ultimate goal, but you will accomplish so much more just by trying.
Each class selected one person to represent them on stage. Sarah’s class chose Arno, and he was able to shake Bertrand’s hand and receive a certificate for being an environmental pioneer for their classroom.
One of the Bundesrat (Switzerland’s highest governing body) Doris Leuthard also came. In fact, she was sitting just a couple rows in front of us during the presentation. 
The thing I loved most about this event, was that all the speakers went from Swiss German, French, Italian and back with no problems at all. It was a great live example of how this country functions with 4 national languages.
After all the certificates were handed out, which took a while,(those poor kids who got called up first had to wait a loooong time) there was entertainment for the kids. A Swiss rapper/beatboxer named Knäckeboule put on quite an act for the kids. 
He did some amazing stuff using just his mouth and a microphone, and then made up a rhyme on the spot, using words the kids yelled out from the audience. Very talented and entertaining. Unfortunately, we couldn’t stay for the entire act, as we had a train home to catch.
The kids played silly games to entertain themselves, but never got too loud. It was a fun day, and I am glad I was able to experience it with Sarah.