Blog 12

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PROMPT: What did you see/explore/discover on your own in France today? What national holiday was today?

Today was the national holiday of Pentecost. Pentecost is a religious holiday that celebrates the day when the Holy Spirit came down on the Apostles and allowed them to speak in tongues (many different languages).

Today Mrs. Runnels and I went to Basel in Switzerland. Arabella took us to the train station and we caught a train that stopped at a few places. It was my first time on a train and I found the whole thing to be very interesting. I think the public transportation system in Europe is so much better than what we have in America. Only the big cities have public transportation such as New York and Houston, but they are not always efficient. The European public transportation systems are easily accessible to the public and to travelers. For example, Basel has a tram system to help people get around the city. Mrs. Runnels and I had no problem buying our tickets and we also didn’t have to wait very long before our tram came. It took us right to the museum.

We went to Basel to see a Vincent Van Gogh exhibit. The exhibit featured his landscape work over that spanned about ten years. We both chose to do a guided tour aided by an iPod. I found this to be much more helpful than using a tour guide. Tour guides can sometimes provide too much or too little information or you have a problem understanding what they are saying. With the iPod, if you missed something you could rewind and hear it again as well as turn up the volume. I thought the exhibit was amazing! You could really see the progression of Van Gogh’s work and the influences from other painters. I also learned more about his life. While I knew that Van Gogh had cut off his ear, I didn’t know that he ultimately checked into a mental hospital and committed suicide. After we finished wit the exhibit I picked up a poster at the gift shop.

Mrs. Runnels and I split up after that because she wanted to go to an architecture museum while I wanted to go to the Toy Museum. I am so glad I went because it was the coolest museum I’ve ever been to. Each floor was packed with toys, usually grouped by theme. The fourth floor had teddy bears and I had never seen so many bears in one place before. I loved all the dollhouses because they were so detailed. My favorites of the dollhouses were one that was Sleeping Beauty and her castle as well as a ballet dressmaking studio complete with beautiful tutus. I could have spent two days going through the whole museum. I will definitely be recommending the museum to anyone who might be traveling to or through Basel.

After the museum I headed to a local restaurant and had one more veal bratwurst before I left Europe. Mrs. Runnels met up with me and told me about her whole ordeal trying to get to her museum. We caught the train back to Strasbourg and got to hear about the rest of our group’s day.

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