Tuesday, April 20, 2010

I caught an early high-speed train to Basel, which was kind of fun. They are almost spacious compared to airplanes, quiet, and less stressful. They also have much less baggage space, and I had to cram my giant week-long suitcase into the gap between two rows of opposite-facing seats. I read a student thesis while we traveled. There was much chirping and buzzing as we crossed into Germany because everyone’s mobile carrier sent them a text message with a summary of the rates they would be charged in another country. It took six hours to get from Utrect to Basel.

Then I had some time to spend before Stephen got off work. So, I stored my luggage in a locker and walked to the main art museum, the Kunstmuseum. It was really great: They had a rich general collection, with ancient to modern, mostly paintings but some sculpture. I spent some time looking at the abstract paintings by Picasso, which was really fun. Some modern abstract stuff doesn’t appeal to me, but Picasso really started to make sense: Like Chinese perspective and van Gogh’s swift strokes, cubism is another style of painting how you see instead of what you see, so to speak.

Basel is a great place to visit. I highly recommend it: Lots of museums, easy to get around. And other than that my cousin lives there, I’d never have thought to visit.

A tidbit for the mathematician: Leonard Euler is from Basel, and there’s a big blue building called the Hotel Euler near the train station, probably named for his family but probably not for Leonard himself.

Stephen and his wife Melissa met me back at the main train station (actually, at Starbucks) after work, and we went to his apartment, which is out just past the end of one of the tram lines in the suburb of Benningen. We walked to an excellent French restaurant, got caught up on family news and my travels, then came home and called Ruth (his sister) over Google video chat. So there I was talking to her in Baltimore, from Switzerland. The internet is great! I also got to do laundry: I was down to my last sock.

And I put in my now regular several hours doing work over e-mail. Since that part of Europe is six hours ahead of the east coast, late afternoon translated into mid-morning back at the college. So around 4:00 I’d start getting messages from students worried about their grades, the substitute teachers wondering what to cover next, the secretaries wondering about the other activities I had to have a substitute for… And it worked reasonably well.