I apologize for the lack of responsiveness and updates over the last few weeks. Dad was here for 10 days and left this past Sunday. Many fun stories to tell so I'll start from the beginning.......
Dad arrived on Friday, June 25th tired, hungry, and excited to be back in Europe. He had a direct flight from Philadelphia to Zurich and needed to catch a train to Basel SBB. I received a phone call 45 minutes in to his 80 minute train ride that he had arrived! Impossible. It was completely impossible for him to arrive in only 45 minutes unless he hailed a private helicopter..... Due to sleep deprivation he got off at the Baden stop not Basel. We had to quickly determine when the next train was leaving Baden for Basel and direct him back to the correct platform. Finally after almost 18 hours of traveling Dad arrived in Switzerland in one piece. He had expected Basel to be cooler than the 90 degree weather he left behind in Philadelphia being so close to the Alps and everything… No chance. Of course Switzerland was hit with a heat wave the same week he arrived. This doesn’t sound so bad but believe me people….. unless you have experienced 90 degree temperatures without air conditioning in the dead of summer you can’t comprehend just how quickly your stress level can rise. Anyway moving on……
I promptly dropped dad off at my apartment so he could recover from his long journey and head back to work. It is difficult to explain but my apartment is VERY tiny. The bathroom and the kitchen or as I lovingly refer to it as the “bitchen” is one of the not-highlights of my studio in Basel. I’m sure my dad will respond to this post with his own commentary on my temporary accommodations. On Friday evening, we discovered a cute Italian Bier garden a few blocks from my apartment to watched the Swiss – Honduras World Cup match. Switzerland was knocked out of the World Cup but it was definitely fun getting into the spirit and shout “Hopp Schwiiz!!!” with the locals even though they lost.
As some of you may know I have a lot of energy and wanted to show my father a great time in Switzerland so I created a jam packed itinerary for his 10 day vacation. On Saturday morning we had an 8:30am flight to catch to Vienna for a long weekend. In the flurry of leaving Basel 1st thing Saturday morning and navigating through Vienna I forgot to pack the address of the hotel….. Everything has a way of working itself out as we arrived to the Hotel and were upgraded to a two bedroom apartment in a typical Viennese building with extraordinary architecture and attention to detail with fountains and a massive staircase. I promptly jumped around the apartment like a lunatic excited to have a spacious apartment for the weekend. Dad didn’t fully understand my excitement until we returned to Basel and he was reacquainted with my “bitchen”. Vienna was absolutely beautiful and we ran around the city on Saturday snapping pictures of anything and everything we could find. Dining out was even more mysterious as neither of us read German so we never knew what we were ordering or what we would be eating. I’m still cracking up remembering our slogan from the trip “We don’t know what we are doing”. This is a phase we would used when we were lost, confused, or generally clueless. Dad had Weiner Schnitzel two nights in a row and we tasted appel strudel at every café Even with ALL the fun we were having Dad and I have very different ideas of what it means to visit a new city. We now have a running joke that my trips are like boot camp or “Navy Seal Boot Camp” to be exact. He was subjected to sleep deprivation, irregular meals, limited bathroom breaks, and self inflicted hunger strikes. He quickly learned that he needed a steady supply of pretzels and diet cokes to survive. All joking aside we enjoyed a magical evening at the Vienna Volksopera and a whirlwind tour of Vienna via the Hop-on-Hop off bus tour. We also visited the Belvedere Museum where The Klimt Collection is on permanent display. The original “The Kiss” is housed at the Belvedere Palace and was on exhibit during our visit!!!! If you are a fan of Gustav Klimt then this the your mecca. We wrapped up our tour of Vienna with a traditional Viennese concert where members of the Vienna Walzer Orchestra perform pieces by Johann Strauss and Mozart. Well-known singers and ballet dancers round out the orchestra’s renditions, allowing the vitality of life in the Strauss era as well as the gentle melodies of Mozart to re-emerge and also enticing the audience to join them on a nostalgic trip back through the 18th century and to the merry parties of the "fin de siècle" Vienna. The ballet dancers perform the waltz in inimitable Viennese style, following the violin in a colorful springtime roundel while offering tender declarations of love in three-four time. Included in the performance was an opera singer who was amazing but made a “crazy” face during her performance which launched my father into a full on “giggle” fit which lasted about 2-3 whole minutes!!
On Monday, dad decided he needed a break from the rigorous travel schedule and tried to catch up on his sleep. Little did he know there is NO air conditioning and he was tortured in the 90 degree weather with the sun beating down on my apartment. I returned from work to find a very frustrated and sleep deprived father. To make matters worse we thought the radiator was on and he decided to man handle the knob by accidentally pulling the knob OFF with the dial set to “high”. I then proceeded to have a breakdown and broke into tears thinking we would have to spend the night in my hot apartment with the radiator cranked to “HIGH”. Dad invoked his “MacGyver” skills and fixed the knob with the only tool available…. a butter knife! Thank god he was able to fix the knob because one of us might be dead right now
The rest of the week was very relaxing with trips to the Rheinfelden Sole Uno Spa, the Black Forrest, Lucerne, and Zurich. Dad says he left a piece of his heart in Switzerland and I miss him already. I love you dad!! Thank you for visiting me!!
P.S.- I almost forgot to explain the title of this post. American Dad Uniform or "ADU" is when American father’s wear shorts, white calf length socks, and sneakers. This is how Europeans distinguish American families from other tourists. The “ADU” was in full effect last week while dad was in town!!
