New baby and new (well, sorta) wheels!

Congratulations little sister on your new little baby girl from the beaming auntie!!!!


It is a bit unexpected to have your first baby basically ten days early, but I think she was getting too squished in there and needed to get out! Hope you are all doing well and get home from the hospital very soon.







Today was the first day of the Velomarkt, and we went when it opened as planned. Very good thing, as the used bikes were going very quickly. All the new bikes I saw were 700CHF and up, but the used bikes ranged from around 90CHF to 400, quite a bit more affordable if not as spiffy. We managed to find ourselves each a serviceable velo (bike) within the price range we had set ourselves, and we are now on wheels in Basel!

We rode them directly to the local Post to get the bike insurance, then wheeled home. They are currently sitting up on our balcony, as there isn't really any good spot in front of the building to store them. The pizza delivery place downstairs (hmmm, pizza sounds good for dinner tonight!) parks all their cars directly out front, with only room to walk between the cars and the wall of the terrace for the restaurant next door. As there is road work being done on our corner right now, that has also cut down on the bike parking options.

We were also able to pick up a basket for me and bike locks at the Velomarkt, but I think a trip to one of the bike stores is up for this weekend to get some new handle bar grips for my bike, and probably a couple of tire pumps and repair kits would be a good idea as well as cushier seats and seat covers for when it rains. We've seen some pretty amusing seat covers out on the bikes when it rains, I wonder where you can find them.

This afternoon I have to meet MrB at work and we'll go look at yet another apartment. We have one to see today, tomorrow, and Monday. Hopefully one of those will be good, and we can manage to get a successful application processed. Unfortunately, we've had no luck on the three we tried already. Who knew it was so hard to find yourself an apartment in Basel?

At this point in our apartment hunting endeavor, I'd have to highly recommend you only move here if you can get help from your company to have a relocation agent assist you, because it's getting a bit ridiculous. Also, if you can't for some reason get help, at least do yourself a big favor and learn as much German as you can. For one thing, the applications are all in German, and many of the people I've called know only a little English...and I'm starting to feel that my feeble German is a mark against me. :( Ah well, at least I'm getting some practice.