Jeans-shopping in Basel

As you know I've been looking for a new pair of jeans. Let me start at the beginning. I had (still have but not wearing them) this perfect, comfortable pair of jeans. Because they were so perfect I was wearing them ALL the time. Then I noticed they were becoming a bit worn out on the one knee. I was starting to see the inside white threads and wondering how long they were still going to last... They lasted quite some time until one afternoon a few weeks back I sat down on the couch with my one leg folded underneath me as I usually do and I heard a loud "riiippp"! No no it was NOT due to too many Swiss chocolates. It tore on my knee okay. Reminding me of younger, much younger, days when my mom made me tracksuit pants with patches on the knees from the start because she knew I'd wear them out from sitting on the floor on my knees.

So for the past couple of weekends Andre has patiently done jeans-shopping with me. He is very patient. Such a good husband. When I wanted to give up he encouraged me to try just one more shop.

I've bought too many uncomfortable pairs of jeans in the past so now it takes weeks to find the perfect pair. Soft, good fit, not too tight but not too loose. It must make me look good and feel good. Oh and have I mentioned it also has to be the correct shade of blue? What were you thinking, I can't just wear any old blue jeans. Especially not ripped jeans. Not my style. At all. Neither are skinny jeans which are all over the place now. I don't think it's cool. Unless you're going to wear boots over it it makes sense. But I'm not buying jeans that I can only wear with boots. It's a teenager thing, wearing skinny jeans with sneakers or whatever. And they aren't comfortable anyway.

André knows exactly which kinda jeans I want and what works for me. I can actually walk into a store, go sit on the couch and he could bring me the jeans. He actually does that, tells the sales assistant what I need. Until today I said, "Do you mind, I'm the one looking for jeans. Can I actually get a chance to look myself?"

But when I looked at the price of these jeans you see in this shopping bag it was quite a bit more than I've ever paid for jeans and I've never even heard of this label! But André said, "Just get it. I'll pay. Get two. Go get another pair." I guess he doesn't want to have to go through all this any time soon.

Now let me tell you how we ended up in Basel today looking for jeans. Basel is about an hours drive from us. My very special (now ripped) jeans were Guess jeans. Also bought after a long search and paid for by my dear husband when I guess his patience was wearing a bit thin. (Seems like there's a pattern here of expensive jean shopping paid by dear husband.)

So I searched on the internet for a Guess Jeans store here in Switzerland and found the closest one in Basel. I thought I could go buy the exact same pair I bought in Cape Town but no, it doesn't work like that. They did not have anything for me. Tried on two pairs there that didn't work and they didn't have that same pair I had.

But I am so relieved that we did actually find jeans. And bought jeans. It was a good day!

While I was at it I did some shoe shoppping too. I haven't really bought anything for myself since we've arrived here almost 5 months ago. It's just been house shopping. And this month has been the first that I've actually started earning some money to spend!

I was looking for some house shoes to leave at work. You hear that? AT WORK! haha I'm a working woman now. Not sure if I like that idea though. I was quite happy at home. But at least I can shop now. So I was looking for something comfortable to wear inside at the play school I now work at mornings. You need to have inside shoes or walk around in your socks. I wanted something nice that still looks good for work. But the shoes were too nice and I wanted them to wear outside too. Not only at work. So I've decided to leave some old, but still pretty slip ons at work and now have new shoes to replace these. Worked out well!

Some pictures of Basel.

This guy was quite good.

There was some football (soccer?) game on and lots of people were dressed in red. A few in blue which must have been the other team's supporters. Can you see them over there in the red?

They were having a PARTY!

We had our first sushi in Switzerland too.

And ended the day with some good Italian Glacé (ice-cream).