We arrived in Basel on Friday afternoon. There are a festival going on right across the street from our hotel all weekend to mark the 550th anniversary of the foundation of the University of Basel. We learned very quickly that Basel is an expensive city. I mean, the Nutella was almost four francs! By George!
The hotel was...interesting. In order to get to half of the rooms you literally went "through the rabbit hole." By this I mean that to get to say room 17, you:
1) Walk up the stairs to the "1st floor"
2) Walk down long hallway, turning several corners and going down several steps
3) At end of corridor make a right and go down spiral stairscase just ahead.
4) At bottom of staircase turn left
5) Walk down a short ramp, down two steps, and finally up two steps
6) Room will be on your right.
REALLLLLLLLLLYYYYYYYY?????? Thankfully, I was not in Room 17 and did not have to trapse down to "Wonderland" very often.
The highlight of the hotel was having a television that got BBC...IN ENGLISH. We had some fun with the channels...for the record NCIS is better in French, and they do show Jersey Shore over here. With German subtitles.
I also really really really enjoyed the hotel breakfast. THERE WAS BACON! BACON BACON BACON! And scrambled eggs and hash browns....SO AMERICAN!
For the record, Basel is the Cumberland Gap of Europe. It borders Germany, France, and Switzerland. Our first day we drove over to Germany (about ten minutes away) and went to Vitra. Oh Vitra. I got to see Zaha, Ando, Gehry (thumbs down), and Herzog. BAH! I seriously would consider living in Vitrahaus, the showroom built by Herzog. I got stuck playing in on the children's floor for like thirty minutes. Seriously, it has the most fun furniture EVER!
After Vitrahaus we went to Piano's Beyeler Foundation building. I didn't think that I would enjoy it that much...but my god. He is amazing. Every single detail was taken care of so simply and elegantly. I don't think I've ever been in a building that was so aware of the comfort of the visitor. It wasn't an egotistical building. It honestly existed to serve the artwork, serve the visitor, and enhance the landscape.
After the Beyeler Foundation we were introduced to a VT alumni who is from my understanding a rather noted architecture theorist. I think I'm going to leave his name out because I'm a little worried about my comments showing up on Google. But yeahhhh. I could tell that he was very very brilliant, but dear god...he made absolutely no sense. He talked ever so softly in a stream of consciousness. Only occasionally could I make out random nouns. His lectures over the next few days went something like this: *mumblemumblemumblemumblemumblemumble* SCRAP *mumblemumblemumble*.
I don't think I would have minded it so much if he didn't so completely impede everything I wanted to do over the next couple of days. We'd be on our way to a building that I'd be really excited about and have to stop on some random street corner and "talk" about god knows what for an hour. He's seems to have been a mentor to one of our professors here, who got very offended if we didn't pay completely attention to him. I guess it's because of who he is, because people wandering off has never been a problem with our other guests. Case in point:
We went to St. Anthony's Church this morning before we left Basel. It was absolutely amazing. I really wanted to make a sketch of the plan. Of course our guest decides to go to the front of the church and start lecturing. Slowly most people filter over there, or if our professor saw people talking he would bring them over there. Before I realized it, I was the only one not sitting in the front with everyone. I was sitting at the back of the church trying to map out the plan and would get up every so often to check something out. Never been a problem before. I'm doing what I came there to do. After a few minutes the professor comes over to me and says, "I just want you to realize how very rude it is to not sit and listen when we have a lecturer."
BAH seriously?! I've been listening to him talk about nothing for the last two days and I'm finally in a building that I really really want to figure out, and I can't do that? It's not the end of the world and I don't mean to complain, but GAHH!!
One of the random fun things about Basel were the ferries across the Rhine River. They're connected to a cable and travel perpendicular to the current at an angle that allows them to use absolutely no energy to get across quickly. Our entire group piled onto one of them. They're wooden and very low to the water and honestly did not look like it could hold 30 people. TO JENNIE: I thought of you! The sides of our ferry had sunflowers planted in little ledges. And I was like...those are Jennie's favorites!
So that's really all about Basel. Not my favorite city, but still pretty fun to visit :-) Definitely worth it if I can go live in Vitrahaus for forever and ever and ever and ever.
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