Hiya, after a few days of poking around I’ve decided to finally post something! This is mostly due to selfish reasons as I’ve a number of queries! Which of course, because I read the “please read first” post, I will place them in their proper locations!

A bit about me/us. I am from Canada, my husband is from Mexico.
My husband has an interview at ETH mid November so I will be accompanying him so I can get a feel for the city myself, before we make any decisions. We currently live in Ireland, and are absolutely dying to get out !! However, after reading through this forum it is apparent that there are always things to hate and complain about with regards to the place you live, so I’ve decided that moving there to get away from Ireland cannot be the sole reason to make the jump!! I am sure there are plenty of things that will drive me crazy about Switzerland, but I am well and truly fed up with walking over dog doodoo, vomit and drunk people every 10 paces on my way to work (well, one among a hundred complaints…hehe…).

We have lived in Ireland for 3 years and are now finishing up and looking where to go next. My husband will be doing research, and I will hopefully do an MA in August 2010 (this is the goal but perhaps a year down the line depending on how things work out.), and I am currently putting together a few applications for the non-Swiss applicants deadlines of November/December.

So if things worked out that we moved to Basel we would be going there around mid-end March.

I’ve only one query, and I promised I searched first.
(I might be a total ejjit but nearly everytime I try to search it says to me
Even if I change to search to more or less words, it just doesn’t want to work for me!! )

Ok, so my query is this. For the interview next month, we will be there from the 19th-21st, so only 2.5 days really, would anyone have any suggestions for an ‘itinerary’ of sorts to seeing the city and really getting a feel? I’ll be on my own for the Friday and will wander around as much as I can, and I was hoping for some tips of places to see that would give a good idea of how the city is.
Or is this too complicated a question? Or if this answered please can you show me the post?

Thanks everyeone for your help!!!
I am absolutely delighted to have found this forum, it is invaluble!

Welcome to the forum!

I don't know Basel that well myself - wait for others to chime in - but regarding the search errors: try removing "of" (or "in", "is", etc.) from your search query and you should get better results.

'tour of basel' - gives an error, because of is too short to search for
'tour basel' - fine, will return anything with tour OR basel in it (e.g. tours of Geneva, curry houses in Basel)
'tour AND basel' - fine, returns threads with tour AND basel mentioned in the same post

Welcome to the forum and I hope you have fun in Basel.
Doubt that you have problems with doodoo, vomit and drunk people (as long as you stay away from the EF social events )

Maybe you want to check out this web: http://www.basel.com/en/welcome.cfm?

	Quote:	MathNut
	Welcome to the forum!

Thanks MathNut, that seems to have solved the problem... I think I had tried that but must not have done it properly!
Now I can do some real research!

	Quote:	Begga
	Welcome to the forum and I hope you have fun in Basel.

Begga, thanks for this link. I’ll definitely have a look through!
But as for staying away from EF events, well not likely, I’ll definitely be needing some social interaction so. And from what I have read so far, the groups seem great. And, I doubt any ‘mess’ would be even a 10th of what is here!!
I am most interested in the photography groups...among others!

Welcome to EF & Basel.

A lot of nice links for Basel can be found here Welcome to Basel - Useful links

In addition to that, there's a running club, photography club, book club,a monthly curry night & a lovely bunch of friendly EF members .

Thanks coolcd.
All these things sound great for a new comer! In Dublin there doesnt seem to be a big connected expat group. Probably because the country is English speaking, so perhaps there is a perception that there is less need for such a community; however, contrary to popular belief, the Irish are not all that friendly, so some kind of expat community would have been welcomed! After three years I have manged to make a good group of friends, none of them Irish, but, c'est la vie.

The centre of Basel is a very small place, and the whole thing can easily be explored on foot in a day. Start at Marktplatz, walk both banks of the river, and you've seen most of it! You'll get a tram pass when you check into your hotel which allows you to travel all over Basel -- the system is extensive and is a good way to get a feel for the city without wearing out your shoe leather too much!