Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Field Trip to Basel

No sooner did I arrive in Lausanne and got acquainted with some teachers, when I was invited by Christopher to accompany the choral group on a field trip to Basel, Switzerland. It was about 15 kids, four mothers, Christopher the teacher, and me. We went in a tiny little bus and the kids were great. They were 8-11 yrs. old.
The field trip was EARLY in the morning, so we were up and about at 6am. Everyone was on time and the bus left by 8 or so. Arriving in Basel at the Basel International School the kids were escorted into the school to spend a day with a "buddy" and practice for the concert that evening. The mothers, now freed of chaperone duties for a couple of hours, asked me to go with them to Basel, shopping. An invitation I couldn't refuse...

We took the tram - more transportation skill building - into Basel center. The mothers knew ALL the good places to shop and Ina could speak German so we had no problems. This was the German speaking part of Switzerland (as is Zurich). We had not one, not two, but three cups of espresso before returning to the school (and the concert). I have ONE capuccino and that is it for me. After shopping in a few stores we had a total of THREE espressos. I was a stretched out like a rubber band! Then I had to take photos of the concert. All but three of them were blurry. How embarassing. We had also managed to go to the art museum and see a Picasso exhibit. Excellent. It amazes me how much art knowedge the people have here. It seems to be an ordinary thing to just GO to the art museum for a couple of hours! Loved it.

No comments:

Post a Comment