Today is our official full day of work over in Basel, Switzerland at the ISPA conference. The schedule starts for us today with the 11:00 AM keynote speaker. Then there is a break for lunch until 13:30 PM when we will attend a thematic session. Following that, we have another break until 17:00 when the final keynote speaker of the day will present. So this morning we are again traveling on the commuter train to Basel from our home in Mulhouse, France. 

Our train this morning is a faster one that is a bit more comfy than our train last night. In Basel, we head to the TI office to buy our tram/bus tickets for the day. We know right where to validate them today! Across all of the tram tracks in front of the station. There are no cross-walks and people randomly just walk and barely avoid trams coming and going.... it’s a little scary but we saw no one get hit. The 30 bus we need is sitting there so we manage to get on this bus and off we are to the conference. 

Holly is spending the day exploring Basel (shopping) and taking a walking tour of the city in the afternoon. Cindy and I get to our conference with a little bit of time (barely because of the lines) to get a coffee, juice and small bite but we manage to get a couple seats where we like to sit near the back on the left aisle. We sit for awhile in the sessions but really appreciate the breaks to enjoy the beautiful weather and take little walks around the town. We even have time to walk down by the river after our lunch in the Petersplatz park. During the afternoon break, we wander around the shops finding chocolate and a lovely liqueur store where we find the pink gin for Holly and some special Elephant Gin that helps the baby elephants in Africa. The baby bottles are cute. Across the street, we stop for a drink on the outdoor patio. Aperol Spritz and Hugo Spritz - so refreshing. On the way back to the conference, we bump into Holly on the street. She just finished her city walking tour and LOVED it !! She has loads of little stories and facts about Basel to share with us today. Before getting back to the conference, we pop into one more store that looks promising for keychains. It’s a cute store with nice Switzerland-themed items. I find some magnets that attract my attention because they say Heidi on the them! There are many with different scenes from the storybook. Here I suppose I’m a little bit famous (LOL). BTW the guys at the liqueur store liked my name because it is very German (husband’s last name helps quite a bit with that....).  Back at the conference, we listen to one more keynote speaker before we are finished with our “work” for this holiday. 

Off to meet up with Holly down the hill at the old city hall.... we find her easily and hop on the #11 tram to reach the Basel train station to hop on the next train to Mulhouse. 

Basel has been a lovely city in Switzerland to visit. While it is in the region that is both French-influenced and German-influenced in terms of language, all of the signs are in German and most local people seem to be speaking a local dialect of German. To me, the city has more of a German feel than French, but I suspect that the local people will say that they are definitely Swiss !! We are enjoying our little visit to this beautiful part of the world. 

Back in Mulhouse, our main task is dinner. We have down a bit of research ahead of time and found a creperie restaurant that serves gluten-free buckwheat crepes, gallettes. This crepe style is from the Brittany region of France so we also have some hard cider to go with our dinner. Cindy has a ham and cheese crepe with an egg in the middle. Holly has a goat cheese and leek crepe. I have the cheese, tomato and onion crepe. Cindy is in gluten-free heaven - she doesn’t remember the last time she has ever been able to have a crepe! Our crepes take a long time to reach our table (busy time of the day) but they are so delicious. We also order some dessert crepes which are also delicious. I ordered the sugar flambe one with a scoop of Tonka ice cream. We have discovered this tonka bean over here in France at the Laduree macaron shop in Paris. We looked it up and found that it’s a bean. The reason we have never heard of it would be that for some wacky reason it is illegal in the USA !! It is so delicious so when I see the ice cream on the menu, I have to try it. Yum ! 

Being now fairly late in the date, we are ready for some wine back at the apartment before we head off to sleep. We open up the bottle of white wine made with Trebbiano grapes in Abruzzo that I dragged over here from Italy. A nice ending to a lovely day!