Traveling can be a lonely business, even if you’re surrounded by people all the time. The biggest number of people I’ve been surrounded by on this trip is 11 417 (capacity crowd) but of course it’d be nice with some familiar faces.

There’s a family legend about one of my father’s hockey trips. It’s not about him, but I think it nicely captures the human need to feel at home. My Dad’s’ hockey team was in the Oldtimers’ World Championships in the UK somewhere. I may confuse this with his trip to the Edinburgh tournament but it doesn’t really matter.

There they were anyway, seeing the sights when a teammate of his said, “Look, there’s a sign in Finnish!”

And indeed there was. The sign said “Coca-Cola.”

Well, see this sign! It says “me”. Made me feel welcome in Bern, Switzerland.