Wonderful

When planning our trip to Spain, we were warned by several folks to book our tickets for the Alhambra in advance if we don't want to wait in line in the searing heat for hours or, even worse, not get in at all. We got it sorted out with no problems, and somewhere along the way I stumbled across an exhortation to vote for the Alhambra as one of the new 7 Wonders of the World (I guess since 6 of the 7 original Wonders of the World no longer exist).

So I took a look at the nominees, and while the concept is kind of cheesy, it got me wondering how many of them I had either actually seen or might see in the future.

Places I've been fortunate enough to see
Colosseum, Rome
Eiffel Tower, Paris (but no desire to go to the top--too claustrophobic)
Hagia Sophia, Istanbul
Kiyomizu Temple, Kyoto
Neuschwanstein Castle, Germany (at least from a distance)
Pyramids of Giza, Egypt (even if we got there too early to actually go in)
Statue of Liberty, New York
Sydney Opera House

Places I might see this year if things work out
Alhambra, Spain (in 2 weeks)
Chichen Itza, Mexico (in October)
Great Wall of China (also in October)
Christ Redeemer, Rio de Janeiro (in December)

Places I'd love to see but would have to be lucky to get there
Acropolis, Athens
Angkor Wat, Cambodia
Kremlin and Red Square, Moscow
Machu Picchu, Peru
Petra, Jordan
Taj Mahal, India

Place I'm oddly uninterested in seeing
Stonehenge, England

Places I don't have a chance in hell of ever seeing
Easter Island
Timbuktu

Place I've been that I can't believe didn't make the cut
Corn Palace (the world's only, by the way), South Dakota

Failure

One thing I rarely do is get into a book and then give up--I either figure out in the first 20 pages that I'm not going to like it so I don't commit, or even if I get halfway through it, I slog through because I don't want to quit. But alas, the other night I gave up on Redmond O'Hanlon's Into the Heart of Borneo. I'm not entirely why I couldn't get through it--it's highly regarded, it's somewhat Bill Bryson-esque, it's about travel--these are all good things. It's not even like I hated it or anything. I guess I just didn't care (which is perhaps worse than hating it). I found myself reading anything but the book, which isn't a good sign. So after a couple of weeks of denial I finally accepted reality and switched to Kent Haruf's Eventide. I guess life's just too short to agonise over finishing a book you don't care about.

What I love about Basel

In some cities, the front page news story might be about local crime or political scandals, the war in Iraq, high oil prices, etc.

The front page story today in one of the local papers here? The bus and tram drivers have new pants (including man-pris!), and they're not allowed to wear socks that are long or white with sandals.

I can't decide what's funnier--that such a rule exists (especially since long dark socks with sandals are a European summer staple), or that it's the lead story in the paper...

A nice early winter

If there's one thing I've learned about blogging, it's that if you have nothing else to say, you can always comment on the weather (especially when you're a weather geek like me). It's the Old Faithful of blog topics. So, kindly indulge me as I gripe about the strange summer we've had.

When last we broached the subject, it was July and it was uncomfortably hot. It wasn't hot like back in DC, but it felt just as uncomfortable because whereas everything back home is air-conditioned, basically the only place that is air-conditioned here is my office. (Seriously--most offices in Switzerland don't have air conditioning, but I work in a newer building where the windows don't open so we're the exception.) I had fun playing around on Weather Underground and discovered that there were 11 days in July that were over 90F/32C (probably more than we had had in the previous two years combined), the average high was 87F/30C, one day got as high as 96F/36C, and it only rained on 9 days--mostly heat-related thunderstorms.

Needless to say, we were dreading the arrival of August. And we were quite right to dread August--not because it ended up being as hot as July, but rather because it was as cold and wet as a typical October. The average high has 70F/21C (and I'll bet today brings that even lower) and the warmest day was 78F/25C. That's right, it's August and it never once hit 80 degrees. We've had several lows in the 40s, and I've walked Grady in the morning wearing fleece. Worst of all, we've had 26 days with rain or fog, and only 5--five!--days in the whole month with no moisture. In August!

