dodging bullets

Oh man. I had a hard time waking up today. I guess that's what happens when you go to bed at 2 am (after watching NCIS via skype!!) and expect to get up a little before 8. So I left my room a little after 8 and had to wait for the 8:17 tram to the center of town so I could go to Mass at the Münster, but I didn't know exactly where to go. I thought we passed it on the tram, so I got off when we passed what looked like a cathedral. It wasn't a cathedral, so I walked to the stop that the German woman had told me to get off at. I get there at like 8:45, and I follow an old woman into the Church. It turns out I don't know Mass as well as I thought I did. I'm looking for an English missal.


So in the process of rushing to church I forget to grab my passport to bring with me to Basel (just across the Swiss border). No big deal, Switzerland has open borders. I get to the train station after Mass and my friends aren't there yet--they missed the first train (none of us are ever on time to meet) and so it was looking like they were gonna be cutting it close and might not make the train. I went to buy a ticket from Auggen to Basel from the machine on Track 4, where the train leaves from, but it was broken, so I went to Track 3, thinking to maybe get the ticket from the machine there. I was over there for a while, and around 10:13, I decide to head back to Track 4 to wait for my friends. I get to the track and my friend Matt is shouting at me to get on the train. Apparently they had been calling my cell phone and shouting for me and knocking on the glass of the train and all sorts of things to get my attention on the next track. So I barely make the train and we head for Basel.

We can't actually get past Auggen without tickets to Basel (our tram pass covers the rest) and they clearly didn't buy tickets because the machine was broken on that track. So we get to Auggen and I look out the window and don't see hardly anything at all. I sorta freak out and think there won't be anything there. Meanwhile, we continue past Auggen, now riding illegally without tickets. Some of the guys with us get nervous and go to find a conductor so we can purchase tickets. The conductor tells us we'll have to get off at the next stop and buy tickets there.

We stop in Schliengen, a TINY town in the middle of nowhere. There's really like houses and nothing else there, and of COURSE nothing is open there, because it's Sunday. We start to wander the town (we have an hour until the next train) and then it starts to rain a bit. So we head back to the corrugated hut that is next to the train tracks and wait out the rain. There is graffiti on the tunnel to the other side of the tracks, including Garfield in Egypt. Picture links follow.


We finally get back on the train and head to Basel. We're all hungry and looking for a place to eat. Everything is really expensive, so they see a McDonald's and go to see how cheap it is. I've made it my personal vow not to eat McDonald's or drink Coke or Starbucks, but I go along because I've brought a croissant with me. Burgers are like 11 francs (comparable to a dollar) so we go back to this restaurant attached to a window vendor. The window isn't that expensive, so we go inside. It turns out to be an "American" restaurant, and sells pizza and hamburgers. We all get one or the other, and everything is at least 14 francs. It's absurdly priced. We complain to each other, we eat, we head out to explore the city.


We explore, we see the Münster, we see another church. It starts to rain and we keep walking. Daria and I consider stopping and just visiting this Egyptian museum, but decide against it, saying we can always come back. We end up walking in circles around this city and it starts pouring. We're on the other side of the city and we start our trek back to the train station. By the time we get there, we're all soaked through. Luckily I wore my rain jacket, but it was close to soaked through.


We get on the train, just glad to be heading home to watch the football game at the Irish pub (Eagles game for sure and maybe the Ravens game). I fall asleep listening to Secret Garden, and Daria wakes me up, the train stopped, and there are the politzei randomly checking for passports. I start silently freaking out a bit as everyone pulls out their passports and I figure to get my Uni. Freiburg ID and my MD driver's license (it's the best I can do). They guys were sitting in a group of four in front of me and Daria and they all pull theirs out to be inspected. The politzei spends a while looking at them, and he asks where they're from. Andrew says "America". the politzei replies "No, where you're coming from now." One of them then says "Freiburg," which I correct to "Basel" and the guy corrects himself. The politzei gives them back their passports and moves towards our row and Daria pulls out her passport and I pull out my only two IDs, and he just waves his hand and moves on. WHEW. Now I'm about to leave for football.