Tickets booked to Greece!!!

Athens here I come!! I finally booked my flight to Greece and will be officially leaving Switzerland on August 31st. Fotini and Randy have graciously offered to host me for the week at their new home in Athens. It will be an amazing vacation and a trip of a lifetime. I’ve ALWAYS wanted to visit Greece and here is my chance. This is a huge carrot at the end of the stick and makes leaving Basel that much easier. Of course I am excited to come home but I definitely need a vacation from my vacation. Flight back to Philadelphia is on September 7th arriving at 3:20pm EST

Zurich Fest and Liechenstein!!

This past weekend Zurich hosted their annual "Love Festival”. This street parade is actually a huge European trance - techno costume party. There are “love” floats pumping trance into the crowd with scantily clad women hanging from stripper poles. To say the streets are filled with hedonistic party goers is an UNDERSTATEMENT. People with the equitant of a washcloth (if that) covering their unmentionables. My delicate sensibilities were definitely offended. I would categorize the costumes into (3) basic categories: 1.) Neon fairy whore, 2.) Jungle - leopard whore, or the 3.) the sexy police officer. Group costumes are also very common. My group decided to dress up as "Uncle Sam's". It was overwhelming the amount of positive feedback we received from the happy crowd. Many Swiss and German's stopped us for a picture. The city allows people to drink openly in the street and after about 2 hours you were standing on a layer of trash. We stayed for about 3 1/2 hours which was about 2 hours to long:) Although the official parade begins at 1pm and finishes at 10pm, the entire weekend is dedicated to parties and good times. On average just under a million people line the streets to dance and go bananas.

After the Street Parade we headed to Liechtenstein a small country with an estimated population of 35,000. It is a landlocked alpine microstate in Western Europe, bordered by Switzerland to the west and south and by Austria to the east. Its area is just over 160 km² (about 61.7 square miles). Its capital is Vaduz; the biggest town is Schaan. Liechtenstein has the highest gross domestic product per person in the world according to the CIA World Factbook. Why on earth would we go to Liechtenstein you ask???? Well August 15th is their national holiday with a open bar happy hour at the crown Prince's castle. The reception is held in the royal gardens where fruit, pretzels, sandwiches, and beer are all served in abundance. During the reception the Prince shakes hands with his visitors. How cool is that?

Last few weeks!!!:(!!!:):):)

Well my last few weeks are approaching and I'm scrambling to see everything on my list before I leave.  Basel has been my home for the last 5 months and I definitely feel sad about saying goodbye.  I have learned a lot about myself during my stay and have met many new people.  Just yesterday the older lady (approx. 80 yrs old) said, "You must speak German, haven't you been here for a while?"  LOL.  This cracked me up because she actually expected me to learn German in 6-months.  Learning German is only one of the daily hurdles I face.  In addition, I need to calculate the exchange rate on the fly, convert the temperature, and adjust to the metric system:)  While in Basel I joined a gym called Crossfit which is sort of like boot camp.  Julia one of the grad students living in my building also joined which has helped keep me motivated.  She left this morning so we'll see how strong my commitment really is....  I completed my first Rhine Swim yesterday which was amazing.  You basically strip down to your bathing suit in front of everyone relaxing on the Rhine and jump in with your "special" bag.  The current is strong and very fast so it's important to pay attention where to get out of the water.  Being the little fishy that I'm, I decided to ditch my bag and flow with the current.  I learned my lesson because I almost crashed into a poll.  All is well and I was able to swim away to safety.   The water was freezing due to the rain from the past week and on again off again clouds. Many Swiss are appalled by the idea of swimming in the Rhine as many of the local pharma companies have been fined for illegal dumping.  Basel has gone to great lengths to restore the Rhine and it is absolutely lovely.  I HIGHLY recommend taking a dip if you are ever in Basel.