OK, off to jolly old London--back next week!

Forget what I said about no celebrities in Basel--Usher is coming! (They seem to play one of his videos at least four times an hour here...)

Last night when I got on the tram to go home, a guy sat down nearby who was missing part of his arm (midway between the wrist and elbow). All of a sudden he took out a lighter and started flickering it around his stump. I was trying not to look too closely, in part because I didn't want to stare (although it would have been very Swiss to stare--if staring were an Olympic sport, the Swiss would definitely medal), and in part because it was making me a bit queasy. When he was done with the lighter, he spent the rest of the time picking at the stump. Again, I have no idea what exactly he was doing (I was on the verge of vomiting at this point), but I have to say it's the first--and hopefully the last--time I've seen someone pay so much attention to their stump in a public venue. (This was after Gretchen complained about someone clipping his fingernails on the train from Basel to Freiburg--let me tell you, I'll take clipping fingernails over burning and picking at a stump any old day.)

So, has anyone ever heard of Anastacia? She's evidently from the U.S., and seems to be hugely popular here, but we have no idea who she is. Is this where wannabe-Jessica-Simpson-and-Britney-Spears types end up?

A quick note about the food: while I sometimes poke fun of the names and even some of the selections, the food here is far superior to anyplace I've ever worked, and it's not even close. Even when it sounds funny, it usually tastes good. I'm probably eating better than I have in years because I have such good lunches at work and because Gretchen--ever the dutiful hausfrau--cooks really good dinners (no more cereal, frozen food, or pre-packaged pasta for dinner).

Menu update: today one of the lunch options was something called "Quorn escalope with peppers." When I asked my colleagues what "quorn" was, all they could say was that it wasn't meat. Huh. So evidently quorn is some sort of meat substitute that is related to fungi. I opted for the beef kebab, thank you very much.

Yesterday I didn't eat here because we were getting our TV but one of the options was croquettes de lentilles, which sounds much nicer than the English translation: "crispy lentil balls".

OK, I don't want to turn this into Gawker or Jackie Harvey from The Onion, but we got an email from Julie, our über-cool friend in L.A., saying that "...last night at the movies we had the celeb sighting of all time. Within five minutes, we saw David Schwimmer and MONICA LEWINSKY!!! (not together, unfortunately!)".

Needless to say, that kind of thing doesn't happen to us in Basel, because (a) I'm not sure how many celebrities there are in Basel, and (b) I don't think I would know a Swiss celebrity (with the possible exception of Martina Hingis?) if I saw one.

As a proud graduate of Muir College at UCSD, it's nice to see that ol' John Muir is gettin' his props from California.

The other day when we went to the Black Forest, I decided I to skip a shower because I was antsy to get on the road. When we stopped for lunch and I looked in a bathroom mirror, I was taken aback to see that my hair looked like a cross between Nick Nolte's mugshot and the lead singer from A Flock of Seagulls.

The blog will be out of action for the next few days--we're jetting off to London tomorrow. I have a meeting on Thursday and Friday. Usually we fly business class, but they have a very family-friendly policy here that if two tickets cost less than one business class ticket--which is almost always the case--then you can bring your spouse with you. So Gretchen gets to play in London while I'm working, then we'll stay around for the weekend. We're very excited to eat good Asian food and take a break from the usual schnitzel, sausages, etc.

I'm an uncle! (Well, I was already an uncle by marriage, but now I'm a biological uncle, if that makes sense.) Lemuel was born at 7:53am on March 29, 7 lbs 13 oz. Lemuel and Derek and Elizabeth all seem to be doing well. Yeah!

Some folks have asked why we don't post pictures of our trips and/or ourselves. Quite simply, we can't--we can only post pictures we can link to, but we can't just download photos from our digital camera and put them up on the blog. Once we get internet access at home (next week?!?!) we can at least upload photos to a photo service and post links.

You know, it's just not right to hate Duke. (It's perfectly appropriate, however, to hate UNC...)

