A few weeks before I left for
Europe, I was on the phone with my beautiful friend Merette who is currently
spending a semester in Tanzania. We were
talking about all of the things that we both needed to do before we boarded a
plane for a semester abroad. Merette had
decided that before flying to Tanzania, she would visit one of her good friends
from high school who currently lives in Switzerland.
“Wait, wait, wait. You’re going to be in Switzerland? When?”
“I’m not totally sure. Sometime at the end of August.”
“Merette…I’m going to be in Switzerland
at the end of August. Wait…What part of
Switzerland?” I asked this question only
knowing one Swiss city, the city where I would be.
“Basel.”
“WHAT!? NO WAY!
WE ARE GOING TO BE IN BASEL, SWITZERLAND AT THE SAME TIME!?”
For the rest of the summer,
Merette and I would regularly send each other text messages with just two
words: “Basel. LOL.” I don’t think
either of us actually thought that we would see each other in Basel. She was only going to be there for a day and
a half. I was only going to be there for
3 hours. Could our unintentional timing
be that perfect?
Yes, yes it could. Because there was Wi-Fi on our train from
Berlin to Basel, Merette and I were able to text each other about when and
where we wanted to meet up. The
original plan was to meet up somewhere near the Basel SBB train station because
a) that’s where Theresa and I were arriving at 4, b) Merette had to be there at
7 to catch a train to Zurich, and c) that’s where Steve was going us up at 7.
Well, plans changed. Pris, Merette’s high school friend, invited Theresa
and I over to her apartment for dinner.
Great! So I texted Merette for
directions from the train station and she just gave me an address. Because I did not happen to have a map of
Basel in my back pocket, I Google-mapped the address and screen-shot the
directions on my phone while I still had Wi-Fi on the train. We exited the train, disconnecting us from
the Wi-Fi, and made our way outside to buy a ticket for the bus.
NEWSFLASH: Public
transportation in Europe is 1000000x better, bigger, and more efficient than
public transportation in the U.S. I
approached the kiosk with confidence. I
selected English as my language. I selected
a single-ride ticket and I selected that I wanted 2, one for me and one for
Theresa. “Pick Your Zone” suddenly
popped up on the screen. There were
TWELVE different zones I could choose from.
I panicked. I canceled the order
and I stepped back to talk it through with Theresa. Neither of us knew what to do. Feeling a sudden surge of confidence, I
stepped up to the kiosk again and selected zone 1. Why? I
have no idea. I just did it. I will probably never know if I chose the
right zone, but we hopped on the next bus and said a quick prayer.
1 successful transfer and a
few stops later, Theresa and I were standing at the right bus stop according to
google maps. When I pulled out my phone
to see what the next step was, I laughed out loud because it literally just
said “walk.” Even though it didn't give
us a particular direction to walk in, it said we only had to walk for 1 minute
before reaching our destination. We were
standing at an intersection so we decided that we would walk down each street
for about a minute until we found it.
45 minutes later, Theresa and
I were standing at the same bus stop where we had started, exhausted from
carrying around our 30ish pound bags on our backs. I checked the directions on my phone again
and to my horror, the ending location was not the same address that Merette had
given me. “Theresa…I think I put the
wrong address into my phone…I think we are just in a random neighborhood in the
middle of Switzerland…”
The look that she gave almost
made me cry on the spot. I was
exhausted, annoyed, and completely frustrated at myself for not double checking
the address. All I could do was laugh,
sit on the curb, and stare at my phone. We
had no way of contacting Merette and no way to figure out where we were or
where we were supposed to go because we didn't have a map or the internet. Suddenly, Theresa pointed out a large purple sign
a couple blocks away that sort of looked like a map. We made our way toward the sign and sure
enough, it was a map of the neighborhood.
I looked at the original text from Merette with her friend’s address and
I almost fell to the ground in relief when I saw the same street name on the
map.
Three minutes later, Theresa
and I were standing in front of a six-story apartment building. We high-fived each other as we approached the
door. “What’s her friend’s last name?”
Theresa asked me. “I have no idea,” I
responded as we both stared in disbelief at the 20 different doorbells in front
of us. Theresa was starting the process
of elimination when the front doors opened and Merette appeared. A sigh of relief and a loud laugh escaped my
lips as we embraced each other. The
crazy and stressful journey was definitely worth it to spend almost 2 with
Merette before we departed for 4 months.
