Basel

Wednesday all my activities piled up to make for a busy day. Because the Hannover school holiday begins this week, last week was the last practice for recorder orchestra and the last meetings for the art discussion and literature discussion groups. The reading group also happened to fall on Wednesday, so I had meetings at 10:00, 3:00, 5:45, and 7:00, all in different parts of town, about 8-9 km. apart. I originally decided to just get a day pass for the underground, but the problem is that the lines go to the middle of town and not across the perimeter and I didn't really have time to go back into town and switch lines. So I ended up bicycling 42 km. on the hottest day of the year. It was about 93 or 95 and very humid. Fortunately, several of my trips took me through the urban forest on shady bike paths. At my 3:00 group reading through the play of "West Side Story," my Peruvian hostess served iced tea and I savored my first ice cube since leaving the U.S.

The "Let's Talk About Art" discussion was interesting. An art history major from Poland and an art education major from Hong Kong led a discussion of 20th century art based on tales from Ovid's Metamorphoses. They had discussed Metamorphoses in classical art the month before.

Thursday morning we enjoyed being lazy sitting on the train to Basel. When we arrived in Basel, we had 2 hours to kill before Christoph and Astrid got home from work, so we walked down to the Tinguely Museum, right above the Rhine. Tinguely built kinetic sculptures out of junk. Here's a video of the fountain outside the museum:

Tinguely Fountain

Lots of fun. There was a special exhibit by another artist, Zilvinas Kempinas, featuring kinetic sculptures out of magnetic tape and fans: a circle of tape magically floating in chaotic patterns powered by a fan mounted on the ceiling and an endlessly erupting volcano of tape rippling on the floor.

Kempinas Volcano

We took the streetcar to the Ruckstuhl's. Christoph took us by bicycle to the local swimming pool for a quick dip. It felt good to cycle and swim after sitting in the train all day. When I was kicking off from the wall about halfway through laps, Christoph told me that we should leave immediately. I can't see much without my contacts in, but the sky was dark and the wind was blowing. We got soaked cycling home; with raindrops in our eyes we could hardly see to cycle and blindly followed Christoph. Only water, slightly colder than the pool. A nice evening catching up with them.

Thursday morning we took the train to Zurich and had a hasty walk along the river before catching the train to the airport to meet David Rankin coming from Edinburgh. He is an alpine flower specialist and had chosen Gschnitz, Austria, as a place to look for alpine flowers. Stepping out of the train station in Zurich, I was thrilled to find a drinking fountain. I always miss them when I'm in Germany, where all the fountains say "Kein Trinkwasser" (no drinking water). The Swiss offer potable water freely.

Swiss Drinking Fountain, Zurich