Basel

such a lovely day

Basel is a city in Northwestern Switzerland, on the River Rhine. It is located where the German, French and Swiss borders meet, and is the third most populous city in Switzerland.

Basel can easily be reached by train and is approximately a 90-minute ride from Offenburg. It’s a gorgeous city and even though it’s been a while, I still remember being super excited upon existing the train station. The city, in my memory, was a beautiful merge of river, pigeons, architecture, lights (and Dr. Martens). Especially during the evening, the lights hanging on the sides of bridges would just light up in the darkening sky and made for a beautiful sight.

We visited several landmarks and they were all beautiful, but the Rathaus (Town Hall) was surprising. It was already beautiful on the outside, but on the inside it was even more so!

Recapping that day, in German das Silvester, after we left Basel we went to join a New Year’s Eve dinner at the house of a very kind member of the senior service who also invited several other international students studying at the university. It was a wonderful evening – we had raclette, a very tasty dish where you choose your own ingredients; put them onto a small pan; and heat them on the grill stove. After a few minutes the raclette is ready to eat!

Later, we went to watch the fireworks, welcoming the new year. New years have always been pretty indifferent to me, if not that then very exciting. But this year I was pushed into a new year with a lot of loose ends; questions marks to which I desperately wished I had answers for before beginning the new year; and in general just a lot of confusion that I wished and wanted very much to have resolved in the previous year. But watching those fireworks and later on having Neujahrsbrezel (German New Year’s Pretzel – a gigantic pretzel usually eaten on New Year’s as a sign of good luck) with a group of friends really helped distract me from all that was on my mind and made it a very lovely and memorable New Year’s Eve.