Hangin around

Hello gentle reader! Well I apologize for being gone awhile, especially to one of my loyal readers, Chris, my semi "beau-frere" as they say in French. Yes Chris, I DID get my clothes out of the washing machine. I had to go back at 7am all bleary eyed and confused to get them out. The waterproofing totally worked by the way!! So if you have GOREtex outerwear that has lost a bit of its oomph, I recommend you try Nikwax Tech Wash and TX Direct.

After this little incident, I was supposed to go ice climbing the following day which was also a wash out due to the fact that it was raining. This was a real bummer as it is now too late in the season and too warm to be able to go again until next year. However the day after that was an awesome day out of spring snowboarding which was really fun and a nice treat after all my studying.

So then what? Well then I worked 3 days, went out to dinner with my boss, drank a lot and listened to hilarious stories about how the Swiss do job interviews...then went home, packed, slept 3 hours, went to airport, flew to London, flew to Dallas, tried to fly to San Antonio but flight was cancelled, got a ride, drove there, got there, saw two of my best friends from school, watched 1 get married, saw Justin and snuggled, flew back to Chicago, said bye to Justin, saw my mom and dad and sister and kitties for one day and then flew to Brussels, then to Geneva and had another crazy 3 days of work and NOW I am done with that. I had a great time in the U.S. but all this running around left me exhausted. So last night I decided to just come home, relax with some wine and catch up on LOST. It is soooo good this season! Anyone else agree?

Today I have also allowed myself to be extremely lazy. I slept late, watched LOST again, only leaving the house to get some hangover remedy (McDonalds). Guess who I saw when I was out? My French professor, the dirty old man from last year. Remember him??

OK, another story on Professor...I saw him earlier this summer with Justin and his mom, when we were going to Yvoire. Being the social little butterfly that I am, I went over and called "Professor! Yoo hoo!" and thought he didn't hear me. When I called his name, he turned and looked really angry/embarassed to see me. Huh?? He was also with a WOMAN. Interesting! He gave a gruff hello and that was it for the rest of the day. Totally weird. So today I saw him and tried to avoid him in order to avoid a similarly awkward situation. He passed me while I was heading into McDo. I was wearing sunglasses - as everyone knows, sunglasses are an excellent disguise and people can't really see you when you are wearing them. I went in and ordered my food and as I was walking out, he was there again!! Not sure if he saw me or not but I didn't say anything this time. Totally weird. I do run into people I know quite frequently in Geneva - and I don't know very many people - so this gives you an indication of how big the city is.

More random thoughts on my recent trip...

London Gatwick is AWESOME. I highly recommend if you need to travel through London to choose this airport. It is super nice with lots of good food, shopping, a starbucks! (I abstained) and is clean and easy to get around. I bought some fun things at the pharmacy, a shirt at mango and a fun little travel mouse for my laptop.

Business class is also really AWESOME. I treated myself to an upgrade since my travel time on Thursday alone was like 20 hours or something ridiculous like this. So from LGW to DFW I was in AA biz class and I loved every second. I have only flown business twice before, when I went to India. I will tell you - I upgraded for 300 bucks and 25k miles and it was worth every cent. It's like flying in a little baby hotel. The fact that you have more room and can choose which movies you want to watch instead of being subjected to "Bee Movie" with the rest of the plane is cool in itself. But the food is also really really good and they bring you whatever you want, whenever you want it. Also the pillow and blankets were snuggly and my bed folded flat (not like lie down flat, more like sleeping on a 45 degree angle flat but still not bad). We also got noise cancelling headphones which I now want to buy. I chose the good route to do this on as we were on a 777 to Dallas and the Chicago to Brussels flight was a 767...those biz class passengers did NOT have their own tv screens. That is a joke. Even a lot of economy class flights offer this now to passengers. This was a pretty good experience but my favorite of all the airlines to take is Swiss. They have the individual movie consoles in all seat classes (although they break sometimes) which you can even rewind and fast forward which is cool. The food is very good, they let you drink and don't charge you, and the attendants are very nice. I'm so easy to please, I know.

Last is a travel tip which I credit Abby with! I started doing this after she told me and it's the best travel tip in a while I have come across: bring an empty water bottle with you through security and then fill it before you get on the plane. International flights especially are SO long and you get majorly dehydrated...a tiny cup of water is NOT going to help. And buying water in the airport as we know is a major rip off. I bring a 1L Nalgene with me now and it works out great. Most airports do have water fountains or I have even filled up from the bathroom sink in Switzerland (hey, it's Evian water in Geneva that comes through the tap - it's the same water source). Obviously in India you can't do that, but it works in a lot of places. If you can't find a fountain, an airport bar or resto will usually give you some tap water if you ask politely and say "sorry to trouble you" (this is a British saying that I have picked up and I found it really helps getting people to do things for you).

Well, this is a nice long random post. Tomorrow I am working but I might encounter some interesting bits of Switzerland on my way out and about. You never know when that will happen!