Day 6 - Switzerland Day 1

Greetings from the Alps! I am happy to report, once again that we are save and and smiling. Our traveling plans have already changed drastically and that is a very good thing... We had originally planned on staying in Basel for one night and will be staying for three instead. It is nice to not be moving for a while and we figured out that Basel is a big hub and it is easy to do day trips from here. Not to mention our hostel is beautiful and clean!

This morning we woke up and decided to take a day trip to Lausanne which is a city on the Swiss side of Lake Geneve. Lake Geneve is at the south of Switzerland and it is just one a few places where the French merge with the Swiss in a beautiful way. The culture in Lausanne was charming. We did another walking tour of the city and found some pretty parks and structures. In one park we found what might be the highlight of our trip so far, a giant Mancala board made of wood. We stopped to play and had a blast. It reminded us of good childhood memories. :) Click here to see it for yourself...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcCzv9eZHJ0

After the mancala game we continued walking and heard an accordion player in the distance. So we followed it and it was a beautiful sound well worth following. We sat on a bench and listened while soaking in some southern Swiss rays and it was a beautiful moment.

After the park we hiked up the city to a museum called L'Art de Brut. It was a four story museum full of exhibits of artwork from people were mentally ill or psychologically institutionalized. The stories of each artist were moving and the art was truly stunning. The randomness in several of the artists works made them memorizing to look at. Needless to say we were there for hours. Many of the artists would use pieces of rubbish to create things like toy guns or statues and it just reminded me that, "one person's trash is another person's treasure" and this is something too easily forgotten. Also many artists would mix words with art or music with art and this too was interesting. We had a great time at this museume and were there for hours... Look up Art d'Brut if you have the time...\

After the museume we hiked to the bottom of Lausanne where Lake Geneve sits and ate a small meal at a lake side cafe. This too was beautiful and we had the company of two birds whom Nat was very intrigued with. It was funny. Then we hiked back up the hill (which was exhausting, because we were also hurrying to find the train) and headed back for Basil.

We met back up with Katie, a friend of Nat's who is staying here for the summer nannying and she showed us around the city a little and then took us to a friend's cousins house where we spent the most hospitable next few hours. We met two people named Brian and Carrie who have lived and traveled all over Europe for ten years now. We told them all about our trip and they gave us some excellent insider advice. Our will most liekly shift because of this advice, which really helps us to slow it down and enjoy each city we are in for a little longer. Whcih, you will soon see...

All in all, Switzerland is beautiful, especially in the french feeling mountains south. You will LOVE the pictures!

Tomorrow we will be spending the day in Basel, touring, relaxing and at an outside music festival. Then off to Austria in the morning with a possible stop at Lucern on the way.

Ta ta for then!

The girls. :)

One last thing that Nat reminded me of, that will truly make you laugh if you can at all picture the two of us doing this, which I am sure you can... On our first train ride in Europe (of many to come) we actually got of at a stop to catch what we thought was our connecting train. Then we decided to go to Lausanne instead of Geneve at the last second. So we thought that we were waiting to get on the train to Lausaane and well you see, the Swiss are VERY precise. So about thirty seconds before our train should take off we realized that we actually needed to get on the same train we had been on. So, we climbed back on, laughing of course. But what makes it even funnier is that during that five minute break at the train stop we shared a banana and anyone that was watching us probably thought we got off the train to have a banana and then got back on! he he he