I knew I had about an hour or so to kill at the station until Paul arrived from Padova, however once settling myself into my first beer at the bar, I learned from a combination of dropped phone calls and SMS messages that he wasn't to arrive for a further three hours. Rather than drink myself into an expensive stupor (Switzerland is not famed for its reasonable prices), on Pauls suggestion I started to check out a few parts of the border city. Basel is at a junction of Germany, France and Switzerland, however it makes no qualms about being a very Swiss city. This is patently obvious, as they have an abundence of Swiss flags flying around at every possible opportunity. This is not restricted to Basel, being a border city, but was also prominent in Zurich as well, which I was to experience later.
Basel isn't too large, and in the couple hours of roaming I had, I was able to check out the Theaterplatz, a church that was heavily under construction, walk along the Rhine river a little and also see an old roman style entry gate whose name eludes me presently. The Theaterplatz was cool, as they had a fairly large water feature with a variety of weird mechanical sculptures that would spray water and move around, powered by pulleys and hoses. They were designed by some mad Swiss artist, and it seems to be a popular hang out for the locals as the sun goes down.
The Rhine river brought back further memories of that horrible cruise I had down it from whence I was but a wee one, however just checking it out from an elevated shore line was quite nice. It is a wide river with very swiftly moving water. I walked along this, past a church that was being restored (they all seem to be in this state I´ve found), which was made of a reddish brick, and had one door that was particularly cool. Very ornate sculpture work had gone into its 5 or 6 meter high facade, with some inscriptions in German that I couldn't work out.
Following this I went through the old gate to the city, that would have been the main entry point when it was surrounded by a medieval wall. The portcullis and gate parts were still intact within the structure (it wasn't just an arch), and this made for a very authentic looking piece of architecture. After describing it to Paul later on thta evening, he enquired as to the impressiveness of the gargoyles, however I still don't recall seeing any.
Eventually I made my way back to the bar in the station, and a half hour later Paul rocked up with the new friends I was to make over the following couple of days. Christof, the German and our host, Simon, an Australian and Thijs (pronounced like rice but with a 'T'), a Dutch guy who knew the others through visiting Melbourne University at some stage. We all clambered into Christof's car, and he took us over the German border to his parents house, where we were introduced and invited to dinner.
This was to mark the start of an incredible procession of German hospitality over the next few days that left me in awe of their generosity and friendliness. This particular night involved Christof's parents, Peter and Nicole, having cooked us a fantastic barbecue style meal, consisting of a fantastic type of steak, chicken skewers, scalloped potatoes, salad, beer, wine and bread all delicately presented and layed out on the patio table from which we were dining. They were keen to hear our stories and to relate their own, and just when we thought we had eaten till we'd burst, Nicole brought out an incredible home made black forest cake. Our cups were never allowed to empty, and it was probably one of the biggest meals I've had yet on my trip. We spent the evening discussing various things, from wine and travel, to some more deep conversations about nuclear physics and even the intelligent design vs evolution theory debate after Christof's parents had turned in for the night.
It is probably relevant at this point to side step and describe the people with which I was conversing. These four guys of my age are all studying doctorates in nuclear physics of some form or another, with the exception of Christof who is doing it slightly differently due to the German education system not lining up quite the same as ours does. Paul is concentrating on theoretical nuclear physics, whereas the other three are known as experimentalist physicists, specifically in the field of "atom optics". Basically this means that Paul spends most of his time thinking with pen and paper, whereas the other guys spending it thinking whilst playing with funky toys and lasers. I have a basic understanding of nuclear theory and quantum mechanics, but I'll admit to you, dear reader, that most of the time when the conversation turned to this realm, my contribution was restricted to clarification questions, or the old faithful "smile and nod". Paul and the others attempted to explain various concepts and ideas where it was pertinent, but for the most part I was just interested in hearing how hardcore academics interacted with each other, especially when it came to a more cotentious issue. One of the most interesting things to come of this was to hear them talk about other people within the physics community, which became (to me) more and more like a strange, highly political cultish kind of organisation where everyone seems to know or have heard of everyone else. There was admiration and derision alike, but what most interested me was that most opinions held for any particular person were generally based on the quality of their "physics". To illustrate how this term is used, it may be placed into a sentence as follows: "Oh yes, Joe is doing great things for the department, but really, his physics just isn't that strong" or "John can be a real pain in the ass sometimes, but man that guys physics are excellent". I had never really contemplated the word being used as a metric before.
