October birthdays

In the month of October, we celebrated 2 of my roommates' birthdays. They had to be celebrated on Mondays because that's our off day. Its also convenient because all of our other American friends playing in Switzerland usually have Mondays off as well. First, we celebrated Kristin's birthday at a mini Oktoberfest in Zurich. Last year, we had the luxury of going to the real Oktoberfest in Munich, Germany. This year, we weren't so lucky so we had to settle for the next best thing! We spent all day in a huge beer tent alongside the Limmat River in downtown Zurich.

Just one of our tables, we had about 15 American volleyball players altogether. We definitely stood out at Oktoberfest, almost everyone in our group was over 6 feet tall.

This band played traditional German Oktoberfest songs all day long

Steph, Kristin, Emily, and me (all VFM members from last season)

The next birthday was Tara's, just 1 week later. We went to Basel for the day. Basel is at the very top of Switzerland, bordering France and Germany. Basel is also a very big city, much like Zurich or Geneva. We walked around, enjoyed some wine at a wine tasting convention and hung around an Irish bar. All of the other Americans playing in Switzerland came too, so it was a lot of fun.

Tara, me, Kristin, and Emily walking around Basel

Cool tram decor in Basel