Hi,

I saw so many great ideas to celebrate Begga as a friend, as a love, a daughter, sister and a member of this wonderful community. But I am scared to lose them in all those discussions we are having right now, so let's put them in a single and unique thread.


My idea was to take the photographs of Begga (with her family's permission since they are now the owner of them) and to print them out in a big format. We could have them put in nice frames and make a big exposition for the members and the public.

Those who would like to buy some could do it and we could have a limited numbers of print out for each photography (with a number on it: 1/10, 5/10, etc)

It could come with a nice writting of Begga's life, love, passion and how much she touched everyone who met her.

The money from this exposition could be used to pay first the setting of the exposition and we could give the money to her family or a charity/cause she was very close and attached to.

Nil

She was a well respected and loved member of the EF. So maybe those who knew her, met her, conversed with her online could write something short about how Begga touched them and made even a few minutes of their day just that little bit brighter.

It could be written online or a letter sent to her family to show how many people she actually touched, many without her even knowing.

Just a thought.

How about an EF flash mob doing a tribute song at the Ikea in Pratteln?

OK... maybe the other ideas were better. I miss you Begga!

You may be on the right track.... But as Begga "loved" Karaoke, and of course her signiture song was "Lady Marmalade", maybe we all get together at a Karaoke, one in ZRH, and one in BSL, and just sing "LM" all night... And we can make a music video.....

(we miss her too my friend...)

I'm still considering the website idea, i know she had a flicker account but a dedicated website would be more personal and honorable to her photography, i can add a guestbook too so everyone can post their own lines.

Missing you Begga even though we never met in real life

I only met Begga once, so I feel shy speaking of her when so many here knew her so well.

Begga and I used to chat once in a while by PM. She had a lovely intuitive well-balanced approach and we'd discuss a few feelings about life.... and educated women in society... women that dared to be.
She was a very loving and kind person.

There was a silly thread about how we imagined our fellow EFers and I picked Falbala as she just reminded me very much of Begga.
She liked it too and adopted it as her avatar.

This is how I remember Begga; a lovely, cheerful, downright kind and caring pretty girl.




I would like to thank her wonderful friends in Basel who have organized the collect and have given us the opportunity to say good-bye, regardless of location.

Heartfelt condolences to her family

__________________
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"Il mondo è fatto a scale, chi le scende e chi le sale"

As I posted in the Ploughman's thread, if anyone (attending on Saturday or not) has one or two pictures of Begga they would like to add to the memorial montage but don't have the supplies or the time, pm me. We have both the photo paper and the printer and I will of course credit you with the photo...

The idea was great but each of the four Threads is, like Begga herself, becoming 'many-sided' so I merged two of them.

well even i would dare to sing Lady Marmalade just for once!

Begga with her mum and brother last summer.

Begga, is that you?

Tomorrow, Wednesday 6th, I intend to go to the accident site for a PERIOD OF REMEMBERING BEGGA.

I shall be at All Bar One in Basel, Steinenvorstadt 37, at 8pm and will wait until 8.30pm. The plan is to take the No. 3 tram out to the Burgfelder / Luzerner ring stop and then to walk the short distance over to Hegenheimerstrasse /Wasgenring.

Anyone that wants to join is more than welcome. 8pm should be late enough for anyone coming from other cities, whilst giving enough time to return.

I shall have an orange scarf on to be easily recognised.

resident

I do not handle death very well (edit: and here I had written some personal BS which made no meaning at all in this relation....so it was deleted) and even though I only met Begga 3-4 times, she made an everlasting impression on me, so the last few days have been ……..not nice.

When I attended my very first Friday Night Drinks in ZH almost 1½ years ago, Begga came all the way from Basel and had dinner with me and Swissotter. "Boy.....Basel must be dull" I thought to myself, since she took the train to ZH to have a drink and a laugh. Little did I know.

The second time I met her was also for drinks and I will never forget the face she made (sorry if I sound like an old granddad telling stories), when Doctor dropped a vodka shot into her freshly tapped beer while claiming "this is a Russian submarine – he he". She didn’t laugh though.

Anyway……from all the posts in the various Begga threads I can clearly feel that she was very special to many of you and many suggestions how to honor and remember Begga has been proposed.

I like Natashas suggestion with a “In Memorandum" section – good idea.

Since Begga was such a great ambassador for EF and such a unique person who really contributed a lot, another idea could be to make an annual award – named the Begga Award – which will be given to an EF member who can be found by voting between members nominated by any other member.

Just an idea……

See you there.

A good question. I on some events met her. She to my taste was too blonde, too northern, BUT I much admired her
- vibrant mentality
- her almost Mediterranean mentality (Icelander )
- her notion for launching events and meetings
- her infectious good moods and good spirit
- her openness for new ideas
- her real friendliness also towards chaps who might have been her father
-
Yes, she only became 30, but I think the reverend giving the farewell speech might use the phrase the one at the farewell for my godfather (aged 87) used "la personalité éxtrèmement riche de ...." )= "the extremely rich personality of ...."

hey not sure if I ever met Begga, I am not that active on the expat side, but wanted to make sure that she was mentioned tonight on the show (I hope thats OK, not sure what the situation is outside these groups)

Regardless RIP Begga...... Very sad to see anyone go in such a horrible way!

bumps bumps

For anyone else wanting to make the trip, the bus stop "Thomas-Kirche" on the bus line 36 is near the Luzernerring/Hegenheimerstrasse/Wasgenring junction, and is about 8 minutes from Schifflande.