God forbid we go more than 48 hours without television, but we went to France at lunch today to buy a new one. We saw one we thought we wanted, but one sign said €299 and another said €329. We found someone to help, and after much waiting he told us €329. OK, fine, no big deal we thought, so we went to pay and he came back and said we could have it for €299 after all. Great! Then he entered it in the cash register and it came back as €229. A mistake, surely. So, did he override the register, call a manager, void it and re-enter the transaction? Nope--even when we asked if he was sure it was OK, he just said "today must be your lucky day" and sent us on our way! Customer service is a bit of an alien concept here most of the time, which usually works against you, but every now and then it works in your favor...

I'm convinced that the real reason Gretchen likes living here has nothing to do with the scenery, the culture, the food, the not-having-to-work. What she really likes is that everywhere you go, you see smart cars. No matter how many times she sees them, they make her laugh, especially the convertibles. (Supposedly they were designed by the same guy who designed Swatch watches.) The other thing is the dogs--there are lots of Bernese mountain dogs and other similarly beautiful Swiss breeds.

Not that I could see the game or that I even knew the result until I came in this morning, but Duke is back in the Final Four!

Saturday night our TV died. We left it on for Grady when we left for dinner (it helps him with his German), and when we came home it was no longer on. Tried the remote--dead. Tried the switch--dead. Tried plugging it in elsewhere--dead. Dead, dead, dead. We already feel somewhat disconnected from the world since we don't have internet access at home ($&%# Swisscom...) and since we only have two English channels on our TV (CNN and CNBC), but even with German TV we feel a little link with the world. Sunday evening it felt like World War III could have started and we would have been blissfully unaware, listening to music and reading and being generally tuned out. Which, come to think of it, is not necessarily the worst thing in the world...

In keeping with the German theme for the weekend, after having a leisurely Sunday morning (Saturday PM was daylight saving time, so we sprang forward and slept in all the way to 8:00 a.m.!), we decided to go for a leisurely drive since nothing here is open on Sundays except at the train station. We headed up to the Black Forest, which is just across the river in Germany. First we got stopped by German border guards, presumably because we still have our Virginia plates on our car (it's perfectly legal, but when people drive past us they stare so hard you would think we had a third eye in the middle of our foreheads or something). No worries, they stamped our passports and we were on our way.

Unlike the Alps, the Black Forest is not as dramatic, but what it lacks in spectacle it makes up for in quaintness. After driving around for awhile, we finally got out and stretched our legs at Schluchsee, which is on a beautiful lake (and nothing makes Gretchen happier than seeing a lake). At one point we even came upon a ski resort at Feldberg, which was a bit of a surprise since skiing in the Black Forest is supposed to pale in comparison to the Alps. The area looked small, but fun, although it appeared that rope tows outnumbered chairlifts. Anyway, all of this was within an hour or two of Basel.

After Gretchen's near-visit to Freiburg last week, we decided to visit Freiburg (as opposed to Wal-Mart) on Saturday. We really enjoyed it. It was only 40 minutes by train (probably even quicker by car). Bustling downtown, lots of young people (it's a university town), great outdoor market, pretty views from a hillside overlooking the old town. We have friends that studied there in college and loved it, and now we understand why.

FYI, if you try to call us and you get a message that says that Bob and Nancy aren't home, you don't have a wrong number--the directions for our answering machine are in German, so we haven't figured out how to change the message (Bob and Nancy were our predecessors in Basel). We're working on it...

Go Duke!

At Gretchen's insistence, I've added the time difference (in the right-hand column) between Basel and Wisconsin. I naively thought it would be relatively easy to infer the time difference based on the time in DC and New York, but evidently this was a matter of principle--Wisconsinites can get very defensive about their home state (and when it comes to California being the new Dairy State, well, don't even go there)...