Maybe this is the native Southern California in me, but is it too much to ask for a few weeks of temperatures in the mid-80s with no rain or humidity? Are the only summer meteorological settings either "incinerator" or "meat cooler"? Who can I talk to about this?

[And just for the record, when we get to Spain next week and it's hot--today's forecast in Sevilla was 104F/40C--I have every intention of complaining about that as well. Forewarned is forearmed...]

When worlds collide

Seen today next to each other on the racks of top sellers at a music store in the Basel train station: new CDs from Iron Maiden and Paris Hilton. I think this is one of the signs of the apocalypse...

Beefy females wearing Packer jerseys

If you want to understand my lovely wife's home state, this road trip is a good place to start (even if you don't understand all of the sports references)...

We've passed at least 10 signs for cheese-related stores or foods so far. You have to hand it to Wisconsin: The people here have listened to every health-related study from the past 25 years -- watch out for fried foods, butter and cheese, beware of heavy beer, make sure you eat enough vegetables and fruit, try to exercise as much as possible -- and basically said, "You know what? If it ain't broke, don't fix it." I love Wisconsin.

So how did you spend your evening?

Let's just say our evening involved a rectal thermometer, KY jelly and Panadol suppositories. (Today was vaccination day and Munchkin wasn't feeling so well.)

Add this to the list of specific information that no one shares with you prior to conceiving a child...

Are we insane?

As mentioned a few days ago, we've planned a trip to Spain in a couple of weeks. We weren't sure where to go, but realised that we both love Spain and so thought it would be an ideal place to go since we can get direct flights, we have friends there we're hoping to see who also just had a baby, and it seems like a baby-friendly place. But now that all the arrangements are in place, we're wondering if we were out of our minds to plan the following itinerary:

Fly to Madrid (first flight!)
Spend two nights in Madrid, hopefully visit friends
High-speed train to Sevilla
Spend three nights in Sevilla
Train to Granada
Spend two nights in Granada, visit the Alhambra
Rent a car, drive to Marbella
Spend two nights in Marbella
Drive to Malaga Airport
Fly home from Malaga

So that's four hotels in nine nights. With an infant. In what will likely be temperatures around 35C/95F (which Spanish friends warned us about at dinner last night). With lots of luggage. In a country where dinner doesn't start until at least 9:00pm. Where breastfeeding in public is evidently not really done.

It all made perfect sense when we were planning it, but I'm starting to wonder, are we crazy?

Kodak moment?

There are times I'm not sure whether I wish I had the camera with me or whether I'm really glad that I didn't have it. This evening was one of those times. The scene: Gretchen has just fed Munchkin and is holding her over her shoulder to burp her. Grady, not wanting to be left out, goes over to lick her feet and then her face...right at the exact moment that she decides to spit up. So she basically spat up right into his mouth, and he lapped it up. Literally. I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cringe. I mean, it really was funny on some level, but on another level...Ew.

Let the record show...

...that when played different versions of "Ring of Fire", Munchkin had a strong preference for the original Johnny Cash over Wall of Voodoo. Because you were probably wondering.

Out of control

Back in our DC days, Gretchen would drop me off at work in the morning and then park at her office. One day she called and asked how upset I would be if she accidentally damaged the car...as it turns out, she scraped the side of the car along a concrete pillar in her parking lot. It looked pretty bad, although in the end it was superficial and given how small the parking spaces were at her office, it was probably inevitable that it would happen sometime. (Let the record show that I handled it calmly, by the way.)

Anyway, fast forward to today. I was coming home from walking Grady at lunch and was pulling into a parking space at my office. I was a bit distracted because I felt like I had something in my eye, but that's still no excuse. Anyway, I thought I had plenty of clearance between the car and the concrete pillar when all of a sudden...POP! I hit the corner of the pillar with the corner of my bumper, and while I wasn't going very fast, hitting the most vulnerable part of the bumper was a recipe for trouble--I could hear the bumper cracking and new before I even got out of the car that I was looking at some disproportionate damage. I don't even want to think about how much this is going to cost to repair, especially at Swiss prices:



This was on top of coming home the other day to find that I had been caught speeding while driving home from work a couple of weeks ago. Luckily I was only going 37 kph in a 30 zone, from which they subtracted 5 kph (that's standard practice here), so it was only 2 kph over the limit and didn't cost very much (unlike Gretchen's speeding ticket).

