A Summer Pleasure II
A Summer Pleasure II
Last night after walking home through downtown Basel and along the River Rhine, I joined friends at Beach City, a local entertainment facility or night club located on the roof of a nine story building. Since there is no beach with white sand in Basel, the management of Beach City has brought the beach to us. There is a saying which goes something like this, "If you can't take Mohammed to the mountain, bring the mountain to Mohammed."
The facility is layed on like a beach, sand and coconut trees and everything that gives you a Pacific or Caribbean island feel. The sand is real, and there is a swimming pool too where one can jump if it gets too hot or if you have had too much to drink and you are out of your mind. You can choose to take your sandals off and walk around, lie down in the sand on a beach towel or relax in a lounge chair or play beach volleyball if that suits your fancy. For other folks like me, who come from the Caribbean, this is no substitute, only the real thing would do, you might not be in the mood to get sand in your shoes. If you are not from the Pacific or the Caribbean, the atmosphere is tropical, young and rather fantastic. There is music blaring of course, and lots of young people enjoying the evening after a day's work or just meeting up with friends as I was doing. Perhaps ninety percent of the people were under thirty-five and made me want to be young again, but only that. I do not wish to relive the follies of youth.
So if you didn't want to dig your feet in the sand, there were other areas where you could sit around a table and chat if you could compete with the music in the background. There were lots of backless seatings for the young, and we older folks had to find seatings with backs since we didn't want to further strain what is left of our deteriorating "Rücken." Surveying the area, one could see that is was rather huge and spread out under the stars. So that we could have done some star-gazing if we wished to do so. And some people did. There was no entrance fee and the coke I drank seemed rather reasonable at five Franks. It was rather a pleasant way to round off what began as a beautiful evening.
