1. 2 years ago 

   So I decided to hop on a train to Basel one afternoon in Freiburg - suppose it wasn’t my last post after all. ‘Twas a beautiful day, but things in Freiburg have a tendency to get on the monotonous side, so I decided an adventure was in order one afternoon after class. And indeed I got one after a bit of a train mix-up, but I eventually made it to the city of Basel, just barely over the Swiss border. Can’t say it was the most fascinating of destinations, but it was certainly a cool and bigger city, the latter being particularly relevant to me after nearly four weeks in Freiburg, and of course of course everybody still speaks German.

   So here are some pictures of the train ride through Germany into Switzerland, as well as the beautiful city of Basel and of course a couple of memorable characters - including one fellow skipping along the sidewalk, muscles bulging in his tiny black wife beater, who gave me the weirdest look I think I’ve ever captured on camera. Enjoy.

   Basel, Switzerland Slideshow

2. Notes

So I, Sean Kesluk, left Los Angeles for a 6 month adventure abroad in Europe and South America. After a few weeks studying the Deutsch in Freiburg, Germany, it's two months up north in Hamburg working for the city's Jewish community center. After a brief foray into Sweden, I'll head South to Buenos Aires for some Spanish classes and volunteer work in a La Boca soup kitchen. After that it's back home to the States and national service with AmeriCorps NCCC. With a month of training at the VA medical campus in Perry Point, MD, it 's off to Baltimore for my first project, two months working for The Samaritan Women, a non-profit renovating a hundred-year-old mansion to use as a transitional home for women in recovery from heroin addiction and human trafficking, in addition to expanding a farm/urban garden to distribute produce to soup kitchens, shelters, and those in nutritional poverty. The second project will see us down in New Orleans, LA doing post-Katrina work with The Phoenix of New Orleans, a non-profit which renovates homes for Lower Mid-City homeowners who can't afford to do so.

Following

Tumblr