Then tonight while I was changing a diaper, all of a sudden she had a poop explosion that just barely missed me--all I could do was stare in awe until Gretchen came running in to save me.

Yes, I'm WAY ready for a vacation...

Daddy's girl

I swear, I must have had 10 people in the last couple days tell me how much the little one looks like her Dad... and then they say "Sorry", as if I'm hurt by that comment. I'm really not disturbed by the fact that she looks like her father and I don't need her to resmeble me in order to convince me that she's my baby. I carried her around inside my tummy for 9 months and I remember it well (please, don't remind me)! I know she's my daughter! Besides, I'm just waiting for her personality to develop to see all the redeeming character traits that she surely has inherited from her Mom...

Guess who's starting to smile?

Melts my heart every time...

Lugano

Happily, we survived our second weekend away, this time to Lugano. As expected, it basically combined elements of Italy and the rest of Switzerland--Italian language, food, energy, high heels (women) and pointy shoes (men); Swiss cleanliness, efficient transport, prices and tourists (it's really popular with Swiss Germans). Kids were running around all over the place, which you wouldn't necessarily see here, and at one point an entire family surrounded Munchkin to ooh and ah at her while saying "complimenti!", which we think meant "congratulations". (And can I just say how much I love hearing Italian? The most mundane conversation sounds like people are either going to kiss each other or punch each other when they're through.) Overall I still prefer the real thing (Italy, that is...I kind of enjoy the chaos) to the Swiss version, but it was nevertheless really nice. Other than the incredible gelato (why is it so hard to find good ice cream here when we're so close to Italy?), probably the highlight was the lake. We walked along the lakeshore...





...and took a boat across the lake to the charming little town of Morcote, with papa and Munchkin getting a little goofy along the way...





...and we even tried some new fashion options to protect Munchkin from the sun, neither of which seemed to thrill her.





So now that we've tried two weekends away, in a couple of weeks we'll have the ultimate test: our first flight. Since we didn't take a vacation this summer (funny how childbirth does that), we've decided to take a week in September and go to one of our favorite places: Spain. Can we survive a week of flights, riding trains around Andalucia, sightseeing in the hot weather, seeing if babies are welcome in tapas bars, etc? We shall see...

I wanna hold your hand

Is 7 weeks too young for a first date? I swear, we did not pose them for this picture-- they did it all on their own!

Travel bug

We're slowly expanding our horizons and trying to figure out how to travel with our little eating/crying/pooping machine. After surviving one night in Lausanne last weekend, we're going to push our luck and travel twice as far to spend two nights this weekend in Lugano, which is in the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland (Ticino). We drove through on our trip to Italy last year, but otherwise haven't spent any time there. A lot of friends really like that area because it combines the best of Italy and Switzerland (as one former colleague put it, "it's like Italy, but much cleaner"). We had a hard time deciding between Lugano and Locarno, and frankly I already think we need to get back to Locarno another time, if for no other reason than because their public transportation system is called FART...

Baby health care, Swiss style

Throughout my pregnancy, I was reminded of differences in health care here in Switzerland (as compared with the US). The two most notable differences: getting an ultrasound at every single doctor visit (which means I had at least 10 ultrasounds while pregnant, plus an ultrasound before getting pregnant because my doctor wanted to check out my ovaries, etc knowing I had a family history of cancer), and a standard 5 day hospital stay post-delivery (as opposed to 2 days in the US).

