i thought you went to switzerland?

oh, how i did you all a disservice yesterday… i forgot to introduce you to ‘rhode island.’ rhode island broke up the international-hostel-party at about midnight on friday night asking if anyone knew if there were beds open. we just recommended that he head to the fourth floor where the employees were sleeping (the office is only open until 11pm), so he went up, and they told him that he couldn’t stay… so he came and sat with us. just sat. we were having conversations; he was staring. he tried a couple of times to start new conversations, but i was the only one who ever answered him. the kid was just weird, and he was from rhode island, hence the nickname. just an fyi: once the office closes, the only way to enter is to use a key – obviously, r.i. didn’t have a key, so someone let him in… well, after a while, he told us that he was going to sleep on the couch in the basement but leave before the office opened at 730. turns out, that’s not what he did. the poor american ended up rooming with this guy by chance, as his other roomie came in with r.i. at two in the morning, took r.i.’s passport number and money and then didn’t come back until the morning… so poor carl (american’s name) had to stay all night with crazy r.i. (not to mention a guy who was passed out in a chair with an empty bottle of vodka sitting by him).

okay, now i feel better. you had to meet rhode island. so we’re on to saturday! hubbs and i woke up early on saturday to go to weil am rhein, germany (a little teeny town just across the swiss-german border). believe it or not, this little teeny town is huge for tourism b/c of the vitra design center – which started out as a chair factory (producing ray and charles eames chairs), then turned into a chair museum (in a frank gehry building), and now boasts buildings by a few other a-list architects making it a huge arch-geek (and arch-geek-wife) attraction.

when we hopped off the bus, i was absolutely amazed. i had never seen anything so beautiful in my life than the gorgeous german countryside. seriously, GORGE. hubbs and i spent a little bit of time taking some choice photos before realizing – omg, it’s soooooo cold! so off we scurried into the frank gehry-designed museum only to realize that we made it right in time for the noon tour (which is a blessing b/c the tours are two hours long, and there are only two of them – at noon and at two). we stood outside waiting for the guide, and i literally thought that my toes were going to break off – i don’t know that i've ever been colder in my life. thankfully, it wasn’t raining. the tour of all the buildings is half outside, so i actually thought multiple times that i might have to head inside and forgo the rad tour, but fortunately, we were inside just enough for my toes to thaw. the docent was actually really cool and according to paul, “she really knew her stuff,” so the tour ended up being totally worth the freezing cold.

so, after about four hours in germany, we hopped the bus back towards basel with hopes of making one more stop in weil am rhein (a second zaha hadid building), but we had a couple problems on the bus that prevented this: 1) the bus driver had a big, burly friend who wanted something, but we had no idea what since we didn’t speak his language and 2) we had no idea where to exit the bus to get to the building. fortunately, there was a group on the bus who could help us (aussie michael, german michael, norwegian runa & marte). apparently, the burly friend of the bus driver wanted our money b/c our free transportation tickets are only good on the swiss side (which is only true half of the time b/c carl didn’t have to pay). when i realized that aussie michael lived in basel, i asked him if he could help us find the zaha building… he had no idea, but he had a better option (or so he said). he was just about to take his norwegian friends to see the “novartis campus” for an architecture tour, and if we wanted to go with them, we were more than welcome, and we’d be more impressed with it than the vitra design center. well, i didn’t care either way, but i knew that hubbs wanted to see the zaha building, so i turned to him, and he quickly agreed to the tour! (to our moms and dads: we know that you taught us not to talk to strangers. we haven’t forgotten. it's just that this seemed rad, so we couldn’t pass it up.)

if you don’t know what novartis is (i was totally with you before this adventure), i'll kind of tell you. novartis is a HUGE pharmaceutical company, and i mean HUGE (at least the campus is, anyway). apparently, the two biggest pharmaceutical companies are in basel, and they both have amazing, amazing, amazing campuses, but you can only get in if you work there (or if an employee takes you on a tour). i had no idea what to expect, but hubbs seemed super stoked, so i knew that i'd be in for a treat… after a few tram changes, we entered the security building and got ridiculously-official badges for our tour… and that’s when i realized that aussie michael wasn’t kidding. the campus was spectacular! seriously, hubbs will go into detail (hopefully this weekend) on his blog, but there are a ton of a-list architect buildings that are just amazing. the grounds are beautifully landscaped – with parks and amazon rain forests. incredible. there is a koi fish pond that made me think of my dad’s koi fish pond, but these koi fish are somewhat special (i have no idea why), but they cost twenty-thousand-francs each! the fish are SO expensive, that novartis leases them (which seems odd b/c each building had to cost like one hundred million)! apparently a few months ago, someone stole one of the little fishies (i can only imagine how much trouble the caretaker got into)! anyway, from frank gehry to sanaa to diener & diener to other architects that hubbs will tell you about, the buildings were phenomenal. to top it off, amazing artwork adorned all of the walls, and fabulous furniture furnished the buildings (from a-list artists, obviously). we were only allowed inside aussie michael’s building (and he thinks his building is the least cool), and we were amazed. to work in that cool of an office building must be amazing! the whole campus is outrageous. if it were opened to tourists, novartis would make even more billions annually b/c it’s an arch/furniture-geek haven! when leaving, aussie michael quizzed us on how much money novartis pays out in monthly salaries… eight hundred million… monthly (hard to believe, but i'm gullible, so if it's not true, i don't care!)! other interesting tidbit: german michael was telling us protesters frequent the novartis campus due to animal testing, but apparently, the protests are super organized. the heads of the protesting groups call in advance and book pseudo-appointments explaining when they’ll protest and on which campus. organization is key (i guess).

anyway, the michaels were insanely generous, and we felt so lucky to get such a treat on our swiss adventure… we beamed all night (and i’m pretty sure that hubbs is still beaming today!). we finished with the amazing tour at about 630pm realizing that we didn’t have lunch, and all of the sudden we found ourselves starving, so we headed to the grocery store and then back to the hostel to make some din… and pretty much automatically, our international-hostel-party rejoined to discuss all of our exciting adventures (ours being the most, obviously). somehow, rhode island showed up again, but he merely walked by us. thankfully, he didn’t stop to “chat.” the night was just as fun as the day with all of our new bffs (aka: new facebook friends).