Our Arrival

Our journey begins at the Montreal airport.  We had just finished a month-long cross-country trip from Seattle with our dog Austin and our friendly neighborhood Spiderman, who had joined us in Reno, Nevada.  It was great to fly with a pet from Montreal because dogs are allowed inside the airport, and they only have to be crated 1 hour 45 minutes before the flight. 

We decided to splurge and fly first-class on our direct flight into Basel on a strange Canadian charter airline.  Here, Veronica is enjoying ALL of the amenities of a first-class flight.  We tried to enjoy ourselves as much as we could with free booze in order to keep our mind off of Austin, who was down below in the cargo hold.  Yet, all of our worries were for naught, as the flight was smooth and brief, they took excellent care of Austin, and the transition in Basel was quick and efficient (so very Swiss!).  Austin only had a small puddle of drool in his kennel, which was better than the time he flew to California, where he went bolting out of the crate straight into the bushes.

Here, Jon and Austin are standing in front of our new apartment with everything we brought from America.  The apartment is located across the street from the University hospital (Unispital) and the Biozentrum, which is a biological science center for the University of Basel. The apartment is centrally located and everything in town is walking distance (30 minutes or less).  If we are really lazy, there are numerous trams which traverse almost everywhere in Basel and environs.  If those are insufficient, there are many buses that will take you the few places a tram won't go.  Oh, and wait time Monday-Saturday averages a maximum of 7 minutes.  And they ALWAYS show up, on time.  It's terrible, I know, but the wait time increases to 15 minutes on Sunday and late night.  Oh, what's that, you want to stay at the discotheque until 4 AM?  Kein problem!  There are night routes that run hourly until the whole system starts up again at 5 AM.

This is a typical scene inside of our furnished apartment.  Austin on his pile of pillows, also known as his "mat", and V engaged in one of her many internet or writing tasks.  Jon's command center is in the background.  We are quite happy with our already equipped apartment and plan to stay here for awhile, and put off the dreadful move and train trek to Ikea.  The Ikea will rent you a truck at an hourly rate here, although we have heard of people bringing couches onto the trains and trams.

As you can see, the food here is quite fresh and delicious.  There are not very many already-prepared or processed food items at the grocery store, but you can find junk food if you want it.  Although be prepared to pay 7 Swiss Francs for a bag of chips.  The Swiss are into locally-produced food so taxes are high on imported foods.  This also makes meat at least twice as expensive as in The States.  There is no need to specify "free range" on the meat, either, as all animals are allowed to fully roam the range. The wine selection here is phenomenal with many bottles from France, Italy, and Spain under 10 Swiss Francs.

 And don't forget the chocolate!!!!!  Everything good you have heard about Swiss chocolate is true and if you have heard anything bad, it's a friggin' lie!!!

 

Adding to the freshness factor, we have to grocery shop at least twice a week.  This is partially because the food will go bad quickly as it has no preservatives and partially because our refrigerator is the size an an American freezer. And our freezer is only large enough to accommodate Spiderman. 

That is it for our first ever blog post!!  We look forward to sharing more of our thoughts and adventures with you in future posts.  If you want to see more photos, please visit this set on Flickr:

Our First Days in Basel

Auf Wiedersehen,

The EuroFadoks