Now I'm learning about some of the differences in caring for babies. Actually, I can't really say that it's much different considering I don't have US baby experience, but my guess is that there are some things unique to this country. First of all, they like the herbal remedies. I can't imagine regular nurses and doctors at home suggesting herbal/natural remedies, but here, they do. For example, just a day or two after delivery, the nurses in the hospital gave Baby "baby tea" to soothe her. She was apparently really hungry and my milk hadn't come in yet so they gave her a sip of something to help her get by 'til I could provide for her fully. Just for the record, I never truly understood what was in the "baby tea", but I know it worked! It's called blind trust, which can be a bit scary, but at a time like that when your mind is not exactly clear, you've got to trust somebody to tell you what's best.

A couple days after that, when she was having tummy distress (or so they told me), they gave her fennel tea. It worked like a charm. I have never seen a quicker remedy for digestive problems. We even tried it at home during her earlier fussy streak (which we later learned was caused by me eating too many fruits with a pit). Just regular fennel tea from the store. Fabulous.

Now she's suffering from cradle cap, which is basically like really bad dandruff. I shouldn't even say "suffering", because supposedly it doesn't bother her, but it just doesn't look very nice. It seriously looks like she's shedding a whole layer of skin. What do they suggest? Olive oil, or almond oil. I picked up some almond oil cream at the pharmacy the other day, and although I think it helped, it also made her hair and head incredibly greasy, so I'm not sure I'll try it again.

Today we went to the pediatrician for her hip scan. I'm told it's standard here for all babies. I'm almost positive that this isn't done in the US. Or if it is, no one has ever told me about it! The doctor basically does an ultrasound of both of her hips, prints out the pictures, and measures the angles of the hips to make sure there are no abnormalities. I'm still not quite sure why they do this. Is there an abundance of children with hip problems in Switzerland?

So that's my report for today on new things I'm learning about caring for a baby in Switzerland. It's all a learning experience. And, in case you were wondering, her hips are fine.

Just a question

How is it possible for a 7 week old baby to have dirt under her fingernails? It's not like she's been out gardening... although that's what it looks like! Bizarre...

Priorities

As you may have noticed, I very rarely blog anymore. It's amazing how having a baby quickly changes your schedule and forces you to prioritize activities. I tend to have very little time around the house that is not spent feeding, comforting, holding, cleaning, or changing a baby. Not that there's anything wrong with that-- that's my job now as a hausfrau-turned-Mom. But I'm definitely still adjusting to my new routine (or lack thereof). I've learned that I need to choose my freetime activities very carefully, or else I could end up going all day without eating or showering! Internet browsing, blogging, and sending emails becomes much lower on the priority list.

That being said, here are a bunch of random thoughts all included in one blog post:

--Our weekend away was a HUGE accomplishment for me and brought me much joy. Up until very recently, Kirk and I had spent much of our time in Basel traveling. I have missed that so much. I love traveling. I know we live a spoiled lifestyle and I am very grateful for all the opportunities we've had to travel up until now, but I don't want it to stop! Up until this past weekend, I hadn't traveled since our Easter trip to Bavaria. I'm so happy that our first attempt to stay in a hotel with Baby went well. I really can't describe how liberating it was for me to feel like a piece of my life has come back.

--Let's talk about cheese curds. I know you've missed hearing about them. It's been quite a while since I've brought them up. In all the madness about new travel security measures over the past several days, I learned that cheese curds are included on the list of items that would NOT be allowed in carry-on luggage in the States because of their "gel-like" consistency. I guess the funniest part of all is that this fact was reported by one of the Milwaukee TV stations last week (according to my sister). Really, cheese curds are not actually gel-like. But regardless, is it really necessary to alert the public that they should not try to carry cheese curds on board a plane? Perhaps in Wisconsin it is.

--It's back to school season here in Basel. Summer holiday (or vacation) is shorter here than in the US, so they start up in mid-August. This means that the city will start to come back to life once again. Seriously, it's weird around here for July and early August. Where does everyone go? How can everyone afford to take such long vacations? (These are rhetorical questions... I think I know the answers... they go SOUTH and Europeans actually get a reasonable amount of vacation time at their jobs)

--It really feels like back-to-school time around here. After several weeks of that horrendous heat wave earlier this summer, it's now more like October. Temperatures for the past several days have been in the 50s (maybe breaking 60 if we're lucky) with rain and wind. Is it too much to ask to have a few days of normal summer weather before fall comes? Now that my doctor has given me the all-clear to go swimming again (they require a 6 week wait post-delivery) I'd really like to be able to visit the pool before it closes.

