It’s June now, so the move back is starting to get real. Have a pile of paperwork to fill out that has yet to be done.

In addition, while it was still rainy and somewhat cold last week, Ascension weekend brought the full summer weather to Basel. It went from cold to hot pretty quickly. There are even people floating down the Rhine again (yay!).

After a lot of travel, most of the month of May was spent in Basel. This was partially intentional. I planned weekends around town to force myself to train for the race I did not end up running. It also worked out well because of Fantasy Basel and a trip to see Hugh Jackman perform in Zurich.

That’s right, Hugh Jackman. Not only did he play the two iconic characters of Wolverine and Jean Valjean, but he also somehow made an unlikable historical figure like P.T. Barnum somehow charming.

My tickets were surprisingly close to stage, which was fantastic because it allowed me to creep on Keala Settle while she was waiting for the show to begin.

The show was a lot of fun. I did expect more Broadway songs as I didn’t realize how big of a phenomenon The Greatest Showman actually was. People were going nuts over all of the songs.

He walked through his career and life, with a lot of songs and stories in between.

There was, of course, a Les Mis medley. Unfortunately, however, he did not sing Who Am I, but I’ll survive.

He went all out during the Peter Allen segment (he won a Tony for playing him in Boy from Oz). The costumes he had for that segment was pretty intense and he brought someone on stage to dance with him.

There was also a pretty entertaining movie musical segment, where he performed some of the songs from the classic movie musicals (Singing in the Rain, Guys and Dolls, etc). He kind of rocked those songs.

While Hugh Jackman was charismatic, fun and generally amazing (also he tap dances!!), I have to say that the highlight of the show was when Keala Settle came out and killed it with This Is Me. Her voice is so good.

In any case, Hugh Jackman aside, the rest of this month will be somewhat low-key. We have a trip to Paris planned to see one of the World Cup games. We’re otherwise keeping it generally local (with maybe a trip or two within Switzerland). The rest of this month will pass quickly, so I’m just bracing myself for it.