I'm On FIRE!!

One of the lovely things about living in Switzerland is that any regard for safety is mostly pushed to the side. Because of this I have been able to enjoy many things that would be violating many safety codes had we been in the US. One of the best has been Basel's Fasnacht. A celebration in which they "scare" winter away. This is a 72 hour celebration starting with...wait for it...a FIRE PARADE!!!! In a neighboring town, Liestal, they put on a fire parade to help scare away winter. There is fire EVERYWHERE. I mean EVERYWHERE. There are large wagons of fire coming down the street and people holding large torches of fire. There are children carrying mini torches and practically running down the hill while the men try and stop the large wagons from going out of control. We managed to get a front row seat to all of this and almost burned alive from the heat alone. and now some pictures:

confetti was EVERYWHERE. ps the girl on the right? totally photobombed.

those are the torches that were lit

unsure about the confederate flag

whit, zoe, me and Michelle hanging at the fire parade.

MAckenzie and I look at the fire!

the torches

never been so hot in my life.

the torches on FYAHH

 After the fire parade there was some waiting around, in whihc afew of us went to Olin and Nikki's house in order to get at least a few hours of sleep before the 4am parade of lights in Basel. Not as cool as basel but still pretty fun. Unfortunately no pictures of those. It was basically colored lanterns and people in masks playing either the drums or the piccolo. (SO. MANY. PICCOLOS.) loud and high pitched. Just what you want at 4am on monday morning!

Day Trip to Basel

Last weekend, I hit up Basel yet again, only this time armed with an agenda and a few friends. We were headed to the Andy Warhol exhibit of his early drawings and then 2 friends and I were heading to Olin and Nikki's to make dinner!

I met up with about 6 au pairs for the day. We took the train at around 10:15 and met up with another au pair friend who was already in Basel for the weekend, Angela. From there Angela, who lived in Basel for a year a couple years ago, took us on a small tour of Kleine Basel before we headed to the exhibit. she told some history of Basel which was nice to get a bit of background. We then headed to the Basel Art Museum. The exhibit although small was an interesting look at the advertisements that Warhol did as well as his early drawings of Campbell's Chicken soup. (Kate Lutes if you read this- there was the 4 Elvis and the 2 Elvis painting. made me think of you)

We then headed to a cafe area and proceeded to chat in true au pair fashion for the next 2.5 hours. Nicole, Michelle and I then left to make dinner. Michelle and I were ready to make a nice pasta dinner with Garlic bread and salad. Nicole on the other hand decided the best dinner would be cereal. With Milk. We decided to agree to disagree and let Nicole buy her cereal. (There was lots of judgement on my part though... haha) Some pictures from the day:

Most of the au pairs that I went with. I think we are only missing Nicole in this one.
L-r Crystal, Michelle, Angela and Merrin


Nicole had never seen a squash this big...She was really excited if you can't tell


Eating our yummy dinner! (Note Nicole's bowl of Cereal...)

Nikki and Olin joined later for dinner and we all enjoyed ourselves immensely (I think?), until...I realized the time. It was 11:30 and the last train was at 12:15. We made it there with a few minutes to spare forgetting the fact that we had to actually get home from the Zurich Train Station. We arrive at 1:20am. In Switzerland, almost everything closes on Sunday. We didn't realize this included night train's and buses...We ended up taking a cab back to my apt. because luckily I live apart from the family and am able to host people when needed. They had to get up at 445am to catch the first train back to their respective houses to start work in time. It was an experience that I have definitely learned from. Always check how to get home before the last minute!

Meine Wohnung

Pictures of my apartment! It's pretty small- think a little bigger than dorm room size but it's very cute. They decorated well, I think!

The kitchen and bathroom are to your left right when you walk in. The kitchen has a small oven and you can see the hotplate. The bathroom is your average one!

This is the desk and chair area. To the right is a bookcase and chair you can see below. The view is right at ground level but it's green instead of concrete which is nice!

The chair! I like the stripe curtains a lot!

My bed! There are lots of pillows on it which I like and if you look closely you might be able to find yourselves on the shelf!

That's pretty much it. I am planning on making some collage posters of pictures to put up on the walls which will make it more me. I really like the colors that they chose though!

I spent Thursday afternoon and Friday I spent walking around Zurich which was really nice to see. It was kind of rainy but overall good. I was able to get down to the lake to do a bit of reading and a bit of people watching which was particularly nice! Saturday I went to see Olin and Nikki for the day and we ran errands, made tortillas, hummus, chocolate chip pie and lasagna, and relaxed. They had some friends over for dinner as well which was fun!
I'm on my own all day tomorrow so we shall see how that goes!