See here for timetable and other stops on the route.

If you are coming from SBB, catch the airport bus (50) just outside the SBB door. Get off at Kannenfeldplatz and wait at the same stop for the 36. Thomas-Kirche is about 3 stops from there.

I'll try to make it tonight, depending on whether my back pain eases up or not. Also not sure which direction I'll be coming from.

I decided to write something about Begga because so many people who
never met her have been so moved by what happpend. But also because
it's so very strange how she keeps coming to my mind for the
unlikeliest of reasons.

Recently I went to Vienna on my own. A few people I know were
surprised. 'On your own? Oh, my!' But I know you can go somewhere
alone and have a mind-blowingly good time. How do I know? Because the
first time I tried was in Basel. For complicated and stupid reasons,
my company gave me the lamest bonus in the history of Swiss bonuses –
hotel credit in either Zurich or Basel.

Hotel credit for Zurich? I LIVE in Zurich. What good is that? So I
went to Basel. My aim was to talk to everyone I possibly could and try
to spin a lame weekend into something fun. My safety net (in case I
was too shy to meet anyone) was an EF event that was happening in
Basel that Saturday night. As it happened, I talked to more than 20
people in the day and arrived at the EF event full of vim and social
experiment excitement. I met Begga and JustRose and some others. We
had the kind of fun you *remember*. Begga was a big part of that.

So that was when we met, ages ago. The next part is from the last few days.

Sometime last week, I decided to start preparations for Tourist Day 2.
I created the thread, but didn't add any details – just left blank
spaces to be filled later. On Friday I had some free time and wrote
the introductory post and started thinking about the Bern-specific
details of the Tourist Day challenge. I wanted the second event to be
a bit more in line with my vision of how the first should have been.

On Tourist Day 1, there was really only one person who 'got' what I
intended. She came dressed in the most astonishingly appropriate
outfit, and at the end of the day she was the individual who – by far
– had done the most number of insane things I'd come up with.Part of
the reason I decided to do Tourist Day 2 was this:

I'd drawn, on Microsoft Paint, a childish map of Zurich, and dared
people to use it to ask for directions. Begga rose to the challenge. I
was a couple of yards away when she stopped a lovely older Swiss
couple and showed them the map. The earnestness with which they gave
Begga help, and the fact that Begga had it in her to do such a
socially awkward thing for my amusement, just makes me LAUGH, even
now.

You can't buy those moments.

So that was Friday morning. Friday evening I got a phone call with the bad news.

On Sunday I was looking at the stats from my blog. One of the static
'pages' had the fewest hits. It was about Microsoft Paint movies. I
remembered that Begga had added such value to the thread on EF where
people drew pics from movies. Certainly her pics had the most artistic
merit.

On Monday there was an advert for a job I might be interested in. I
wrote asking for details, and thought I might need to send a CV. Do I
have an up-to-date CV? Ah, yes. It's the one Begga designed for me. I
had asked her to use her design skillz to help me put a photo on my
outmoded one. What she sent me was a stupendous PDF of such elegance
that I seriously want to send it to all future employers and say, 'I
did some other stuff since then. You get the idea,' for it can't be
improved upon.

Then last night I got a sofa from another respected EF member. After
letting him do most of the work in bringing it to my flat, I poured
him a drink into huge Schneider Weisse glass I never use. Then today I
rearranged my flat to accomodate the new sofa. And a bunch of stuff
hit me:

The beer glass had been one I'd stolen from a bar on a drunken night
out... with Begga. I have, understandably, extremely vague memories of
it. But there was alcohol, and for some reason it was necessary to
take the beer glass, and it was fun and funny.
(I think it was at my Bowie night.)

Then, where to put the sofa? Maybe if I move this TV I never use.
Wait, why do I have a TV anyway? Ah yes. Because someone was giving
one away near where I live, and Begga wanted me to get it, then she'd
take it to Basel. She came to my flat, took one look at it, and
decided it was too heavy, and left me with it. It's just been in the
corner of my room all this time! I don't even know if it works!

And finally, with the sofa arrangement 60% finished and the
re-organisation of my flat underway, I started moving books into a
more logical place. One of them had an unfamiliar blue cover. Huh?
What's this? Oh... it's a book Begga gave me that had other books on
top and so I never read. It's called Njal's Saga and is – apparently –
a classic of ancient literature.

If I'd read it, we could have talked about it. But I thought we had so
much time... Don't think too badly of me. She never read the copy of
Watchmen I lent her, and that has pictures and cool superheroes. But
I'll read hers now. And if anyone else out there wants to read the
best Icelandic book ever, let me know, and I'll pass it on to you when
I'm done. And maybe that can be a little memory of Begga, still
bouncing around Switzerland, or the world, for years to come.