Day 10 - Basel to Göttingen

Today was the last day for Buckie and I's combined adventure. But the show was far from over. To start the day we went in the early morning down to the Rhine. Much like our trip to Liechtenstein, this activity had only one, silly purpose. We were going to bring our Different Ways of Crossing a Border count up to 6. The list so far:

Airplane
Ferry
Train
Walk
Bus

(I’d initially assumed we had crossed a border using the reaction ferry (and the tram back over), but Buckie just informed me that that stretch of the Rhine does not have a border running down the centre. As I write this today, 2nd of June, I’ve had to remove those methods)

Today we would cross a border by swimming.

It was a cold morning and the water colder. But honestly, nothing you couldn’t adjust to after 10 minutes of swimming around.

According to Google Maps, which I took to be an authority on the matter, if we swam out along the shore until we were perpendicular to the bridge (Alte Rheinbrücke) then we would have crossed the border into Germany from Switzerland.

The Rhine is a shipping lane but I figured as long as we kept within a meter or so of the shore line then we should be fine (or “she’ll be right”).

Everything went, heh, swimmingly at first. We had chosen an area where we would be out of the main current, the river widened and were in an area where water just lazily circled round. Besides if anything went wrong we could just swim into the main column of water and find a place downstream to get out, or call for help for people walking along the bridge. We swam strongly along the shoreline and quickly found ourselves perpendicular to the bridge.

Heh. That was easy. Now we are in Germany.

Time to go back.

But it was then I discovered the water was swirling along the riverbank back into the main flow of the Rhine. As much as I tried to swim against it, I wasn’t making much progress. I’m not a powerful swimmer, so I couldn’t maintain the effort necessary to swim back along the shore to where I could get out. The shoreline was also too steep to climb out from.

This was somewhat problematic. All those stories of swimmers exhausting themselves only to drown later began to flick through my head.

After a few attempts to swim against the current. I grabbed onto a structure that was jutting out from the shoreline and paused to consider the situation. Not ideal but far from dire. I observed that the structure I was holding onto had a wooden pailing fence dipping into the water that extended down the shoreline for a bit. Hand over hand I pulled myself along the fence, this managed to get me past the strongest part of the current. I still could not get out of the water yet but the current was weak enough and the river bottom shallow enough that I could push off the bottom and move along easily enough. A few minutes of this and I was back to the beachy area where I’d started.

Having escaped death and crossed a border by swimming, I figured we’d had enough for the morning and headed back to the hotel.

The end of Buckie and I’s adventure was fast approaching. But there was one more item to tick off. Buckie located another item on his food list, a Birnbrot. Very, very dense food. Tasted like Xmas pudding wrapped in pastry. Food people would take while travelling, I assume. According to the wiki the primary filling is pear, also containing raisins, walnuts, apples, and figs. Quite enjoyable, though one of them feels like an entire meal (we joked it was the Swiss version of Lambas bread).

After that it was time for us to part ways. Buckie got on the train to Paris and I to Göttingen. It had been just under a week since we met up in London but seemed like an eternity ago.

Had a little bit of time before my train arrived after Buckie had departed. Found a nice shop to purchase Mum a gift as her birthday is approaching.

I had messaged my cousin the previous day about meeting up. The first relative in Europe I’d made aware of my presence (wanted to avoid disappointment if I couldn’t reach them). It actually worked out really well, as she and her parents were meeting up today and they had space for me to stay with them. Winning.

The train to Göttingen was certainly a time. The trains here have two systems of seating, reserved and unreserved. I, being cheap, had purchased the unreserved ticket. You can either book a specific seat (for a fee I think) or have an unreserved ticket with no assigned seat. The seats have little displays that say what stations they are booked from and to, so unreserved people like me can sit in them up until the station that a reserved person is getting on. I think in theory there is always somewhere for someone to sit but if it's a heavily booked train then you may have to change seats as reserved people come and go, kind of like a weird game of Frogger.

Then there was the guy I refer to as the Water Boy. This clown attempted to sit next to me on the train. Attempted being the key word. He fumbled his bag trying to put it in the racking above my head and caused his (apparently???) open drink bottle in the side pocket to fall out and onto the seat. The drink bottle splashes water over me and the seat. The drink bottle is now lying horizontal on the seat and begins to glug-glug water from it. Water Boy stares at it dully and does nothing. Water continues to glug-glug from the bottle. More time passes. Galaxies form and die. More water pours from the bottle. More staring at it. Finally Water Boy decides to pick up the bottle which at this point has discharged more water than Niagara Falls. Water Boy stares at the wet seat for a long time like it's a sight beyond mere human comprehension. Does not apologise for wetting me. Slowly, ever so slowly he makes a comment like "huh.... the seat is wet", as if he is uninvolved and is only discovering what someone else has done. Water Boy then moves away to sit or soak another seat down the other end of the train. Leaves me here having to advise people that if they sit next to me they are going to get a wet bum. Implicitly I am the one who created the mess. Thanks Water Boy!

Having dried off, I arrived at Göttingen. Initially did not see my cousin on the platform. It’s been two years since I’d seen her last, wondered if she had radically changed her look and I’d not recognise her. She solved the issue by calling out to me first.

Walked back to her place, about 30 minutes. University accommodation. She is studying to become a doctor, smart girl. Her parents arrive a while later. Nice family meetup.

We went shopping and then had dinner. Delicious. After that we went up to a castle overlooking the town, the Burg Plesse (looked it up later, it means Pale Castle). Watched the sun set while enjoying a Bundaberg Ginger Beer that they had bought for me. Great way to spend the evening.Read more