Perfect timing. The baby wakes and I hear crying in the other room. No time for reviewing or editing so please excuse any spelling/gramatical errors!

We did it!

Now that we all survived my first business trip, we decided to try something even more critical: a night away together in a hotel. Since we've found it's hard to go anywhere in the car because she needs to eat so frequently, we decided to try and find someplace accessible by a direct train from Basel, far enough to feel like we were getting away, close enough not to spend our whole weekend on the train, and preferably someplace we'd never been. On top of that, since cold and rain were forecast for most of Switzerland we figured we should go someplace with a nice enough hotel that we could hang out if need be. Friday afternoon we finally settled on our getaway option: Lausanne.

We had visions of taking ferries around Lac Leman (aka Lake Geneva), wandering aimlessly around the old town, perhaps visiting the Olympics Museum, etc. Instead, since it only stopped raining for a few hours we only managed to wander aimlessly around the old town trying to find a place to eat, then taking a bus down to Ouchy, where we walked around the lake for a little while until dark clouds threatened. By the time we got back to the hotel the rain had started again and that was it for our exploring.

Best of all, we all survived our night in the hotel! She let us eat dinner (despite Gretchen having to go feed her a couple of times), the neighbors never had to call the front desk to complain about her crying, and she even stayed calm enough to let Gretchen go swimming. She refused to sleep in the little travel bed that we brought, so we've still got some things to work on, but overall it was a huge relief to go away for a night and all come back no worse for wear. (Although we also learned how much crap you have to haul around when you have a baby...you'd have thought we were going away for two weeks instead of one night.)



Anyway, some additional random impressions of Lausanne:

--Nothing there is flat; residents must have thighs and lungs of steel.

--The historic center looked really nice, so it's too bad the rain chased us inside before we could see more than the main shopping streets (this is the view from our hotel room--is it too much to ask that construction cranes be taken down on the weekends so as not to interfere with pictures?).



--French is so much easier on the ear than German.

--Mmmmmmm...crepes.



--One block of Lausanne had more style than all of Basel combined...but we still managed to see enough bad teenage fashion (think tight white jeans) to remind us we were still in Switzerland.

--Sometimes there's nothing quite like splurging on a nice hotel. We got a last-minute internet deal, plus figured that since we haven't traveled in months and wanted to be comfortable for feeding, etc, so we decided to go all-out. It was still overpriced, but it was kind of nice to feel pampered for 24 hours.

--The bus ride from the old town down to the lake at Ouchy was insane--we were flying around turns, people were being thrown around the bus, pedestrians were fleeing in terror...but everyone seemed to take it in good humor and people were even joking with the driver about it. If that happened in Basel I'll bet people would have been calling the police from the bus and taking the driver's name to report to his superiors.



--We really need to get out on a ferry sometime.

KL

It's really nice to be back home from Kuala Lumpur, and was especially good to hold our Munchkin this morning after a few days away. While I didn't have much time for sightseeing, here are some limited observations based on what I did see:

--I've always heard KL is one of those places that isn't bad, but also isn't worth going out of your way to see, and that pretty much sums it up. It sort of struck me as feeling somewhere between Singapore and Bangkok, but without the character of either (and Singapore doesn't have much character as far as I'm concerned).

--One thing that makes Malaysia interesting is the cultural (and culinary) mix of the three major ethnic groups: Malays, Chinese and Indians.

--Lots of good (and cheap) food, although I think I ate something that threw my digestive system seriously out of whack. That meant that while I luckily ate lots of good Malaysian noodles, I never felt well enough for Indian food, which was one of my primary objectives.

