Drought

Gonna be a blog-stop for a bit. Will be offline for a little while. Girl needs her holiday. Can promise pics when back. In the meantime...feel free to submit questions and/or blog ideas either as comments or to my mail you'll find in my profile.

Angry man

After pleasant drinks in Aelpli bar I went to have dinner with another friend. He told me about his travel last week. He got to the airport, there were long queues and the electronic check-in machine didn't work. He's normally not the one to get too upset so quickly, but being a German and having several set-backs he got slightly irritated. So he shouted to the nearest airline-aid "CAN YOU HELP ME?" and she responded from the other side of the check-in hall "YES I CAN". A woman with a sense of humour. Even my friend laughed at it. Now.

Aelpli bar

Went to a place new to me this evening http://www.aelplibar.ch/. Very Swiss, very friendly and...very empty. Perhaps people have just not discovered it yet? It's small, and it has a funny entrance like a door to an apartment building, looking all new and modern. But if you take the stairs on the left, you will end up in Aelpli bar.

We tried their "verrückte kuh" and this drink. It has a certain viking-feel to it...

MSN Messenger

This is a tool I used to use daily some years ago. Then they upgraded to a version that didn't work on my pc. So naturally I emailed with the support people who were ever so friendly. Only they couldn't help. It's like any helpdesk. They should be called desk, since they cannot help. But about a week ago I decided to give it a go again. And before I knew it I got contacted by an old acquaintance. Somebody I haven't actually met IRL but who was together with a friend of mine some years ago. We have spoken on the phone, and now he contacted me. Fun. Guess I gotta have to be on more often from now on. Who knows what will happen?

What exactly was the problem?

It never ceases to amaze me. The difference in communication between men and women. Me: "did you have problems with hotmail and msn today?". Him: "yes". A woman would automatically have shared what the particular problem was but a man needs a specific question such as "I had problems with hotmail and msn today. If you had too, can you please describe the problem you had". I think there should be a subject in school for youngsters to learn how to communicate!

Lifetime friends

Today I am so proud of a dear friend of mine. She found out a couple of weeks ago that she was seriously ill. Now she's had corrective surgery, and is dealing with it all like a champ. She's so brave and so matter-of-fact with the whole situation. Unfortunately she lives far away, and I cannot be there to hold her hand but it's comforting to know she has people who love her there. And the best I can I will be there for her in mind, with emails and contact. I'm so glad that she is sharing also the bad times with me. And fortunately the prognosis for recovery is good. My very good friend, a heroine.

Chocolate order

Am off to Dublin on Friday and got an order for Toblerone. It is practially impossible to leave Switzerland without bringing chocolate. Which is not so bad, because you never have to come up with other original ideas about presents. Bring chocolate and make everybody happy! So like the planning person that I am I went chocolate-shopping already today. It had absolutely nothing to do with that I was out of cig that are sold in the same shop :). The problem is rather that some of the chocolate has already disappeared. It is apparent that I have absolutely no character whatsoever. The only way not to eat sweets is to have nothing at home. How difficult can that be to remember?

Hiltl toilet

Remember the pretto place? They had really small toilets. Imagine getting in here, manage to get behind the door so that you can close it and then reverse your movements before getting out. What were they thinking?

180 bottles of wine

The couple I was out to dinner with last Tuesday has a wine collection. 180 bottles of them, which I kindly offered to house for them since they are moving to Singapore for 2 years. But guess what? They turned my generous offer down. Where is the trust? But since I happen to know a guy who has a real wine cellar, I promised them to get a contact name. Sometimes I am just too nice :)

101 things to do

And this on a Saturday. At least it feels like it. Today I have been to the post office to get a registered letter, to two different food shops, I have ironed my clothes, sorted my new apartment papers (half a binder already!), paid bills, repaired my pants by sewing!, shaved my legs (in preparation for Tenerife), painted my toenails (ditto), called two relatives and other little things. I wonder if this would count on that list thing? And I still have to go through those papers that the auditor sent this week. My tax return. My (newly painted) toenails curl in anxiety. Administration? Who likes it?

