Basel, Switzerland and Americans Abroad

Today we took a day trip to Basel, Switzerland, which is only about 45 minutes away by train from Freiburg. We all met at the Hauptbahnhof around 9 this morning, ate a breakfast of buttered pretzels on the way there, and hopped off once we reached the main train station in Basel. We got a brief tour from Ulli, our "Dad" while we're abroad, we visited the Münster, a large and old cathedral, and then we broke off and went to explore the city on our own. We saw plenty of clothing shops, wine bars, regular bars, souvenir shops, underwear stores, sex supply shops (at least three in the city; they're not playing around!), fresh markets, and ethnic restaurants. I hung out with my good friend Allison as well as Tucker, a new friend who also attends U of M.

We were awed not only by the beautiful sights that Basel has to offer, but also by the ridiculously expensive prices of everything! The food, drinks, clothing, postcards, everything! We got to the point where we were really hungry, but not willing to pay 30 Swiss Francs for a mid-sized lunch. So we shopped around...Ok, 23 Francs, that's a little better...Oh! Here's an Indian restaurant with meals for 19 Francs! Hmm...Thai food at a shady looking place on the corner for 15 Francs... We weren't really happy with having to bite the bullet and dish out ridiculous amounts of cash for a quick meal, but then someone had a brilliant idea! Let's just go to a grocery store, buy some bread, cheese, salami, grapes, wine, whatever, and have a nice picnic! So we went to Aldi, stocked up, and had an absolutely delicious lunch which totaled to 5 Francs (about $5.40) per person! And we had chocolate pudding for dessert. :)

While we were wandering around we ran into a group of five elderly Americans who recognized us because we spoke "American." They asked where we were from and one of them saw that I was wearing a U of M shirt. She said, "Oh, a very good school! They've gotten lots of money from me!" It turns out that her son had graduated from Michigan! We spoke for a while, told them we were doing an exchange year in Freiburg, and they randomly asked, "So who are you voting for?" The question kind of caught us off guard and and we just "ummed" around, but then the elderly gentleman in the group said, "Obviously they're voting for Romney; they're clearly Mormon!" I recognized the sarcasm and then they laughed and jokingly said, "If you're not voting for Obama, your vote doesn't count!" (I figured you would appreciate this story, Dad.) They were a nice group of people and they told us to stay out of trouble and enjoy our year abroad.

Around 4 in the afternoon we all met back up on the bridge headed back to the main train station and caught the 4:45 train back to Freiburg. We played a word game on the train and before we knew it we were back in our home for the next year! Basel was a nice city, but you definitely have to be making a lot of money to live there comfortably.