--I'm kind of getting into Dictator Princess territory here, but essentially all of the Malays are Muslim (which makes for really interesting relations among the various ethnic/religious groups), with the women wearing quite distinctive headscarves (I was tempted to try to take some pictures, but wasn't sure if that was religiously/culturally legit, so played it safe). Interestingly, a colleague at my meeting said that when he started coming to Malaysia 10 years ago, it was very rare to see headscarves. Now, it's rare not to. Also interestingly, I saw a number of what appeared to be teenage girls in headscarves walking hand-in-hand or arm-in-arm with guys walking around the mall. I guess I thought that kind of thing was verboten, although it could very well be that they were older than I thought and were actually married, or maybe things are a bit more relaxed there (I don't remember seeing teenage boys and girls hanging out together in Cairo, for example). Or maybe I don't have a clue what I'm talking about, which is also a fairly viable option. Anyway, here is the famous Masjid Jamek (I was careful to heed the sign and not actually enter the interior):





--On a related note, KL seemed to be really popular with folks from the Middle East this time of year. This seemed odd at first, but given that Malaysia is Muslim and that what felt to me like stifling heat and humidity is probably child's play compared to the heat in the Middle East this time of year. It was really distinctive to see the contrast between the colorfully dressed Malays and the visiting women wearing all-black-head-to-toe-with-only-eyes-showing. And I have to say, while I've never really understood the idea of being covered head-to-toe (and then again, they probably didn't really understand why Western teenagers were wearing skimpy little miniskirts), what struck me this time was seeing women at breakfast trying to eat while wearing the full covering. I suppose you get used to it, but it looked like a real headache (I would personally be covered in food if I tried it).

--This was the view of the Petronas Towers (formerly the tallest building in the world) from my hotel room. It was an impressive building, I suppose, but frankly didn't do much for me:



--It took longer to drive into KL from the airport (an hour with no traffic) than it did to fly from Singapore to KL (45 minutes). That's just wrong.

--I had been warned that this time of year KL tends to be shrouded in smoke from fires in nearby Sumatra, and it was true. Then one day the wind shifted and I was pleasantly surprised to find there were actually mountains in the distance (these are before-and-after shots from my hotel room):





--I forgot how much jet lag sucks.

--It's really good to be home.

6 weeks!

It's hard to believe our sweet angel was born 6 weeks ago today! I'm noticing so many changes in her now. First of all, she's growing like a weed! Clearly, she's been in a major growth spurt, which is apparently normal for 5-6 weeks of age. For the past several days she's been doing nothing but eating (and pooping). This weekend was cold and rainy (after weeks of a heat wave the temps have now dropped into what you might expect in October), Kirk is out of town, and all Baby wanted to do was eat, so I pretty much told myself that I would do nothing all weekend but sit on the couch, watch DVDs, and feed my baby. Oh my, what my life has become...

The good side of things is that all this growth also brings new developments. I'm noticing much more "happy awake" time. Up until now, when she was awake she was pretty much eating or screaming. These days she spends time looking around, starting to focus on our faces and listen to our voices, and generally paying more attention to her surroundings. She seems to enjoy being awake in her stroller when we go for walks. She sometimes likes to sit (or should I say swing) in her swing. She seems to be paying attention to bright-colored toys that we flash in front of her face. She even has started to enjoy laying on the floor on her playmat (see below)!

When the crying starts and fusiness overwhelms me, I try to remember that there are lots of good moments in the day as well. Over time I'm sure they'll become the norm, rather than the exception and I'm really looking forward to that. And I know that the first smile is just around the corner. I can hardly wait!

Look how big she is!

Must be the jet lag

So I'm in my hotel room in KL and have BBC on in the background (a rare treat). I just thought I overheard the host of the show talking about "cheeky style", and I was wondering what exactly would constitute cheeky style when I noticed he was actually saying "Tajikistan" instead. Whether or not the people of Tajikistan do indeed have cheeky style, I can't say.

First impressions of KL? Eh. Maybe I'll be wowed over the next few days (which I doubt since I'll be in meetings all day), but so far let's just say we're not planning a long family holiday here...

