Miss Swiss

We made one last Europe trip before heading back, visiting Basel for a few days before heading back to Berlin.

Why Basel, you may ask? Isn’t that a 7 hr 36 minute train ride from Berlin and aren't there cooler places closer?

Yes the first questions and it’s all relative to the second. We booked our trip to Basel back in May when my boss (someone I do research for on the side) was planning on being in Basel for two conferences. I’ve done all of my work for him remote for the past three years, so I was really excited to get to meet him (very cool and impressive human–his website is a little out of date in that he’s now doing a postdoc at Stanford in bioethics/genetic research). However, because summer travel has been cursed by some very angry gods, his flight from San Francisco to Europe was canceled at the gate, the day of his departure. It was too complicated to try to rebook, so he ended up not being able to come at all (and presented remotely at his conferences). Really disappointing, but that’s the way summer travel has turned out for so many people!

So we still ended up in Basel (just Kevin-less) and it was actually a really nice time still. I’m glad we took the trip overall. I did not feel that way on our train ride out (or maybe even on the one back) as Teddy decided that he no longer likes sleeping on trains because there is way too much to see and way too many strangers to try to win over by being the cutest, smiliest baby ever. He did so well sleeping on them when we were gallivanting across Europe back in May, but that was two months ago when he was still taking 3 naps (we’re down to 2 now). He’s apparently both out of practice and way more social than he was then.

By the time we made it to our hotel, Teddy looked a little like he did that very first day in Berlin being super jet lagged. He fell asleep while nursing and so I put him to bed, only to have him wake him screaming in distress and confusion about where he was 45 minutes later. It took him a good long while to calm down and finally sleep. And then he woke up at 4:45am, which has been his recent favorite time to wake up in Europe for the past month no matter what time he put him to bed. Joke is on him though because both Dallin and I fell asleep before 9pm the night before because we were also exhausted and were thus mostly rested by 5am. The only other time Dallin has gone to bed before 9pm in all the time I’ve known him was our very first day in Berlin, so you know we were pooped.

You’ve probably heard about the crazy heat waves affecting the UK, Spain, and France. We got a little taste of it too and the highs were between 95 and 100 degrees F while in Switzerland. I had booked us a hotel with an outdoor pool when we booked our train tickets a couple months ago, but upon closer inspection earlier last week we noticed this hotel did not have AC. I had terrible flashbacks to past sleepless, hot nights in Europe without AC, knowing I would pay any amount of money for an AC unit. Dallin quickly found a place not only with AC but closer to the city center and we canceled our original booking and made a new reservation. I honestly think this set the tone for the whole trip because every time we returned to our blessed cool room after being outside, the instant relief from the heat made me want to cry tears of gratitude. 

Day 1 in Basel included lots of walking around, climbing up one of the main cathedral towers, complaining about places being closed on Mondays, and eating expensive but tasty Flammkuchen (it seems that most things are expensive but tasty here?). 

Here are some sample English Teddy got while there:

“What a beauty!” (woman in a very British accent who sat next to us for 4 minutes in the train from German Basel to Swiss Basel)

“He’s happy to have chocolate!” (woman in a New Jersey accent as we bought Swiss chocolate and Teddy flirted with other people in the store)

Day 2 in Basel included an impromptu morning trip to the charming city of Colmar, France after we realized we could get there in 45 minutes. We had about an hour to run around with Teddy, buy 8 different pastries from 2 different pastry shops+macrons from a cookie shop, and take pictures because WHAT A CUTE LITTLE DOWNTOWN. Colmar makes me understand why some Americans think Europe is like Disneyland and forget that people actually live there. 

We also visited the Basel art museum and ate at a nice brasserie that was considerate enough to be open at 4:30pm because every other restaurant seemed to not serve dinner until 5:30pm, which is approximately when the wind-down needs to start happening for Teddy. 

It was hot (did I already mention that? Because it was quite hot). Basel has a lot of neat little fountains throughout and we saw dozens of people just submerged in them. I put my legs in one and it was amazingly cooling. 

We are back in Berlin until heading home next week—Details of the last days along with some unexpected stressors will be featured in my last blog post about this summer venture coming soon to an internet link near you.

I also wanted to spotlight the treasure that is the German drogerie dm. It’s like 80% CVS and 20% Target (in that many of them also sell some baby clothing). I’m obsessed. This is one of the stores (maybe THE store) I’ll miss the most. I’m an even bigger fangirl after this most recent trip because I was particularly aware of how baby-friendly they are. The one closest to our house has a nursing corner at the back of the store, some toys out for children to play with alongside their baby clothes selection, and a changing station, complete with different size diapers and everything. If every store had something like this, it would be a game changer–just an easy way to take away some of the stress of taking your baby out in public.