Post-Europe Trip Reflection #3: Reunions

9 July

Woke up to a marvelous Swiss breakfast. Mmmm. Then set out for our romp around Basel. Our tour guide was my friend Daria who I hadn't seen since her DTS in Kitchener, Ontario in 2000. Back then, I helped to lead her school of five students. We were the same age, 19, but because I had already finished my own DTS the year before in England, that gave me a heads up. I remember my nervousness over leading their outreach to Mexico City. YWAM Kitchener/Global Youth Network has always done an amazing job at empowering youth and giving them challenging leadership roles. Fortunately, our team went to Mexico with one of the Global University teams who had a very experienced leader. I also remember even feeling slightly strange as one of the students "under me" was older than me. I put him in charge of the money in Mexico!

(BTW, here's a most flattering picture of me around this time (2000). Chris, ya gotta see this!)Click here.

So here we are posing in front of the Rhine River on the balcony of Les Trois Rois a posh Swiss hotel. Daria was an amazing tour guide and we learned about this old city. About the snobby folk of Greater Basel and the lawless folk of Smaller Basel. About bridges and cobblestone streets (all very, very old).

We took a wonderful gander through the Basel Cathedral, built of red sandstone with a patterned roof in the thirteenth century and rebuilt following an earthquake in 1356. We took the slightly scary and tiring climb up the various levels to the top of the spire.
Here are some of my shots:


Uniquely-carved chairs instead of pews.



We then spent some time in a Swiss supermarket stocking up on chocolate and buying food for our road trip. I also bought some Aromat seasoning, this kind of salt I used to use at my first job at a German restaurant making salads as a teenager. It's been making some recent potato salads pretty good.

It was really great to spend this short time catching up with Daria, who has gone on to Master in African Studies and specializing in educating about Tropical Disease. Her once German-accented English, now replaced with a proper British accent! Very cute. It was great to see her love for her city and her community there as she commonly encountered a friend on the street and greeted them with the three-kisses of the Swiss.

From Basel we drove (simply, with no lost episodes) to St. Gallen where two friends from both mine and Sharon's DTS live. Although Sharon has visited them from time to time, I hadn't seen Conny since her visit to Canada the summer of 2000 and Damaris since our whirlwind tour of London at the end of our school in June 1999! Here we are back then.Click here.

Sharon and Dama were roommates for 9 months and traveled to Brazil together while Conny and I were roommates for 9 months in England. And seeing them in their homes in Switzerland was so comfortable. We went out for Rosti, caught up and reminisced. When it came time to leave the next morning (after another amazing Swiss breakfast where Sharon had her revelation that cheese is not supposed to be orange), we actually felt teary.


With directions in hand (printed from a Swiss-type Mapquest), Waterloo library book map of Italy left behind, we were off from Switzerland (terribly, terribly too soon) and on to Italy via...Austria!