Wann in Der Schweiz!

Naturally after Thursday, came...

Friday, September 4th:   We met up with our tour guide/tutor Johanna in the morning, and she took us into town for the "paperwork marathon."  That meant spending an hour and a half in a warm room filling out forms with 20 other students, step-by-step to insure nobody screwed anything up.  We had to register with the city, the university, and some other unmemorable places.  Once we finished that, we split into two groups for lunch.  One group went to this international market but I decided to go with the other group for the traditional Flammkuchen.  Imagine a very thin pizza with a thin layer of (sour, I think) cream instead of sauce, topped with some cheese, onions, and thin strips of ham.  Very tasty (or sehr lecker!).  After that we had to go fill out our paperwork with the housing company, even though we had already been living in our dorms for four days.  After this, we were free to go, so Paul (MUHS guy) and I went looking for a bookstore.  Paul wants to learn French (as do I, but I have Rosetta Stone on my computer), and he wanted to find a German book that would teach it to him...a pretty brave way to learn two languages at once.  Before making it to the store, we took a detour so I could check out the Johanneskirche, which, like most churches here, turned out to be Catholic. :)  Unfortunately it was closed, so we explored the neighborhood and, due to the rain that intensified since we left the housing company building, we decided to stop in to an ice cream shop to get a little treat.  Because, hey, isn't it funny to eat ice cream in the rain?N.B.-Hazelnut ice cream is not as good as every other thing that Germans have similarly flavored.  We found a bookstore, browsed for a while, found the (very expensive) books Paul was looking for.  I stumbled across a German-English phrase book, and for the English pronunciations, they had phonetically sounded out the syllables.  Not as they would sound when a native speaker would talk, but rather a German trying to speak English.  So now I know why Germans speak English with such a distinctive accent.  Nico Fassino can replicate it for you if anyone is wondering how it sounds. :)  These authors have a sense of humor.  

That night we went out.  I was of course wearing my stretchy black and gray striped pants that I got for a Euro-pop dance in Madison.  At about 10 we made our way to a bar, where I had my second beer...still nothing special to me...and after about an hour there we went to another bar, where I didn't get anything but instead patiently awaited our next stop: a Diskothek.  We made our way there around 12:30, but I was warned that the music wasn't very good and at the door, was made aware of the €3.50 entrance fee.  That, coupled with the extra €2 fee I was going to have to pay to take the late S-bahn home, as well as the fact that I didn't plan on staying very long anyway, made me decide to catch the last S-bahn home.  Fortunately, I had company because one of the other AYFers shared my sentiments.  To make a long and complicated story short, Rob and I walked a ways to meet up with a female AYFer who took the S-bahn too far and was lost in a sketchy area not really close to our dorms.  So we ended up not getting back until about 2-2:30 anyhow.  Getting to bed so late forced me to sleep in on...

Saturday, September 5th (my Mom's birthday!):  I woke up around 9:30 and went for a run with some guys around 10:30.  Later we met at the train station for the group shopping trip to the huge IKEA store on the outskirts of town.  I have never been to an IKEA before, or a store that had a shopping flow of traffic dictated by arrows on the ground.  I didn't need too much for my room, just a carpet, some extension cords, and a small mat for in front of my sink...so I purchased those three things! (Howabout that!)  And if I had a real job, I would totally go back to IKEA and get furnishings there.  So chic!   After we got back home I did some grocery shopping, since most are closed on Sundays, and then quickly made my way down to the Münster, the Catherdral, for a vigil mass (since we were leaving for Basel, Switzerland early in the morning).  It was interesting, you know, being in German and all.  I look forward to when I will be able to understand the readings and the homily.  It was really cool being in such an old cathedral, though.  There are a lot of Catholic churches that I can make my way to around here, so I plan to check them all out.  After mass I went to ALDI to get some (more) delicious hazelnut wafer cookies that are only €.99 for a 400g bag.  Haha, they are just too good.  I wandered around the city for a while after that, eventually making my way to O'Kelly's Irish Pub, where some of my friends from Michigan were planning on meeting later in hopes to watch their Wolverines.  I scoped out the place to see if that would be possible, but, due to the four world cup qualifiers going on, the four televisions were, and were going to be for most of the night, occupied.  I ran into a couple of other AYFers there, so I joined them and had my first Guinness.  I figured I had to try one before I really claim not to like beer, but again, nothing too special for me.  After watching the matches for a while, I went back to my dorm to meet up with Carl and Derek, the Michigan guys, who decided to purchase an online package allowing them to watch college games (football and basketball) for the year...a pretty nice pick up.  So I joined them for a while, but only after I made myself a double-decker sandwich.  I also broke out this box of "cereal" I purchased earlier that day.  There were essentially crispy chocolate squares with Nutella in them.  Not very good in milk, but pretty darn tasty otherwise.  After calling my momdre to wish her a happy birthday, I went to bed, because I was going to Basel on...

