It was meant to be

I finally googled this "fasnacht" word that was popping up in lots of different places in my search. Check out this wikipedia entry to find out why I was surprised to find out what my homeland of PA has to do with my summer destination.

Connecting

I am really feeling the Basel love these last few days. I posted a message on the Basel expats' Yahoo group and I have gotten a bunch of responses. People are so helpful! I've connected with a woman who works at a summer program for kids and also with a woman from the Boston area who had all sorts of advice AND has offered to send me her babysitter's contact info. Woohoo!

Big Things and Little Things

As I mentioned before, we have so much to think about. I lie in bed at night, my mind racing about what we will need to pack and what we can buy when we get there, and what we can do without. Once our housing is secured I think that some questions will be answered for us. Novartis is tackling the housing. Hopefully it will be a 2 bedroom apartment. I hear that places there are small, so it could be cozy! Will someone, somewhere (the Novartis gods?) make sure that we have a twin bed and a crib in there when we arrive? Or will we be making an immediate trip to Ikea? Luckily, I located an Ikea less than 20 km from Basel. Then again, without a car, how would we get there?

Because I can't yet answer a lot of the big questions, I decided to take care of something much more trivial....water shoes! I was at my favorite resale shop, Growing Up, in Belmont, and found good water shoes for both kids this summer. I have no clue what type of swimming or water activities we will be doing over there, but at least now we are prepared! So....water shoes....check. Everything else that really matters....no checks.

Planning, planning, planning!

We finally got our summer in Basel, Switzerland approved. 8 whole weeks! We are so excited about this opportunity, but know that there is lots to think about before June 25th. Check back often to see how stressed I am as the school year winds down and our summer winds up! You can also follow me on pinterest to see some of the cool spots and activities I've found.