What can you learn by jumping into a fast-flowing river against your better judgment?
I found out in the Swiss city of Bern exactly a week ago.
When we first arrived in the city under blue skies, a heat wave was in full swing. As we stood on a bridge looking down at the muscular ripple of the current sweeping by, the water such a brilliant and unlikely shade of turquoise, it didn’t seem like too much of a stretch to imagine jumping in and being swept away.
Plenty of people were doing it — floating by like corks bobbing in a bath tub, some splayed on their backs staring up at the sky — and not a single one of them was yelling for help.
“We’ll do it,” we said. “Tomorrow.”
And to cement this promise,we went off and bought ‘dry-bags’ from the Tourist Information office at the Bahnhof (station).
These bags are waterproof backpacks made for storing your clothes and shoes while you float down the river. They cost around $35 each — not ruinously expensive (then again, about equivalent to what I earned on Medium last month, which does make them seem rather costly) but once you’ve bought one you feel more of less obligated to use it in order to justify the outlay.