Evidently it is now bärlauch (wild garlic) season. Yesterday for lunch I had ravioli with bärlauch and ricotta, then when I got home Gretchen had gone to a gourmet shop to buy pasta...including ravioli with bärlauch (which is evidently different from knoblauch, which is regular garlic). So I figure I'm pretty well safe from vampires for the next few days.

Among the streets near our house that for some reason make me chuckle: Gundeldingerstrasse; Dornacherstrasse (pronounced "door knocker"); Auf dem Hummel; Zwingerstrasse; Im Sesselacker.

Daylight saving time starts here on Sunday!

Here's more on the bomb on the rail line from Basel to Paris. What ever happened to peaceful Swiss neutrality?

Woke up this morning to a heavy wet snow--not the fluffy, "oh, look at the pretty snow" kind, but the "not-sticking-to-anything, is that rain or snow?" kind--that turned to all rain and 1 degree (that would be 34 fahrenheit), and has kept changing back and forth as I've looked out my window. Deeeeeeeelightful! Supposedly the sun, but not necessarily warm weather, is supposed to return this weekend.

We've been talking about going up to Freiburg, Germany as soon as we have a chance. So yesterday Gretchen was excited because a friend was planning to go to Freiburg and asked her to come along. What she didn't realize until they got there was that they weren't going to Freiburg, per se, but were instead going to the Wal-Mart near Freiburg. Luckily it still ended up being a lot of fun, but she still wants to go back and see the non-Wal-Mart side of Freiburg...

(Addendum: according to FreeTranslation.com, "white trash" translates to "Weißer Abfall".)

Well isn't this just great news?

You know that feeling when the sun comes out and it starts getting warm and the daffodils are blooming and you start eyeing your t-shirts and shorts and you sit at an outdoor cafe and actually get a little color and you sit in the backyard on a warm afternoon and listen to church bells chiming all over town and you're like, "Put away the turtlenecks and flannel, baby! Turn down the heat and throw open the windows--Spring is here! Woohoo!"? And then you wake up one day and it's cold and gray and damp and windy and it gives you the sniffles and it seems like it gets dark at 4:00pm and you're like, "Who turned the heat down? How did that mud get in the house? Which coat are my gloves in? Where's my $%#& scarf?", and spring feels like its still months away? You know that feeling? No, me neither.

Near as I can tell, this is the Swiss winner of the local equivalent of American Idol:



At the risk of sounding completely shallow, she may have the greatest voice in the world, but I suspect she would last about 3 minutes in a competition in the U.S. (Note--lest you think otherwise, I can't stand American Idol.)

Gretchen has discovered an excellent way to learn basic German--watch Sesamstraße, which is the German equivalent of Sesame Street. At least that's why she says she watches it...

We woke up on Sunday to a gray, drizzly day. We were still sitting around in our PJs, drinking coffee, when we all of a sudden decided we should take a train to Lucerne that was leaving in about 45 minutes. We quickly got ready, rushed to the train station, bought tickets, and frantically ran to catch our train--we felt like we were on The Amazing Race, a reality TV show I actually enjoy and will miss. Anyway, we were rewarded for our decision--the rain in Basel gave way to blue skies in Lucerne, which is set on a lake beneath snow-capped mountains.



After walking around for a little while and enjoying the scenery and the sun (we'll return when the weather is warmer and hopefully ride boats around the lake), we decided to push on and head up into the mountains to Engelberg (where the ski area is called Titlis--which makes me titter--and where I had a spectacular wipeout last year while walking across an icy parking lot). The weather was fantastic--we would have been comfortable in t-shirts, and we both got a light sunburn. After walking around for a little while and enjoying the beautiful mountain scenery, we headed back to Basel and made it home in time for dinner.

What a nice weekend. Saturday was a big day--Gretchen drove in Basel for the first time! It seems like driving should be no different than at home, but there are more one-way streets and roundabouts, slightly different road signs, trams, speed limits in kilometres instead of miles per hour, etc. She was a trooper.