Our conversation lasted for several hours, after which we were shown our respective sleeping quarters, and a plan to check out Zurich the following day. We rose about 9AM the following morning, and after showers were had, went down to organise some breakfast, only to be confronted with the next episode of our gracious hosts organisation. The table was now laden with various types of bread, immaculatly arranged, different types of meats, cheese, spreads, coffee, juice and yoghurt. This had been prepared for us by Christof's parents once more, who, like the previous evening, were constantly up and down refilling coffee, getting more bread, and basically ensuring that we had an abundence of everything available.
After we'd been filled to bursting point once more, Paul and I made our way to the train station to head to Zurich, whilst the others were getting a lift there from Christof's parents who were heading out to Lake Constance on a short getaway. We met up in the massive train station, which had various artworks peppered through it including a large, square and very cool colored light display hanging from the roof. We got some maps from the tourist office and began our wanderings of the city, checking out some cool tall, very swiss looking tall buildings with green roof and clocks on them, a small market area and then a small cafe to determine the rest of the day.
I knew that Switzerland was a rich nation populated by generally rich people, but what I didn't realise was how much they like to show their money off. Basically Zurich was what I expected Monaco to be, with the amount of Porche's, Ferrari's and generally very expensive cars driving about the place. It was really quite incredible!
After our coffee we decided to check out the fine arts museum of Zurich, which contained quite a collection of paintings both Swiss and international. A couple of the names that I recall were Monet and Van Gogh, however my arts knowledge is quite limited and a lot of it was probably wasted on me. However there were a few works that I liked, one in particular was a large (wall sized) photograph of a guys stuff. Entitled "My Things", it was basically a top down photo of a very carefully arranged mess of general items, from lighters to books to a Snoopy doll. Another part that I really enjoyed (and found out later that I shouldn't have been in at all due to my ticket type) was about 50 simple little clay sculptures with interesting names. One was a sculpture of two guys walking down a street holding guitars entitled "Mick Jagger and
We were there until 5, at which point we were told (not asked) to leave. Our next stop was the park area near the large lake in Zurich, at which point Paul decided it was nap time, whilst Christof, Simon, Thijs and myself threw a frisbee around for a while. The park was large and busy (though not crowded), and it seems that seeing as there is no beach in Zurich, people go to the park to sunbathe which makes for for some very nice scenery. Several people also took along small portable bbq's (kind of like small webbers), and had a meal there. The whole place was very relaxing, and as the sun started to wear down we went for a walk along a portion of the lakeside, checked out another park in the city and decided to wrap it up for the day. It was a bit tricky getting home, as we had to change trains at least once and as we didn't have a car anymore, also catch several trams along the way. Whilst waiting for one tram back in Basel, we discovered a life size chess setup and proceeded to have a game. Thijs was unfortunately on the other team; unfortunate as he actually knew some chess strategy. The game actually never finished, but given a further few minutes I don't doubt that Paul, Christof and myself would have not done our team proud.
Eventually we made it back to Christof's parents place, whipped up a quick pasta dinner and packed it in for the night. The next day would see us travel to Freiburg, where Christof lives and studies. Stay tuned!
2 comments:
I've caught up!
Your reflection was very deep man. But I know what you mean. You really start appreciating all your travelling once you're home with no plane ticket in hand. You'll find yourself talking to friends and starting conversations with "there was this one time at bandcamp...".
MJ
Thanks Mel! I think it will be interesting to talk to people like yourself who have been through this whole process, not only to swap stories but also just new thoughts and ideas gleaned from those experiences!
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