Adventures in Basel, Weil am Rhein, and St. Louis

Well, it has been almost two months since I last blogged.  I shall have to fill in on the happenings in London over the last couple months soon.  (There it's in writing; hold me accountable!)  So, to break my blogging hiatus, here's a recap of the trip I took to Basel, Switzerland over my birthday weekend.  I love how when living in London, anything can be used to justify a trip!

Since Switzerland is pretty expensive at the moment, and Basel is right on the Swiss/German/French border I decided to book a hotel room right over the border in Germany.  We left London obnoxiously early in the morning, but we brought eight birthday cupcakes on the flight to make the morning better.  As we were enjoying them at 8 AM, a flight attendant walked past asking us if we wanted a RyanAir menu. We obviously declined. 

When we arrived at the airport, we did not yet know how the tram system worked, so we attempted to take a taxi from the French side of the airport.  However, all the taxis were oddly driverless, so we got one from the German side.  When we reached our hotel, there was no in at reception and all the signs on the door were in German.  No one answered our phone calls.  Luckily, there was a random Turkish restaurant with a few workers that spoke minimal English.  They were willing to host us until the reception at our hotel finally decided to return from lunch break!

Another annoying aspect of Basel, was that everything except for a few markets was closed on Sunday!  For the country with the world's most thriving currency, I was not expecting them to close all their business for the full day!  We still managed to catch a tram to France for lunch, visit a market, and explore the old town.

Basel was gorgeous and had lots of the great architecture.

On our last day in Basel, I braved the cold and slight snow for a quick walk on the Rhein.  It was really pretty!

None of the signs were in German and at one point, even my started thinking I spoke German.

It was quite interesting trying to figure out what everything meant!  Luckily, there were always helpful English speakers who were able to assist us.  Of course, just because I can't speak German, doesn't mean that I don't pretend like I can speak German.  There was an Aldi right beside our hotel.  Even my little hometown has an Aldi and it wasn't until a couple of years ago that I realized it originated in Germany. 

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Therefore, I decided I could go over and just pretend to be German. It started off well.  I found some Swiss chocolate and muesli and was standing in the queue at the till (see how British I sounded there?)  The check out lady said, "Guten tag." So I said, "Guten tag."  Then she said something and I smiled and nodded and handed her my credit card.  And she said something else. So I smiled and nodded.  And then the lady behind me asked if I spoke English and said, "We don't take debit cards here."  I thanked her and tried to pay with Swiss francs.  She kindly translated that they didn't accept that kind of currency there either.  Well, blending in didn't go so well!

Overall, it was a great trip and I'd love to go back to that area!

Coming soon (see it's in writing so everyone can hold me accountable): London updates over the past two months!