Switzerland

This past Saturday, I went to Basel, Switzerland for a day through the Studit Program. International students can sign up for excursions to different places for very little money. There are also dinners and Stammtisch events that students can participate in. 

I went to Switzerland for 17 Euro, which included a two-hour tour, ferry ride, and transport. I would plan on factoring in some of the Studit excursions into your plans because you can hardly beat their prices and the people running it are very friendly UniTübi students.

Basel:

It was a misty, rainy morning when I arrived, strawberry and cream tart in hand, at the bus station. I checked the time and realized I have only fifteen minutes to eat this delectable treat. I pondered my fate if it should have to go to waste, or worse, if I were to give it to the pigeons scuttling about. Torn knowing I would not be able to savor it’s deliciousness, I ate it quickly hoping to dull the pain.

The bells sounded, resonating through town and probably shattering the ear drums of those residing in the Altstadt. It was seven. I looked around, expecting the bus to turn the corner any second and enter the mayhem of the Hauptbahnhof. Alas! Five minutes went by. Then ten. Then fifteen! I felt my mind weakening, fracturing as I realized the stereotype that German transit systems are run on punctuality, that it is a mortal crime to be late only five minutes, was untrue. At 7.30, the bus arrived, though I barely noticed, having curled myself into a ball, merging with the ground wet from the sky’s tears shed over lateness.

We boarded the bus and immediately fell asleep. My will to read Adam Bede crushed by the closing of my eyes, a blink being prolonged just enough to cause unconsciousness. Three and a half hours later, I was awoken by German. Groggily, I peered around. Alex was still here, sitting next to me. Outside, it was rainy, but I saw a face. Roger Federer. Yes! We arrived! Basel greeted us with the face of its most famous tennis player (and possibly its most famous person) plastered on buses, banks, and other buildings. 

The man who had been speaking German stopped and transitioned into English. In my state of sleepiness, I almost forgot to cheer when he said we’d conduct the first part of the tour on the bus because of the rainy atmosphere outside. He pointed out a Catholic church that became Protestant and then a Protestant church that was massive and though it looks old, was from the 1900s. It is marked most noticably by magnolia trees. That did not help me when I later tried to find the church on foot. Mainly because I didn’t know the correct name and so when I described it, I realized people don’t regularly identify things by the trees that encircle them or the date they were built. No, by names or streets or “it is the really famous building that some french man built.” 

The walking part of the walking tour began in the Altstadt. We were told about how the streets we were walking through were named after spices (ginger, pepper, salt, etc.) and that we were in the district where people would come in olden times to by spices. Surrounding us was the knight’s residences, near the wall that surrounded Basel. They were placed here for pragmatic reasons. If people were going to invade, they’d first attack the wall. The city wall was expanded to where it is today, with a new wall going around lands acquired after a bridge was built across the Rhein, a major feat of that age. 

We walked to the Old Town Hall, which is a strikingly red building with two towers. On the right tower, there is a balcony. This is the balcony that Federer stood, displaying his two-thousand trophies from various Masters, Opens, and Cup matches. 

We continued on to a massive church near the Rhein on the side of the larger section of Basel. It was a gothic Catholic church that housed a memorial for Eramus. He was a devout Catholic who lived in Basel for 10 years before leaving, only to return weeks before he would die. He left Basel because of the growing Protestant influence/population. Why he returned is a mystery, though many speculate it was because he wanted to publish something, and Basel had a large paper and publishing industry, and later, was the pharmaceutical capital of Europe. The European exchange of students between universities (the Erasmus Program) is named after him. The church visit ended our tour and we headed to the ferry to cross the river. 

We looked down at the river from the church and noticed its strong current, tearing at the shores, battling the stones that formed a large bridge between the two sides of Basel. From this location, one could see the Black Forest of Germany and the start of French territory. Three countries seen from one point. It was truly magical.

But the magic was disturbed when we realized that the ferry was nothing more than a small wooden boat tied to a line running perpendicular to the river. By angling the boat, it would move back and forth across the river, against the current. There was no motor required, a very green way of traveling from one side to the other or the cause of my death. 

The bell was rung at the dock and the ferry began its trek over to us. It docked and 30 of us boarded. I braced myself, throwing messages in bottles into the Neckar, hoping one would find its way to Bonn and Flo would find it and read my final words to all those who would listen (which would be about six people). Within five minutes, I had crossed the river, still alive and not drowned somewhere or washed ashore, left in a sandy ditch. 

After the ferry ride, we had three hours of free time. Alex, Zynep, and I walked through the smaller section of Basel across the river, then crossed the bridge, and went into four or five chocolate shops, testing different kinds before buying our authentic swiss chocolate at a department store/grocery store. We walked around for a bit, got lost trying to find a church, and eventually made it back to the bus, where were slept on the way home.