A Little Bit Later haha

Hey everyone! Sorry no post for a while. I'm hoping to do just at least a short update weekly to keep people who want to follow current buuuuuut..... not having internet in our apartment is seriously putting a krimp in my style.... haha

No, actually to tell the truth in some ways it has actually been rather nice to not have internet for a bit. Just sort of slow down and really be a part of only this world. But ya, it's definitely been hard because we can't really translate anything or look up any info about how to get places or where to go, let along talk to family and friends at home of course!

But other than that, things have been going pretty well!! :) Classes started officially this week. We had a one week workshop last week, taught by Mischa Leiner, on infographics. We wrote about some part of our lives or just ourselves for an hour and then spent most of the next 3 and 1/2 - 4 days making an infographic and a poster on what we wrote.

Then we had the weekend.

Then all of our classes officially started this week! :) I'm taking a German language class on Mondays as well as two seminar/lecture classes. The first is a 2 hour class on Film, Photography, and TV and the second is a one hour class on Cultural Theory. Then Tuesdays and Wednesdays I have studio from 830-430 for my Imagery class. In that class were working to visualize the thesis of a student in the science/engineering college. His thesis is on geomatics and global positioning and being able to not only create a virtual map of the entire globe, but then to be able to extract certain bits of information, for example, every sign in a city. It's a bit hard to understand at the moment, especially with the language difference but it's still pretty exciting! Then on Wednesday night I have a lecture series for an hour I think after class? Then on Thursdays and Fridays I have an infographic studio. The students here went to New York City for 10 days and collected data from a new city so I'm just collecting data from Basel and it will be made into my infographic! haha So that's classes!

Not too much else happening here. I got a bike!!!! SUPER exciting!!! As I mentioned in the first post, EVVVERYONE here bikes. I might actually collect info about bikes and uses and people and statistics and etc for my info-graphic. When I asked the guy in the store about the bike he was like "o, but it's a kid's bike" and I was like....."hmmmm... ok, but I'm kinda kid size sooooo....... I think this will work out well!" ha

So that's my awesome bike! haha and here are some more pictures since I know they're usually more fun than reading stuff! haha

So around here they have fountains like EVERYWHERE! I guess not seriously everywhere, but there are a LOT of them! At first Lisa and I were wondering why there were so many, then one day we learned that they're for drinking and filling your bottle! How awesome right? Here's one

They don't all look like this, but the Basilisk has been Basel's little creature for years so there are a lot that look just like this one.

There are tons of old churches here! Like at least 5 or 6 or more that I don't know of. Beautiful old buildings!! This one is the same one that I put up a pic of last time. I know the name now, it's St. Elizabeth.

The 60 stairs up to my apartment...... Just some of the minimum of 175 stairs that I climb daily! haha

They have these random trams sometimes! The whole rest of the train (the other 4 cars usually) will be whatever color the tram usually is (all green or all yellow) and then all the sudden the last train will be totally crazy sometimes! Like this one here covered in colorful graffiti! Or there is another one, that I'll get a picture of, that is a pig! They're hilarious and so random!

Another picture of me at the river! It's such a popular place to hang out by! Usually people are actually down on the steps that go to the river. It's actually a lot like the steps we have at River Front in Cincinnati....except people actually go there all the time, not just for fireworks! ha And the river is such a rich blue/green, not a nasty brownish-kinda blue.

And check it out! I own this part of town!! haha Ironically this is also the part of town my school is in! Speaking of which, here are some pics of school.

The picture of the letters in the wall are on the first floor of the building I believe. They're by Hoffman I believe as well. And I have no clue what that huge A is for, haha, it's just leaning against a wall in one of the class rooms and I thought it was neat.

And these are the three other exchange students from America. The one on the left goes to Carnegie mellon, the one in the middle is a senior this year at RISD, then the one on the right is in my year at DAAP just in the opposite section.

We also went to the Vitra, but I'll make another post about that later! It was really awesome though! And here's just a few into pictures. hahahah

They have miniatures of all the chairs (Akshata! haha) The place is really awesome! I'll make a post about it soon. haha But what's even more funny to me is that it's in the middle of nowhere kind of. It's about 10 or 15 minute drive from the German-Swiss boarder and across the street are hills of German farmland! It's kind of strange to cross the boarder from Switzerland to Germany near us because it's sort of an abrupt change from city to suburbs/rural land. It's really neat.

Well that's all for now! More to come later! Sorry to still not be keeping in great contact.... not having internet at home makes it ridiculously hard to keep in contact with people. But please do send me emails and I will respond! It's soo great to hear how everyone is doing!!! :)

Cheers!
Elishia