Home. Ah, it is nice to be back in familiar surroundings. It would have been perfect if the sun was actually shining and the temperature 10°C higher, but otherwise it is nice to be home again.
After being thoroughly checked through by doctors – Swiss one’s this time – I am now officially on the road to recovery. Yippee!
Uni has started again and my days are filled with lecturers spouting their wisdom and eager minds clicking away.
The autumn fair is upon us, so town is filled with the sweet smell of “Magebrot” and “Rahmtääfeli” (the latter is a caramel sweet only the Swiss know how to make and the former a kind of bread coated in a black sugar / honey icing – absolutely delicious). All sorts of adventurous rides, designed to make the anxious parent fear for the life of their offspring, have sprouted out of the ground. Shouts and laughter as well as the occasional shoe or vomit being hurtled through the air are all apparent throughout Basel’s favourite autumn pleasure.
Last week I had a rather interesting experience:
On Wednesday morning I was chatting away with colleagues at break time, when suddenly a loud voice nearly inducing a heart attack booms out behind me:
“Congratulations Ms Ross!”
I turn around and find our Swiss headmaster beaming away at me.
“Well, thank you Sir, but for what exactly?” I replied somewhat confused.
“You mean you don’t know?” he asks incredulously, his smile vanishing from his face. “But I sent them your name and address, as well as your telephone number!”
“I assure you, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Is this some kind of joke” I inquire suspiciously.
By then practically my whole class had gathered round to witness this spectacle. They egged him on in turn, trying to get some coherent sense out of him.
“Well, I entered some internship reports written by students who had interned abroad in a trinational prize draw and you have won second prize!” he finally articulates.
“Oh!” is all I manage. But that’s not all: “there’s prize money of 1000 Euros for the second place,” he continues. “And the award ceremony is tomorrow at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg (F).”
That was my highlight of the week.
At the award ceremony I was receiving my prize graciously, smiling for the camera etc., when suddenly I hear a stage whisper behind me: my Swiss headmaster was enticing the speaker to let me say a few words of thanks. My blood ran cold. I had not prepared anything! After a brief moment of panic (camouflaged by an idiotic grin) I stammered out some “Thank you’s” to all and sundry, then shot back to my seat as fast as my legs would carry me. Unfortunately my new shoes were rivalling for the position of “shoes made in hell” but I managed to get back to my seat without further mishap.
The apéro was nice, an elaborate mix of cheese, salmon, mini-sausages, wine and orange juice. Very yummy.