Then I took the wheel and we headed out of town to find the kennel where Grady will be going. It's in a town called Mumpf (we love that name). Afterward, we went to a pretty old town called Rheinfelden. We were walking around when we all of a sudden came across Swiss border guards at a bridge. We realized we were at the Rhine, and that Germany was just on the other side of the river. Just for the hell of it, we walked across the bridge, entered Germany, and walked back. So now we can say we've walked to Germany. The other highlight was lunch, where we were served by a very friendly Swiss woman who sounded exactly like a German-speaking Harvey Fierstein [parental discretion advised].



After a grueling (not because it was competitive, but because I'm so out of shape) tennis match with a friend--my first time ever playing on clay--we made a spur-of-the-moment decision to go to Saint-Louis, France for dinner. In DC we used to sometimes go to a local French restaurant--since burned down, sadly--for dinner. Now, we can actually go to France! The restaurant, La Diligence, was just over the border, maybe a 10-15 minute drive. It's really strange when the road signs change abruptly from German to French. It's like you're in a completely different country...which I guess makes sense, because you are.

After missing the entire first weekend of the NCAA Tournament--only the best weekend of sports during the entire year--I came in on Monday morning to survey the carnage that is my bracket. First round: 23 out of 32. Second round: 9 out of 16, but it's much worse than it sounds--three out of my four Final Four teams were knocked out, including my eventual champion, Stanford (also: Kentucky and sentimental underdog pick Wisconsin). Only Duke remains.

I'm getting to the point where I need a haircut. Today I saw a poster for an upcoming symphonic performance, and it occurred to me that this is what I might look like if I were to keep growing my hair out (and start playing the cello) (and shave my goatee):

Today's menu update--which sounds more appealing: steak haché à la moutarde or beefburger in mustard sauce? Bohnenröllchen or green bean bundles?

Man, missing the first few days of the Tournament is killing me. And after one day, it appears I'm in 59th place in my pool--I think I must have bad karma for not picking Duke to win it all.

Had a "planes, trains, and automobiles" sort of day yesterday: taxi at 6:00am to the airport, flight from Basel to London Heathrow, taxi across town to a meeting, taxi to London City Airport after the meeting, flight from London to Zurich, train from Zurich Airport to Zurich Station, train from Zurich Station to Basel, taxi from train station to home at 10:30pm. Ugh. (Having said "ugh", at least every step went smoothly...)

Our friend Lee offers this commentary on the chicken with corn flake crust: "Hey guys- I need to point out to you guys that one of my most favorite dishes of all time sounds very similar to chicken leg in a corn flake crust. When Planet Hollywood opened in DC over a decade ago I made it my business to go there all the time. It seemed like a hot spot at the time but now is more of a humiliating memory. Anyway, the best thing on the menu there was Captain Crunch Fried Chicken. I even have the recipe in case you want to try it. You crush equal parts cornmeal and Captain Crunch together with a little buttermilk and then bread the chicken. Fry it and serve with a sauce that is equal parts brown mustard and mayonnaise. A simple delicacy to recall the heydey of Hollywood - when supermodels ruled the world."

I hate to say it, but I didn't pick Duke to win it all this year--too many bad losses down the stretch. Hopefully I'm proven wrong, but at least I've got them in the Final Four. I'm going with Stanford--they seem to have that "team of destiny" look. Of course, since I've picked them to win it all, it's pretty much a guarantee that they'll lose early.

Gretchen isn't planning to enter a pool this year, but you can pretty much guarantee who she'll be pulling for.

FYI, we still don't have access to email at home. I've been printing emails for Gretchen to read, but she has no way of responding until we get our internet access sorted out. So if you've sent Gretchen an email and think she's ignoring you, she's not--she has loved hearing from folks and will respond as soon as we're back online again!

