The morning played out well, no problems. It was a good thing too since we had actually reserved seats on the train down to Basel. However an odd thing did occur on the train. We reserved a 6 person room for 5 people, so normally a person wouldn't go in there. When we found our cabin, there was a man sitting in it, at the window in one of the seats we reserved. We opened the door and were over-whelmed by an unpleasant smell. This was all unfortuante because we reserved the room for the sake of the table so we could continue playing or Ten Up Ten Down card game that we had been playing the last few days (thanks to Chris). We didn't kick him out though, but rather just waited for him to leave.
He started chatting with us a little bit, in English, which he obviously knew, however the moment someone mentioned that I knew some German and I was studying here, he stopped speaking English completely. It was a little annoying because I had to translate everything then. After a little while, he seemed to be trying to convince us to go to Freiburg, where he was going. We decided not to at the time, but maybe on the way. The guy just felt kind of sketchy, especially when the ticket checking lady came around, we showed her all of our tickets and when she actually asked for his he seemed surprised and unable to find his ticket. When she wasn't leaving, he found it and was unhappy she punched it. We could only speculate about whether he intentionally sat where he did so that his ticket wouldn't be checked. I also noticed that the covering of his ticket holder was STA, which is Student Travel Agency. He didn't look like a student, but maybe he was a teacher. It could explain why he made me translate everything.
Anyhow, we got off the train in Basel, and the weather seemed a little drizzly. Fortunately, our fondue restaurant wasn't very far away. We arrived, the beer likers ordered a local beer and my mom and I got tomato and carrot soup respectively. I thought her's was better, and then we all ordered fondue. The bread was absolutely delicious. When we didn't finish it all, I decided I would take it with me. They gave us too much cheese in comparison to bread. I feel like we could have ordered a lot less, oh well. The "traditional swiss fondue" was not overwhelmingly good, but that's probably because I forgot I didn't like the flavor of swiss cheese and there was definitely a white wine base, that was the worst part. But those aspects aside, it was hard to stop eating it, aside from the overpowering wine flavor from time to time. After it was all said, done and eaten, we started our adventure.
(They allowed us to go up the tower of the church. It quite a hike up. | The stairs were narrow and steep. | This is the inside of the steeple. )
(A view of the city. | A view of how high up we were. | A view of interesting things on people's roofs. [Pool and a ping-pong table.])
(Another church. | A bridge and a very fat and amusing looking pigeon. | City Hall, a big give away is the color. )
(I was amused by the name of the restaurant in Switzerland. | A cool fountain display that moved mechanical to play with the water. | The Basel Hbf.)
Everyone bought a few souvenirs, but no chocolate to share. After all, we had bought quite a bit and tried quite a bit on our way to Basel. It seemed appropriate to sample various kinds of chocolate on our way to Switzerland. There was Rittersport, Milka, Tolberone, and Schogetten. Everyone liked different ones, so that was interesting.
Of course we played more Ten Up Ten Down, this time was a different game of it because I had easily won the last game with almost double the points of the next person. This new game, I was not doing so hot, but that's okay.
We arrived back in Mannheim not too late and headed over to Murphy's for one last dinner together because we would all be leaving the following day to go our separate ways. I had eaten so much chocolate and the bread from the restaurant that I just kind of sat and watched. It was a great time while it lasted.
After we ate, we went back to the hotel, I collected my things, and we all said goodbye. Time for my next adventure to Prague the next day!
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