Blog

🎶 TODAY’S TUNE

I am sure I had a song for today… It may come back to me… with doubling my move goal, facetiming with Q and family, Bills Game at 1025, trying to sleep at Midnight, deciding at 3 or 3:30 let’s get some coffee and start blogging, I have lost it! 🤣🤦🏻‍♀️

📇 THE STORY

Jim and I woke up early… Of course we went to sleep or at least I did at 7:30ish. After getting the first blog post posted, we went downstairs for breakfast! Free continental breakfast, not a typical American continental breakfast, but wonderful meats and cheeses, and bread!!! Fun times. Oh and coffee.

Once breakfast is done, we hurry back upstairs to finish packing up and leave to head toward the boat. We can take Tram 11 to St. Johann dock. George couldn’t confirm where the boat was docked, but ask Google Maps found our ship. We are actually on the Viking Modi, supposed to be on the Viking Skirnir but it is stuck downstream and we should be ship swapping. I called the number Viking emailed me, but no one answered. I text but no one answered… We couldn’t find the exact location of the Tram stop. That is not to say we couldn’t find a Tram stop, so we kept walking… and walking.. Jim has to walk behind me so I don’t fall out. No that is not correct. Jim has to walk behind me so I don’t take pictures. He says it is to make sure he knows when I stop to take a picture.. He can’t hear me yell, “Squirrel” which is our signal for, “I am stopping. I see something pretty or shiny or interesting,” He however makes me nervous being behind me, so I don’t Squirrel.

We are now at the boat/ship/vessel. Dean grabs our luggage. Let me let you know there is a Viking Canopy set up above the gangplank. So Dean takes my luggage, manhandles, not really but carries it down the stairs much easier than I have been able to do and brings it on board the ship. Dean is probably 12. Or 21 or 25. Doubt he is older than Callie. We check in and meet Carla the intern at the front desk or guest services and the manager, I think his name is Sergej. Our room is not ready, but they will take our luggage to it when it is ready. Lunch will be served in about 20 minutes or so.. Must be 1030, lunch is at 11. We go to the lounge to plan our attack: the ferry, cheesey goodness and the Tram Museum. Anything else is bonus. Pony is ready for an adventure! As we set off, we are told our room is ready and would we like to go and see it! Why yes, yes we would. We are down the end of a long hall. We do not have a veranda, but the Kara is parked next to us, she is going to Amsterdam and those people have a veranda and we can see right into their room! Good thing there are black out curtains in addition to the gauzy sheath of a curtain. Pony takes a look around and is ready for more fun! Onward and upward to the ferry.

There are several ferries that go back and forth across the Rhine river. They are not motorized but use the current and a strong wire. I don’t know why but I have images of the Underworld and Charon. I am even thinking this as I am handing over my 2 CH for our ride across. Actually it was 4 CH and I had a 10. Swiss Francs have 5 CH coins! how fun! There paper money is colorful like the EU countries, of which they are not part. Go figure. This particular ferry is called… Ueli!

We walked along the opposite edge of the waterfront from where we wanted to be… because I wanted to ride the ferry. As we were walking a man who was walking in front of us jumped up to the upper path to get a sip of water from the fountain. I was today years old when I realized these fountains were not just for decoration! Who knew? Walmart knew… just kidding I don’t think Walmart knew at all. We reached the next bridge, not the Mittebrücke but another one before the Mittebrücke and climbed the 1,000 stairs to glory to get street level so we could cross back to the other side. Our goal was lunch. George had pointed us in the direction of Zum Braunen Mutz. There were bears everywhere. We both ordered a beer. I had a blanche, Jim had a traditional. Jim ordered the sausage with Rösti, I ordered the chicken cordon bleu with chili sauce. OMG that chili sauce was to die for. In fact, I had them wrap it up and Jim put it in his backpack. The chicken was really nicely prepared and full of cheesey goodness. I forget how you have to tell the wait staff you are done and want the check. Not just you are done. We wanted to catch the 145 Tram 7. This is not a real route. This is an antique green Tram taking people to visit the Tram museum. Today is the last day to visit the Tram museum for the season. It is only free or open on the 3rd Sunday of the month from May to October!

We couldn’t find the tram stop, yet again, so we trudged on to the SBB. Everything is at the SBB. We made it just in time because the tram came rolling up about 2 minutes after we did. We climbed aboard and headed out to the Tram Museum. The line to get in the museum was soo sooo soooooooooooo long. But there we stood. A young boy came up to me and started speaking German to tell me what was going on. I explained I spoke little German and he immediately replied in English, “Oh you want the English tour!” Yes please. It was to start in 10 minutes. He went away and came back with a ticket. Then escorted us up to the front of the line. Although this is a tram museum, it is also a working tram work place. All the green antique trams running come back to rest here at night.

Igor was our guide. He was the CEO and head volunteer of the Tram Museum. He works in Zurich and comes back on the weekends to work at the museum. He explained the first electric tram came to Basel in 1895. It was not regarded as transportation but more as a status symbol. A tram ride cost 20 cents, just about how much a daily worker made in a day. When the tram operators realized they could start going into neighborhoods and take the workers to work and home again, the price dropped as they could make more money transporting more people. The first trams were unidirectional. Only later did they become bidirectional and more efficient.

After our tour we rode the tram back towards our new home away from home, stopped to get some wine and beer to have in the room, stopped by a bar and all of a sudden realized somewhere along the way, Pony had found a new home. I hope he is happy. We did check with the Ueli Ferry, but a new ferryman was guiding the boat and he didn’t see him anywhere. I hope he has many adventures like Edward Tulane. I will miss him.

✨GAMBoL glimmer

Meeting new friends is fun. Buffalo winning games is fun! Not sleeping at night and wondering where Pony is – Not Fun!

Back aboard the ship/vessel/boat Jim fixed us a drink. We went to the safety briefing and met Jim and Tim and their wives, Pam and Mary Lou. I think it is Pam. I hope it is Pam. Edited to note: it is Amy married to Jim. I will ask Mary Lou when I see her again. We sat with a lovely couple from St. Augustine at dinner: Carl and Mary Ann. Then I met a table full of women as I had to go over and say Happy Birthday to Carole after we (of course I joined in) sang her Happy Birthday. That group of ladies look like a fun group: Carole, Sue, Cathy, Courtney- who was very, very good, or very, very bad depending on how you look at it and her new engagement ring. It takes a lot of strength to hold up her left hand and the rectangular shaped diamonds are working strong as they are very bright. Courtney is a pediatric nurse in London. Last but certainly not least is another Elizabeth, and she is a pediatric nurse in California. I think I am missing someone from that group…

#HowFortunateWeAre #RetiredAndLovingIt #MakingOurOwnSunshine