No going back

So yesterday I did it. I signed the contract and paid 20%. The sellers turned out to be a really nice couple, and since we'll be neighbours from next summer it felt good. I so look forward to March, when they will start by taking down the trees and get the bulldozer out. After meeting the very unpleasant woman in the registry office (where do they dig up these people?) they invited me for coffee and we had a nice chat, just starting to get to know each other. They suggested that we use the informal "Du", which I understand is a big thing here. Or maybe they just realized that I'm not entirely fluent in German :) Whichever the case, I'm relieved they turned out to be easygoing people. And they paid for coffee...

Before you ask

http://www.fuckinggoogleit.com/

Hiltl

Now I'm gonna teach you a word you won't find in Cambridge dictionary. Pretto. I've heard about it many times but tonight I had the questionable privilege of experiencing it. Pretto means pretentious+. This is it: http://www.hiltl.ch/ Not only is it vegetarian only and smoke-forbidden but the guys at the door walk around with ear-plugs ("yeah, this one looks like a babe, we should let her in", or "yes, I know we're not too busy but let's pretend we're important"). Yawn. Inside it's a normal place, and I have to admit the buffet wasn't bad, even though I apparently had tofu instead of chicken...honestly, who can tell after a few drinks? Which I finally got after ordering a Kir royal (hello? they didn't have a proper cocktail menu...and when I tried to order a strawberry daiquiri the waitress looked at me like I came from Mars). So to the point. Look at the name of the place. Pretto, get it? Avoid is my advice.

Life in the fast lane

Apero...quickly home...due for dinner in town in 20 minutes (and yet I take the time to blog!!) and early early tomorrow morning I'm finally signing the contract! They disconnected the parking place from my contract, so now it's finally happening!! Been told that there will be questions asked (most probably in German) if I have really understood what I'm doing, and have I read through all the papers, that type of thing. I think it might help if I'm good and thoroughly hungover :)

Lost in translation - literally

Try to write this "You are out of your mind." on this link. Hilarious. http://tashian.com/multibabel/

Thai

Ok, so the Thai place was excellent...http://www.bansongthai.ch/, but if I am to go back I'm gonna have to have a serious discussion with them about a smoking area.

My friends, who are incidentally moving to Singapore shortly are more experts than I in Asian food and did the ordering. We had lovely whats-it, red curry and something with whats-it. It was great.

Then on my suggestion we went for an "aftero" to Apfelkammer or however it is spelled in Swiss German. (Un)fortunately we arrived in a middle of a contest...

Technical

I should have a category called Technical. But then again, maybe not. My sound controller on the computer all of a sudden disappeared. You know that little thingie you have on the bottom of the screen to control sound. But voila, the other day I had to do a re-start and magically it appeared again. Also lately my dvd-player caved in. I have almost stopped counting, think I am on my fourth player in 5 years. Yes, so these days I buy the 49 CHF-devices, but that's only because my 800 CHF apparatus gave up after a year. But since I badly wanted to watch a movie, I had a heureka-moment and switched back to the player that gave up a year ago. And whaddayaknow, it worked again! Magic.

I don't believe my eyes

I cannot friggin believe it. Am meeting up with a friend for dinner tonight in a Thai place. And guess what? She has made a reservation at a smoke-free restaurant!?! This I know because I just googled it and it came up on smokefreeplaces.net as first choice. And this from a woman I trusted! This is so not good!

Osaka

A friend of mine was in Japan, cool pic. It's like Osaka's Piccadilly circus...

Naked scanner

Or rather a scanner that shows naked. Zurich airport is about to install one of these "for passenger security". Yeah right. I think that a lot of security staff will stand there drooling. They say that said staff will not be able to see the dressed passengers, only the pics, but you know what? I don't believe so. They are just people. And people like naked. Thoughts?