arrived in interlarken right in time to catch my train through to Basel.
train was pretty empty for the first half of the trip, before i was joined with a group of 40 men, on their way back to germany from a stag weekend...
they were slightly intoxicated, and between them had managed to purchase the wrong tickets..
so when the inspectors came around to check they ended up having a rather amusing conversation, in broken german french and just general signing... in the end they came to a conclusion and ended up joining the group for a few drinks!!!
nice to know they're so easily corrupted.
arrived into the main station in Basel, into a mixture of french and german speaking people going in all directions, ith th rain pouring down!
i guess you cant have good weather all the time, though it did last awhile
of course with my fabulous sense of direction i headed of in the wrong direction (well i did have a 50% chance of choosing the correct way!)
eventually found the corect street and my hostel for the next few days..
you get a travel pass when you stay in a hotel or hostel in Basel which gives you free transport all over the city... handy really.
Basel is one of the lesser known and rarely visited cities in northern switzerland, despite having its own airport.
my main reason for visiting was that flights back to the uk were so much cheaper!
my hostel looked brand new, in a dorm room of 8 or which there was a lovely girl from NZ who i clicked instantly and we headed out in search of food.
ended up going to this fantastic little chinese restraunt where you got to pick what you wanted and they cooked it up right there in front of you...
(almost like the noodlebar from back home)
settled in and got to know one another
there was this strange local outside our window, that kept doing the most absurd things.. who kept us amused...
headed back to the hostel where we sat around talking to some others... ended up meeting two gentlemen from germany one of which had a guitar and happily serenaded us for the rest of the night...
eventually we were kicked out of the hostel for the night and ended up randomly walking around the streets singing german folk songs, while the locals shouted abuse at us..
arrived back at the hostel to find that they'd locked the doors, and we had no way in... not a god thing at 2am i tell you!
eventually after making enough noise to wake the dead, someone kindly came down and opened the door!
Day two in Basel had me out exploring the sights...
there was this fantastic fountain called la fountaine du carnaval (carnival fountain) and it was amazing.
made entirely from scrap metal, his little machines perform in what could be described as a dance routine...
and every section did different things... i made a video of it, however it's stuck with the rest of my pictures on my memory card... lost forever i'm thinking.
spent the day just wandering around, found a cinema showing english movies in english, and went and saw shrek 3... i love shrek
Had dinner again with my Nz friend and we picked up an american who had been living as a nanny over here near zurich who was out to do a bit of traveling before heading home to america too!
another night learning german folk songs, and drinking way too much.. we found ourselve locked downstairs in the vault, it had a huge door like huge industrial freezers had... so we spent a lot of time re inacting various things
last day saw me pack my goodies and catch the train to the airport, arrived with a few minutes until check in was open, and headed through to the waiting area...
sad to think this trip is over...
i'll be glad to not live completely out of a pack for the time being...
who knows what life has install next...
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