Spring Fever - Basel Style

I'm back in Switzerland for 5 weeks. Well actually, for 4 more weeks...the first week has been a whirlwind!

The flight over was not good. It was full - absolutely no empty seats on the long flight. I did have 2 colleagues flying with me, so that was fun, but we all sat in different areas. The woman sitting next to me spoke German and had a cold. Since it was the night flight, I thought - no problem, I'll get to sleep it will be a great flight. Yeah, not so much. She took the armrest and then proceeded to drape her arm over into my seat, so I was left leaning over into the aisle. And she proceeded to hit me all night! And when I told her to please stop, she called me a "rude, impolite American". So I only got about 2 hours of sleep on the flight, which did NOT make me a happy camper for the start of the week. By Thursday, I had finally gotten so tired, that I crashed early. 7:30pm, to be exact and slept 11 hours!! (love the shutters on my windows - midday it's still dark in my apartment!)

Friday night, I went out with the group that was left and not going skiing on Saturday. We actually ran into a bunch of the guys from the other engineering company we are working with that are from the UK. It's the guys we usually hang out with, so it was fun. I may have a fleece from Ireland being shipped directly home, for the purchase of a Columbia jacket and some Peanut Butter Oreos for one of the guys. I find that to be a fair trade! So we drank Unzer blonde biers and then headed off to find the rest of our group that was supposed to be at another club dancing. Instead, we ended up in another bar and drinking Mojitos with Swiss doctors and businessmen. It was crazy and I don't remember a whole lot about the rest of the night...though I did make it home. And I ended up sleeping all day Saturday, as I had just a little too much fun....

Sunday I felt much better and met the group for lunch and then a couple of us went over to the Munster church in Basel.

It is an absolutely spectacular church and the architecture and stained glass windows.

I took almost 100 pictures during the visit. We climbed up to the top of the bell tower too, which involved climbing up about 300 steps - metal, wooden, thin stone spiral steps...it was pretty dicey towards the top, but I was pretty proud of myself for making it to the top. The view was SPECTACULAR!!!

We could see the mountains in Germany and France, with the snow still on them, while it was 65 and sunny in Basel. Absolutely gorgeous day.

After the Munster, we wandered over through the botanical garden. Most of the flowers are not yet in bloom, though the daffodils and some of the tulips were up.

We are definitely planning a return trip back.

After this weekend, I have the worst case of Spring Fever and it's not going to be getting any better as we get into April!!