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Lost in Basel

SWITZERLAND | Tuesday, 12 May 2015 | Views [239] | Scholarship Entry

It was nearly Christmas. We, my ukranian friend and I, were exploring Basel with a group of Erasmus student. It was time to come back to the main railway station, but just there we realized that there was 2 railway stations in this town. And we came at the wrong one. Accidentally we had no money (the trip was payed by the University of Geneva), no mobile phones and even no possibility to use our credit cards:all the banks were already closed, because it was a holiday.
We were in panic first 10 minutes. The night was coming. We didn't speak the german dialect of this area, called "Switzerdütsch". I speake German, but not this dwarfs language. I was able to understand it only. A bit.
-Come on, here begins our great Christmas story! Turn on your Ipod, let's calm down, cheer up and listen to your ukranian music, I don't mind!
It was really calm, all the houses were decorated for the magic holiday. It was actually cold. And dark.
We saw a man on the street and asked him how to go back to Geneva. He was more than surprised: Geneva is on the bottom of the county, and Basel-on the top! That sounded impossible! But we had no choice and he advised us to search "The bridge with cafes for drivers". (Only after all this adventure we realized that it was a road service station(Switzerdütsch, don't forget). And as the station was out of town, we had to take a bus, and then to walk further. Once on the dark, snowy street we saw a young man and asked him for help. He was scared and ran away. We saw an old man after, he proposed to take us on the station. So he did. Long story short: after endless attempts to find a driver for our direction, we found a German and drove a half of the country with, till Bern. Then we suddenly found ourselves in the forest, at a fork in the road:one old man gave us a paper to write our direction. It was about midnight. Nobody took us with. One guy even laughed as he heard that we were going to the distant Geneva. But, thanks goodness, came our savior, a French, who said: what the hell are you doing here?that's extremely dangerous, especially for two girls. Where r u from?(and here we say that we are from Poland, instead telling he truth:Russia and Ukraine. Just to be on the safe side. And maybe to avoid some questions concerning our strange duet. So, he droved us back to Bern, and then bought us 2 train tickets. He doesn't reply to our mails since, but I want him to know: he saved usand our great Christmas story. Adventures!
I want more.

Tags: 2015 Writing Scholarship

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