Sunday, September 6th:  I arrived at the train station in the morning and was greeted by our pretzel-toting program director.  Pretzels for breakfast.  :)  The train ride to Basel lasted about 50 minutes and we were free to wander once we arrived.  I was trying to find a partner with whom to wander the city.  I don't like being that big group of loud Americans.  I also like to walk with a purpose, so I can see as much as possible.  (Ideally, I would have had my brother to explore the city, but I need to find a travel-buddy like him.)  Dieter, an eccentric MUHS guy who was my year but I didn't know very well, had separated himself from the bunch, so I made my way to join him.  He became my exploring buddy. 

Basel sits on the Rhine, and isn't (in my opinion) very special otherwise.  We wandered through the city and walked along the Rhine, which was pretty cool.  Dieter read somewhere about Basel having a paper mill where one can make there own paper.  We made an effort to find the mill, but unfortunately it didn't open until later in the afternoon.  It also charged a hefty admission price.  I did take some pictures of the sign though.  It reminded me of my friends from Kimberly, Wisconsin.  Their high school mascot was called a "Paper-Maker."  Fierce!  Although Bagels tries to tell me it's some sort of wasp.  Speaking of WASPs, the cathedral along the Rhine, which we visited later that day was pretty on the outside, but once we entered, it seemed to be missing a good deal.  We went and clarified.  It was no longer a Catholic Cathedral (since 1520).  (Sorry, I couldn't pass up on that següe.)

We kept along the Rhine until we made our way to a park.  There were so many bicyclists and runners, that I mentioned to Dieter, "Wouldn't it be funny to see somebody chasing after somebody who's going for a run?"  So, I have about 4-5 videos of Dieter chasing after runners, bikers, and roller bladers.  Nobody ever turned around to look at him.  It was pretty darn funny.  We also found a see-saw in the park and had a go with that.  We really made the best of Basel.  We approached a dam and decided to cross back over the Rhine and start making our way back.  But, we were both a little hungry, so we decided to get some ice cream from this lady selling in at the dam.  Unfortunately for us, Switzerland is not on the Euro, but rather the Swiss Frank.  We knew the conversion rate, and she charged us fairly, even though she was very difficult to understand.  We were in the German-speaking part of Switzerland, but Schweizerdeutsch is pretty far from standard German.  Anyhow, the ice cream tasted like liquid Laffy-Taffy that had been frozen.  No joke.  I don't even know what flavor I got.  It was some Swiss bastardization of a German word, but I thought I would try something new.

Shortly after crossing the bridge, we came across a fruit "stand."  It consisted of about 6 crates stacked atop one another with a couple of bags of apples and plums with a folder with the price written on it.  There were some Franks in the folder from past purchases.  Dieter and I decided to see what the coins looked like, so we were standing on either side of the "stand."  A women on the bike path saw us, stopped, and asked in her Swiss German if we had plums.  Instead of clarifying that it was not our stand, Dieter told her that we most definitely did.  She asked from where they came.  Dieter told her they were from the Bodensee in Southern Germany.  I was trying so hard not to laugh.  She purchased a bag and we got the heck out of there before more people could stop by.  

We kept along the Rhine until we ran into another playground.  We had been walking for a long time so it made even more sense to try out another see saw.  After we made sure it was safe for all the little Swiss kids, we found a(n abandoned...we think) kid's bike.  I took a video of Dieter riding it around the tunnel we found it in, but then he decided to keep riding it along the Rhine.  So here was this 20-year old American riding a Swiss kid's bike along the Rhine, shouting Grüezi (Swiss greeting) to everyone else on bikes that he passed.  We took a little break, and Dieter paid €10 for some Chinese noodles...they totally ripped him off because he payed in Euros.  He knew it, but was so hungry he did it anyway.  He also kept the plastic bowl and fork he was supposed to return...so he kind of only paid €9.  I packed a lunch.  Much better (billiger=cheaper) idea.  After we ate, Dieter decided to go swimming in the Rhein.  It was a very warm day and there were also other people swimming in the river, so that was not too strange.  Our day in Basel was coming to an end and Dieter decided to take home his new bike, depriving some little kid in Basel (maybe...unless it was abandoned!) of his or her bike.  So he rode it all the way back to the train station and brought it onto the train.  On the way back, a family with some children sat across from us.  Adorable children speaking German...yes please.  They were talking about where their Oma and Opa lived, oddly enough near the Bodensee.  Heck, I bet Dieter's plums came from their farm.  Well, as Dieter was getting off the train, he picked up his bike, only to have the little girl say to him, "Ein Kleines Fahrrad." (A Little Bike)  It was pretty darn funny.  Then I returned home after a long day of a lot of walking, and slept.  Still no more German roommates!  

I am hoping to post the pictures from Basel on a slideshow on my blog, but am working out the kinks.  Hopefully that will work.  I will also post them on Facebook with some descriptions so you can follow along with our eventful day visually.