We got to the Basel SBB. I took the first picture at the entrance. It looked not so big, but when we went up to the second floor, we found so many tracks. By the way, the first thing that we wanted to do in this
station was to go to the toilet. We couldn't find any in the street, so I got relieved to see the sign "WC" by the escalator in the picture. We hurried to the toilet and sadly found it a pay one. Men needed one franc and women two francs. I got disappointed to know that because I thought we didn't have any Swiss Franc. However, I had three francs in my pocket. Those coins were thrown into my pocket in
an offhand manner at the market stall in the Markt-Platz. They were the change of our expensive lunch. I remembered the Giuliano Gemma starring movie, "Un dollaro bucato". If you know the plot of the movie, you could understand us in this situation.
After that, we explored in the station and found the door on which "FRANCE" was written. There seemed to be Track 30-35 bound for France over the door. We were enticed to go through the door, but we didn't, because we would be at a loss if the door didn't open automatically from the opposite side. The opposite side 
of the door was the Basel SNCF, the station of French National Railways.
(Vocabulary)
in an offhand manner 無造作に
offhand ([名]の前でのみ)うっかりした, 思いつきの, そっけない, ぶっきらぼうな
Un dollaro bucato 荒野の１ドル銀貨
plot 陰謀, 策略, たくらみ; (本・映画・劇などの)(話の)筋, プロット
hatch a plot 陰謀を企てる, たくらむ
foil a plot 陰謀を阻止する
the plot unfolds （話の）筋が展開する
at a loss 困って、途方に暮れて
My dream has always been to go to Europe and travel along the Railways, country to country. I hope some day to take this trip.
I haven't seen that movie, but I can imagine the relief and good fortune you must have felt at that moment, and those 3 Francs became priceless and the price of the sausages probably didn't seem so bad. :o) (sarah)
Posted by: Sarah | Oct 27, 2009 at 02:05 PM