Europe trip part 2

Our arrival in Basel went smoothly but I was a bit nervous about getting to our new place.  We have been learning German but have had no actual practice so there was a language barrier plus, We weren't familiar with the signage of the bus and tram stops. (it's different in each country)  We managed to follow the host's instructions and with the help of GPS arrived safely in Grenzach Sparkasse.   When we met our host, he immediately knew we were LDS and took us to meet the people living on the other side of his house who are members! She even knew Max.   We wanted to visit this small town because Max, one of our Spain missionaries, lives there with his darling wife, and they had just had a baby.  We had promised him and his parents to come visit, so we did!  It was so good to see them again and to meet his darling new baby.  We had planned to go to church with them but their chapel had to have some plumbing repair so they were meeting at another building in the afternoon. Our train to Venice left at 12:30 pm.  If meetings had been at their usual time, we would have been there for the baby blessing! So close.  We still had such a fun visit with the whole family.  We feel so loved. 

Train Station!  so fun!

The side of the house we stayed at!

Our German room! 

Breakfast!

we found a bakery!

We arrived Friday early afternoon and the walk (uphill) to our lodging was hot and tiring.  We were glad to get there and rest.  The LDS neighbor told us her son would run us over to Max's house when he got home but it turned out that Max got home first and came and got us.  We could have walked it but we were glad for the rest.

Max and Dani

It is so fun to see these former missionaries just fall in love with their wives and then their the babies.

 We enjoyed US style fajitas for super with them.  We had to open the window that night again too cool off...no noise here, which was very nice, but there were mosquitos.  Ah well, there has to be something.  The next day we made our way back to Basel and shopped.  Rod has been looking for an orangina bottle.  It's a soft drink we used to quite enjoy but they have changed to plastic bottles, so he really wanted to find a flea marked to look for an original glass one.  Amazingly, we found our flea market. Sadly, we didn't find the bottle.

You can see the flea market in the background.  This is what the public water fountain looks like.  I expect it harks back to days  before plumbing, when people came to the square to fetch their water.

 This is a public building. I was impressed with the intense color.  Note the roof is also decorated.

There were boats and people swimming  in the Rhein!

Middle (?) bridge over the Rhein, 1903-1905, to replace the old wood bridge from 1226
 

This is how they get the cobble stone streets.  It's really quite efficient because you have to do a lot less work to get to pipes and such under the pavement.

 We did do some shopping.  One interesting thing is that Basel is in Switzerland but just across the river is Germany.  I had trouble keeping track of whether I needed Euros or Swiss Franks.

This is a carved walking stick we saw in an antique shop we visited.
Son, I want one!

That afternoon we met back up with whole family and went out to dinner in a traditional German Restaurant.  The view was magnificent! 

 

He's translating the menu for us, but we did quite well.

This is a non alcoholic German drink.  I like my water better.

The food was delicious! but the company was the best.

 

That is a vineyard in the foreground.  It really was lovely.

 After dinner they took us back for a little tour of the town. I couldn't get a good photo but it was so fun.  We visited non stop!

 

 One fun fact is difficult to see here, but you have certainly seen pictures of the houses that seem to come up from the street  and then the walls are extended out a foot or so more from the ground level walls.  This is because the buildings were taxed based on their street level dimensions.  People have been trying to get around government rules for a long time!

We love seeing new places, but even better is seeing people we love!