"I sat across from the dog."--Mitchell Holthaus

One of my goals in life has always been to eat lunch in a foreign country and come back before the day was over, and my mission was accomplished today in Basel, Switzerland!

I think there were about 32 of us that went, and we met at the train station in Freiburg at 8:45 this morning. The train to Switzerland was only about an hour long, and I found out that we can go there anytime we want for free with our RegioKarte tickets we get as students here!

It was freezing out today but clear and beautiful, so it was perfect to take in the city. I was extremely excited upon my arrival in the country, as you can see from the photo of me and my friend Emily. When we got there we took a weird boat thing across the Rhein and then did a walking tour of the city. Since it was such a beautiful day, there were a ton of people out and about walking, and there was an outdoor market in the center of town. Switzerland really classes it up by having entire bands perform on the street with intense instruments like cellos and violins.

We got an hour for lunch and were allowed to explore the city on our own. Emily, Mitch, Jen, Todd, and I went searching for some food. We were really confused because at first we couldn't find anywhere to eat and then once we did, the prices for everything were outrageous! Switzerland is not part of the EU so they still use the Swiss Franc. I remembered from work that one dollar was worth about the same as a Swiss Franc, but everything was so expensive that that didn't seem right. A Big Mac from McDonalds was more than 7 Swiss Francs! We figured my conversion must be wrong and eventually settled on an Italian place where I had THE MOST AMAZING TORTELLINI OF MY LIFE! They were so soft and tender and the sauce was delicious, and the cheese was fresh. I have never eaten so slow because I wanted to savor every bite. When the bill came it was basically a disaster because it was in Francs but we only had Euros (which they do accept in Basel since it's so close to the border, but we couldn't pay for the bill separately like we usually do). Turns out, by the way, that 1 Franc is $1.09 and my tortellini was 15.50. The most expensive (but most delicious) pasta of my life and worth every cent.

After that we met back up with the rest of the group and went to the Basler Muenster, or cathedral so we could climb to the top. It was extremely steep, the stairs were extremely narrow, all we had was a tiny rope to hang on to, and my legs were shaking so bad I could hardly move. The view was totally worth it though!

We went to two museums in the late afternoon. The first one was a modern art muesum, complete with random red square paintings and scribbles on pieces of paper that totally went over everyone's head, and the second was an art museum with paintings from Picasso and Van Gough which was pretty cool, but by this point we were all too tired to care.

After a long day in Basel, it was finally time to return back home to Freiburg! It is amazing how Freiburg is starting to feel like home. I'm pretty sure that everyone passed out from exhaustion on the train.

You can check out the rest of my pictures from my day in Basel here!