Today was a GREAT day. Met a friend for lunch who kindly walked me through returning some stuff to an electronic store (in German) and then helped me decipher the grocery store points card. It was another gorgeous day in Basel, although all around people are complaining that it's too hot and I'm thinking, y'all ain't experienced hot until you've walked out of an office building in NYC to 90 degrees with the same humidity and bus exhaust. It's been around 80+ during the day with very dry air and in the 50s at night. If the summer were like this I'd be quite happy. I'm not allowed to install an a/c apparently, but I'm thinking I could buy an air filter (HEPA) that would cool my apartment while also removing any irritants that might impact my allergies / asthma as necessary.
My air shipment arrived today!!! It felt like an early birthday present. I felt as though I was unwrapping gifts that I'd never seen before. It was one guy for the 14 items and he was even
smaller than the crew that packed and moved me out of NY. I can't understand how these little itty bitty guys can lift heavy boxes! Hmmmm
Raced home from lunch to meet the delivery and just tore into everything! Went to dinner with a close friend and we planned an over night trip this weekend to her farmhouse in the Voges region of France (1,000 lakes region) which is about an hour and a half from downtown Basel. Some of you think you live in the suburbs? That's nothing compared to a 16th century farmhouse literally in the middle of a village that is in the middle of nowhere. I'm not even sure if they have a zip code! : )
I thought since my laptop works that the wireless router would as well. Most computer equipment is created with built in converters, but now I'm realizing that if it has a huge plug at the end that it's likely going to fry, and fry it did! The minute I plugged it in a fuse blew and you could smell the burning wires! Well, there were a few things I brought over knowing that it might happen. As well, upon just examining my scanner, I'm realizing that it too has one of those huge plugs, so maybe it's just better to send it home and buy a printer, fax, scanner here in Basel. The only downside is that most likely the instructions will be in German, Italian, or French and NOT English! Muy mal!
Had dinner with one of my close friends here. We had drinks right on the Rhine (literally) at the Three Kings Hotel (top 5-star hotel in Basel) right on the Rhine, literally. And then went for a basic pizza / salad / chianti dinner. Yummy food combined with great company as always.
http://www.lestroisrois.com
The rest of the weekend will be filled with Friday night services at the local egalitarian synagogue based on the B'nai Jeshurun model in NYC (the woman that started it lived in NYC and attended services at BJ for 17 years), lunch / dinner with friends, preparing for work on Wednesday (yikes!), etc. and taking in more of Basel.
One thing I noticed is that the Swiss are a bit cold and given that I don't speak or understand German my whole form of communication is completely at a stand still. Being a type A extrovert from NYC this is a completely new experience for me. They don't make eye contact walking down the street, nor do they indulge in gratuitous smiling. Given how serious I can be you'd think I would feel right at home with this, but since I can't communicate verbally I thought at least body language would come in handy, but it's just not the way it's done here.
If you're at a loss as to what I might like as a birthday present...well here is something to take the guess work out of the picture! The toilet paper here is "from hunger" as my dear old Gram would say! I had three precious roles left upon departing NY!
No comments:
Post a Comment