The menu for the cafeteria here is posted in German, French, and English, so sometimes it's fun to see how things translate. Tomorrow one of the options is "chicken leg in a Corn Flake crust". So, what is this called in French? Cuisse de poulet à l'américaine. I never realized chicken with Corn Flakes was an American thing, but then again I can't think of anyplace else that a recipe like that would come from...(oh, and in case you were wondering, in German this translates as Pouletschenkel in einer Cornflakeskruste).

Things you just wouldn't see back home--the online version of one of the local papers has a slide show about the warm weather which features not one, but two, pictures of frogs in flagrante delicto. I really don't know what to say about this.

Sun! Glorious sun! One of the headlines in the local free paper today was: "T-Shirt-Wetter: Heute wirds bis zu 20 Grad warm", which pretty much says it all, don't you think?

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One of the past week's discoveries has been schoggiweggli, which I could describe as bread with pieces of chocolate mixed in, but that wouldn't really do it justice. Mmmmmm....schoggiweggli (in my best Homer Simpson voice).

One of the most frustrating things about being here is going to be missing March Madness. It wasn't until this morning that I learned that Duke lost in the ACC tournament final to Maryland, but still managed to get a #1 seed--in a very tough region--in the NCAA tournament.

On Saturday we braved the rain to go downtown and do some shopping. We stopped to get coffee at a restaurant in a local supermarket, where there was a big sign for "Tageshit". Insert your own punchline here... (Incidentally, the place had the feel of a less menacing, more German, Port Authority bus station in New York--lots of interesting characters, including a rather elderly man wearing bright red nail polish.)

Sticker shock is not uncommon here--everything tends to be fairly expensive. Still, we weren't prepared when we filled up our gas tank for the first time and it came out to 65 Swiss francs--about $50. Of course this is probably quite reasonable compared to the low gas prices in the U.S., and given the infinitely superior public transportation options here, but it doesn't make the initial shock any easier!

Great weekend. Saturday was gray, rainy, chilly--perfect for staying in and unpacking. It's so nice to have our things!

Sunday, the sun FINALLY came out! We drove with friends up to the Alsace, which is literally just over the border from Basel. We drove up to a little town called Ribeauvillé for lunch, then Gretchen and I drove down to Riquewihr for a cup of coffee before the 45 minute drive home.

I don't think I ever could have predicted that in my lifetime I would be able to drive to France for lunch.

This morning I felt like we caught a glimpse of the decline of American civilization (is that an oxymoron?). The movers brought our things today (yeah!), and they--and we--were shocked at how poorly everything had been packed back home. We're fortunate that other than a few scratches here and there, we haven't found any major breakage yet, which is amazing given that so many breakable items were just thrown into boxes with at most a couple of layers of paper around them (and often no protection whatsoever, including a box of framed pictures that were just stacked on top of each other with no paper or padding between them). The movers were very nice about it, but basically said that if anyone packed like that here, it would be their last day on the job. I probably sound like an old curmudgeon, but it made me feel like we as Americans have become cumulatively fat and lazy and have little respect for a job well done. I know that's not exactly news, but sometimes it takes something little to reveal something so obvious. (This is where I'd break out my sob story about how when I was a kid I had to walk to and from school several miles in the snow--uphill both ways--but since I grew up in San Diego I didn't think anyone would believe me...)

One of the challenges of living here is that they don't just speak German, they speak Swiss German, which to the undiscerning ear sounds like the Swedish chef from the Muppets reading Arabic. Even native Germans have a difficult time understanding it.

Last night we watched South Park dubbed in German. As funny as it can be in English (Gretchen would disagree), it may be even funnier in German for reasons I can't begin to articulate...

Duke beats UNC again--as they say in Durham, "Go to hell, Carolina!"

After a week away, we're back in Basel. Or at least I'm back in Basel, and Gretchen and Grady are finally here also. It was a good week back in the States--great to get caught up with friends and family, although a little strange to be seeing people so soon after saying goodbye! The flight back was a nightmare for Gretchen (turbulence that evidently caused everyone around her to start puking), but we're all here safe and sound and VERY eagerly awaiting the arrival of our worldly possessions.