24/6/10-Basel

Today I was off to Basel with Elaine and Moushira. Elaine and I planned to catch the 8:54am bus to Frutigen to begin our journey. But as we were attempting to tell Karen in the office where we were going, we got delayed. We managed to miss the bus by 3 minutes. Normally that would have been okay but Moushira was getting on the bus at the next stop and we had no way of telling her we missed it since I did not have her number. So, we waited for an hour at the bus stop to catch the next bus to Basel. We arrived in Basel around half twelve (12:30). We got some information at the tourist center and then hopped on the tram to our hotel. We stayed at a hotel that was located on the Rhine and our window was facing the river!!! Since we are staying in Basel, Moushira and I got a free mobility ticket so we were able to ride all the trams and buses for free! Elaine was only staying for the day. Basel is the 3^rd largest city in Switzerland and it is very diverse, cultural and quite busy! I love being in the city, although there was not a mountain of great height around to be seen. After we checked in and put our extra bags in our room, the adventure began. We walked around Marketplatz and ate lunch in the middle of a courtyard. The restaurant was very quaint, and I had a salmon entrée! We then wondered about and went into an open-air market that was in front of a museum. There was tents set up with booths of jewelry, African trinkets, bohemian attire, tapestries and random Swiss things. We then wandered over to a cathedral/church, we thought it was Munster but we discovered that was incorrect the following day. But the church was very pretty and I climbed 218 steps to the very top of the tower to have a look at the city. I took lots of photos. =) I was very tired when I finally climbed down, and I got a bit dizzy on the way down all the spiral steps. Our next stop was Dreiländereck or three countries corner. It was just north of the city where Switzerland, France and Germany meet and we took the tram and then walked along the river until the spot. It was very interesting, as the location coincided with the industrial port of Switzerland. It was hot in Basel, about 78F, but not as hot as Texas, thank goodness. So the three of us decided to accomplish an item on the staff challenge, submerge in a river/lake for 5 seconds. We went swimming in the Rhine River. The current was going fast so we did not go for long since the water was very cold. I did not bring a towel but managed to air dry just fine. Elaine went back to Adelboden after our swimming adventure. Moushira and I went back to the hotel to take showers and get ready for dinner. We went to an Asian restaurant and I was very excited to get vegetable noodles, yummy! We sat on the main dining/going out street because as we ate dinner we saw many young people dressed in nice clothes walking up and along the street. We even watched the world cup game at dinner. I enjoyed people watching. After dinner we wandered about the street and nightlife and then we were off to bed. As for the pictures,