I'll fly away

We've had a lot of firsts lately, but now comes what may be the scariest of all. On Saturday I leave on my first post-natal business trip, and it's not an easy little one-hour-flight European jaunt. No, I'm off to Kuala Lumpur (or KL, as those in the know call it). On the one hand I haven't traveled in a while, I've never been to KL, I'm flying on the best airline around, I can hopefully eat some yummy Asian food, and I'll have a few nights in a nice hotel. On the other hand, KL doesn't sound all that exciting, even on a great airline it's a LONG flight and I have red-eyes in both directions, it's going to be steamy hot and humid, and I have to give three presentations (two of which are at least an hour long and I don't feel well-prepared). Most of all, though, it's going to be difficult being away right now. Not only do I feel a bit guilty about leaving Gretchen to fend for herself, but at this point there is so much development going on that missing even a few days can be an eternity. I fully expect that she'll be walking, talking and doing long division by the time I return. I'll miss my girls...

Back to normal?

After the craziness (which we're pretty sure was attributable to a growth spurt...all of a sudden she doesn't fit into most of her newborn clothes and has been invited to try out for the US Under-6-Month Girl's Basketball team) comes the calm:

Fahrt

You know, some languages just sound funnier than others when read in English (and I'm mindful that the opposite is probably true as well). Spanish, French, Russian? Not so funny. Thai? Funny. And I have to say, German is in the latter category, too (especially the Swiss variation). There are just a lot of syllables and sounds that can be funny when a native English speaker--or at least a sophomoric one like myself--reads them. One of the ways I've entertained myself while waiting for a tram or bus is to read the list of stops and laugh to myself (but quietly...I'm culturally sensitive like that) about the names. So without further ado, here is my list of funny tram/bus/train stops in the greater Basel area, in no particular order:

Loogstrasse
Spitzacker
Mooswasen
Im Pfeiffensack
Hügliacker
Am Hang
Rankacker
Wenkenhof
Bettenacker
Im Wasenboden
Dinkelbergstrasse
Im Langen Loh
Gempenfluh
Unterwart
Moosrain
Grabenacker
Im Schlipf
Pfaffenloh
Bad Bubendorf
Moosmatt
Zwingen
Passwang
Huggerwaldsteg
Bütz
Schupfart
Frick
Im Rank
Staffelegg
Mooshof
Mumpf
Buuseregg
Winkelweg
Titterten
Grabacker
Anything with "Dorf" in the name...there are too many to mention ("Dorf" basically means "village", and is funny with any combination of syllables)

The lamest holiday ever?

How we spent our Swiss National Day:

7:00am - Wake up
8:00am - Get up
10:30am - Decide to drive up to Obernai, France
11:30am - Leave for France
11:35am - From the back seat: "WAAAAAAAAAHH!"
11:36am - Pull over onto a side street in Basel
12:00pm - Hope neighbors aren't calling police
12:30pm - Drive home because she's still eating/crying
3:30pm - She finally falls asleep; decide to drive to Sélestat, France instead
3:45pm - Finally enter France - allez!
4:15pm - From the back seat (well before Sélestat): "WAAAAAAAAAHH!"
4:20pm - Take the first exit off the motorway; decide to drive to Rouffach instead
4:30pm - Arrive in Rouffach; no let-up in screaming
4:35pm - Can't find parking; drop Gretchen and Munchkin off
4:45pm - Finally find parking; find Gretchen sitting in a nook alongside the church trying to feed her; take a few pictures
5:15pm - Walk around town
5:30pm - Finish walking around town
5:45pm - Stop at a restaurant for dinner; told dinner isn't served until 19:00
5:50pm - Starts raining
6:00pm - Gretchen gets in back seat of car to feed Munchkin
6:30pm - Finally leave Rouffach
7:15pm - Arrive back in Basel
7:16pm - Fireworks driving Grady insane; give him Uncle Miltie
8:00pm - Despite Uncle Miltie, fireworks still freak Grady out
9:00pm - Still no sleep for either Munchkin or Grady; up Grady's dosage of Uncle Miltie
10:15pm - Munchkin still eating; Grady still barking; no end in sight for either

Who knew going back to work tomorrow could be so restful?