I woke next morning at Kuno’s to watch the AFL game between the Hawks and Fremantle Dockers, who were currently leading the competition by several games.  In a total surprise, the Hawks wiped the floor with them, running out winners 115-43. Quite a statement to make with the finals only a couple of months away.

In the afternoon, we went over to Mutti’s to drive her to Dentenberg (a forested hill near Bern) to go for a walk. She and Rita had done this walk many many times in years gone by and so it brought back lots of happy memories.

Later that afternoon, Rita went to Marzili Baths for a swim in the Aare. While she was there, she met up with Uli and Erika, friends of hers from when she lived in Bern. I first met them when I picked Rita up at Sydney Airport when she emigrated in 1999, and they just happened to be on the same plane, coming for a holiday in Australia. I remember driving them to their hotel, which was in one of the seedier parts of Sydney in King’s Cross. I think they were quite surprised by the “cosmopolitan” nature of Australia!

We arranged to meet them later in the day at MarziliBrücke Restaurant for a drink, where a large-screen TV had been set up to watch the Wimbledon Final between Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic. Unfortunately, by the time I got there, Roger had just lost in four sets, so the “party” was rather short-lived. But we had a good chat and caught up on what each of us had been doing for the past few years. At the end, we decided it would be a good idea to get a group photo of us and so we asked a person sitting at the next table if he would mind taking the photo. As he was lining up the shot, he stopped and said to Uli “I think I know you!”. It turned out that they had worked together at BUWAL (a Swiss government department) about 15 years ago - Bern is a very small city!

After Uli and Erika had left and we had started walking home, we realised we were hungry. So we turned around and went back to MarziliBrücke Restaurant for a pizza. And as luck would have it in small-town Bern, at the table next to us were Harri and Deila again, this time with another set of friends.