Suiza: Part REALLY Overdue the last

It's finally arrived, the end of the story of the Switzerland adventures.

Our last day in Switzerland, we got up relatively early (I don't remember the time now), broke camp, and headed for the train station. Since we had seen basically everything there was to see in Geneva, Saturday we took the train back up to Basel. On the way to Basel, we had the opportunity to actually see the Swiss countryside. When we were headed south the first day, we couldn't see anything because it was already dark. The return trip treated us to some gorgeous views. We passed through many quaint little country towns, went through gorgeous forests with flaming trees in their fall glory, and zipped past the shores of Lake Lucern. Unfortunately the pictures aren't that great because of the train windows, so you'll have to take my word for it that it was beautiful.

While on the train, the cutest little boy kept looking over at us from across the aisle and eventually Rolf broke through his shyness to come talk with us. This conversation was only possible because the cute little boy spoke English. And French. And German. AND Spanish. His Mom was Swiss and his dad was South American and he had been born in Virginia. Quite the traveler. At the end of the journey, when he, his mom, grandmother, and sister were debarking, we were all treated to kisses on our hands from Rolf, the little gentleman. This experience only served to reinforce my conviction that Americans need to get their ostrichy heads out of the sand and realize that English is NOT the only language out there. We should be teaching foreign languages to our children from a young age and teaching them that there are cultures beyond the borders of the States. I still believe that all Americans should be fluent in English and all immigrants to our country should be able to speak it, but there should be a higher concentration of foreign languages in our schools beyond just one or two, frequently badly taught, years in high school.

Moving on from my little rant, once we arrived in Basel, we decided to go see the sights, including the local cathedral and the Rhine River. En route however, Kimmy and Erin decided they were too tired to walk all over, especially while carrying their backpacks. So we parted ways, with Caroline and I continuing on and Kimmy and Erin returning to the train station to wait.

The cathedral was like most other European cathedrals, amazing. It also had a couple really cool clocks on the outside.

What was interesting about this one though was that outside a carnival was taking place. Quite the contrast to see an amusement ride set up on the cobbled streets in front of an impressive 14th century building. Caroline and I decided that the carnival must be the end of Oktoberfest since the border to Germany was just a few minutes away and it was the first weekend in November.

After the cathedral, we went on to the nearby Mittlere Rhinebrücke. This bridge is apparently the oldest bridge in Europe that spans the Rhine River.

We took pictures, crossed over, and then went down to the shore so that I could say that I had touched the Rhine River (now's the time when you "ooo" and "ahhh" :P).

We enjoyed the twilight and then made our way back to the train station to meet back up with Kimmy and Erin. On the way, we saw this apparently "famous" statue of a man hammering. I think it's supposed to represent Basel's continuous industrial nature. The man constantly moves his hammer up and down.

Once back at the train station, we sat and sat and sat and sat some more. Kind of like the little girl in the potty training book. And around 9pm when the station was really cold and questionable people were starting to move in that appeared like they too were going to spend the night there, we decided to switch locations. So we took the city bus out to the airport and set up camp there. Thankfully we were able to spend the night there without being kicked out. But let me tell you, it's a little odd spending the night in a deserted airport. The last arrival had come in at 11:30pm and the first departure in the morning wasn't till 6am. For those curious, our flight out the next morning didn't leave till 9am (check-in at 7am) and we spent the night in the airport because we're both cheap and because we hadn't arranged beforehand for a hostel and didn't want to go through the trouble later.

Anyways, back to the deserted airport. There was a security guard who walked around and the cleaning ladies were there around midnight-1am, but other than that it was deserted except for us and another group over in a different check-in area who were doing the same thing as us and sleeping there for the night.

Spending the night in an airport is not something I would recommend for anyone to do of their own volition. The chairs aren't comfortable, it's a *tad* too cold, and if you're unlucky enough, there are little kid choo-choo trains that every minute and 20 seconds begin to make noises and blink lights. Yes, we timed the possessed train; we had nothing better to do.
But we survived the night, we saved money, and we weren't late for our flight back to Valencia the next morning. And we got to mess around with stuff, such as weighing ourselves on Ryanair's luggage scales.

And thus ended the excursion to Switzerland. For those interested in traveling to Switzerland, I highly recommend it. However, keep in mind that although the dollar is more powerful than the franc (or at least it used to be), things are still expensive; you should eat regular meals; and try to find yourself a Columbian if at all possible.

That's all folks!