We returned
to the Basel SBB train station a little before 7 and said our see-you-laters to
Merette. After a long day of travel, Theresa
and I couldn’t wait to see Steve’s familiar face and to return to the Liberti’s
house in Kandern. Earlier in the day,
when Steve and I were touching base about meeting up in Basel, he stressed the
importance of going to the Basel SBB train station, not the downtown station. I asked if the Basel SBB was the same train station
that he dropped us off at and he assured me that it was. Perfect!
So all Theresa and I had to do was find the same entrance where Steve
dropped us off.
Theresa and
I power walked around the Basel SBB train station for an hour looking for the
right entrance. We tried retracing our
steps from the original platform. We
tried walking around the entire exterior of the building. Nothing looked remotely familiar. We were sweaty, we were frustrated, and we
were worried that Steve was worried because it was quickly approaching 8 and we
told him we would meet him at 7. We
tried calling him using a payphone, but it just ate our euros. Theresa laughed as I flipped off the payphone
on my way out of the booth. It was not
one of my best moments, but it gave us a little bit of comic relief in the
middle of a pretty stressful situation.
Suddenly,
everything made sense. We were at Basel
SBB. (I took a lot of pictures to prove this to myself). Basel SBB was
the downtown train station. This was
not the same train station that Steve dropped us off at. Steve did not drop us off at Basel SBB. Steve dropped us off at Basel Bad.
With no way
to contact Steve, Theresa and I decided to trust our instincts and hopped on
the next train from Basel SBB to Basel Bad.
We are nearly positive that this train ride was illegal because our
Eurail passes didn't cover travel in Switzerland, but we were desperate. Right before the train departed, Theresa and
I looked at each other and absolutely lost it.
The absurdity of the last hour hit us like a ton of bricks and we
laughed until we were both crying.
The moment
we arrived in Basel Bad, everything looked familiar. We quickly found the right entrance and
rushed out to explain the situation and to apologize to Steve.
As if the
situation couldn’t get more ridiculous, Steve had left minutes before we arrived. I was able to get free Wi-Fi at the Basel Bad
train station and I immediately sent Steve a text and explained what happened.
Apparently,
the whole situation was just a gigantic miscommunication. Steve was under the impression that Basel Bad
was actually Basel SBB and they had never had any mix-ups before. Theresa and I happily ate an entire loaf of
bread and a jar of Nutella as we sat outside and waited for Steve to return to
Basel Bad to pick us up.
Two days
later, Theresa and I returned to Switzerland, this time with the excelled
guidance of Steve, Bianca, and Sofia Liberti and their friends Yvonne, Dave,
Andy, and Amanda. Our first stop was the
Cailler chocolate factory. There was a
super interesting audio tour that consisted of nine different rooms, each with
an automated voice explaining some part of the history of chocolate or more specifically, of the Cailler factory. There
were probably around 15 other people going through the tour at the same time as
us. After explaining how chocolate was embraced
in Europe after it was originally imported, the voice announced that the
Catholic Church condemned hot chocolate, declaring it a sinful because “it
ensnared the senses.” Theresa and I gave
each other a side-glance and she whispered, “classic Catholic Church…getting
involved…”
As I nodded my head in
agreement, the voice continued, “But the Jesuits saved the day…” I don’t even know what the rest of the sentence
was because Theresa and I turned instantly and gave each other the loudest and most
enthusiastic high-five of our entire lives.
The noise reverberated through the silent room as the pain in my hand
and the redness of my face intensified. We tried to suppress our embarrassed laughter
as EVERYONE in the room turned to look at us.
I guess we have another reason to LOVE those Jesuits! At the end of the tour, we got to sample 20
different kinds of chocolate. While they
were all delicious (minus one with raisin flavored crap in the middle), my favorite
was the white chocolate.
Last thing
about Switzerland: The drive was gorgeous.
If I’m being honest, it was probably my favorite part. I couldn't stop saying “WOW!” every time we
turned a corner and I saw a new landscape.
Just look at these pictures! And
they don’t even do it justice!
Overall,
Switzerland was fantastic. Even though
the first adventure in Basel produced a lot of frustration and anxiety, it has
continued to bring both Theresa and I a lot of joy every time we think about
how utterly lost we were and how much we walked. And how can you get much better than
Chocolate and Cheese!?
France and
Spain up next!
Peace,
Sarah
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