I have discovered the best pizza in the whole world. There's this dude with a van and he turns up sometimes and parks in the middle of town, and suddenly his van thing is transformed into a pizza shop. He has all his toppings and his pre-made dough there, and he takes orders from customers (up to 10 or so at a time, which is all his oven and table space allows), and you watch him make the pizzas there in front of you. He shapes the dough out into pizza shapes, and he puts all the ingredients on all the different pizzas, and he puts all the pizzas in his oven, and he cooks them all to perfection, and he takes everyone's money, and he cleans up his table space ready for the next lot, and he takes all the pizzas out of the oven and garnishes them up and slices them and distributes them, and it all happens in the space of 10 minutes or so. And he never has to confirm anything or ask people again what they have ordered, and really, the end result is fantastically delicious.
Aah, pizza man, how I love you.
Saturday, 28 April 2007
Friday, 27 April 2007
UnHappy Hour
The other night Reto and I went to the pub. Typically, this would involve getting there in time for happy hour, fighting to find a seat, doing abysmally badly at the quiz, complaining about all the smoke and then going home. This time it was slightly different.
We got there and I went to the bar. I ordered two beers. The bartender gave them to me, and he said "that'll be 17.40". I said "but isn't it happy hour?", and he said "no, it's been cancelled". And so I handed over a 20, he gave me 2 francs back and I was outraged. I mean, I know how much beer costs here, but I was expecting it to be half that price, and for him to assume the rest of my change was a tip without even giving me the option of handing it back to him after he had handed it back to me seems a bit presumptuous. And for those of you who don't know, 18 francs over here equals about $18 over there, give or take. And for those of you who have no grip on reality whatsoever, that's a lot for two beers. And how can happy hour be cancelled??
Happily, though, no happy hour meant fewer patrons, which mean that the dart board was free, which meant that Reto and I had the chance to try to play a game of Round The World With Morten Dingstad (a ridiculously confusing version of "round the world" that Reto and I invented a few years ago, and have consequently kind of forgotten the finer details of. Incidentally, wikipedia tells me that "round the world" is actually called "round the clock". Hmm). It also meant that we had fewer people to beat in trivia, but sadly we failed to win that when Reto let us down abysmally in the sport round (as if I can be expected to know who won some mysterious Swiss soccer competition last year, or where some hockey thing is being held next year. As if I even know to assume that "hockey" means ice hockey).
I would end on a high note and say "better luck next time" or something to that effect, but apparently trivia is a seasonal sport here, and it's not coming back until autumn. Weirdos.
We got there and I went to the bar. I ordered two beers. The bartender gave them to me, and he said "that'll be 17.40". I said "but isn't it happy hour?", and he said "no, it's been cancelled". And so I handed over a 20, he gave me 2 francs back and I was outraged. I mean, I know how much beer costs here, but I was expecting it to be half that price, and for him to assume the rest of my change was a tip without even giving me the option of handing it back to him after he had handed it back to me seems a bit presumptuous. And for those of you who don't know, 18 francs over here equals about $18 over there, give or take. And for those of you who have no grip on reality whatsoever, that's a lot for two beers. And how can happy hour be cancelled??
Happily, though, no happy hour meant fewer patrons, which mean that the dart board was free, which meant that Reto and I had the chance to try to play a game of Round The World With Morten Dingstad (a ridiculously confusing version of "round the world" that Reto and I invented a few years ago, and have consequently kind of forgotten the finer details of. Incidentally, wikipedia tells me that "round the world" is actually called "round the clock". Hmm). It also meant that we had fewer people to beat in trivia, but sadly we failed to win that when Reto let us down abysmally in the sport round (as if I can be expected to know who won some mysterious Swiss soccer competition last year, or where some hockey thing is being held next year. As if I even know to assume that "hockey" means ice hockey).
I would end on a high note and say "better luck next time" or something to that effect, but apparently trivia is a seasonal sport here, and it's not coming back until autumn. Weirdos.
Thursday, 26 April 2007
Maybe I'll Just Grow It Instead
I really need a haircut. Happily, Aarau is the town for this, because with a population of something like 15 000, it has a grand total of 52 (!) hairdressing salons! So really the only thing standing in my way is how to say "yeah, just kind of shorter and less messy, but not too short, and really low maintenance so I don't have to do anything much to it, and ... oh, whatever" in german.
Wednesday, 25 April 2007
Sandwich Conspiracy
From time to time I go out for lunch with Reto. We usually meet at 12.30pm. If it's a nice day and we decide to have a sandwich in the park, by the time we get there (which is about 5 minutes later) it's almost impossible to actually find a shop that still has any sandwiches left (except the dodgy looking mystery-salami ones which no one in their right mind would eat). What is going on? Does everyone have lunch at noon or something? Isn't this ridiculously early?
Back in the olden days when I was a usefully employed member of society I used to have lunch at about 1.30pm, if not later. I was having breakfast by about 7am, and dinner probably at about 7pm, so lunch at 1ish made sense, and even later made even more sense because it made the afternoon seem that much shorter. What is going on with all these crazy Swiss, then? Do they start work that early (my poll of one, Reto, says no. He usually manages to get there by 8am, but even then he doesn't ever have breakfast before 7am)? Do they not eat breakfast at all (poll of one says no again)? Is it some sort of race to get the best sandwiches? Do organised people sneak out at morning tea time and buy up all the delicious ones, and then sensibly go to the park to eat them at 1.30pm when the crowds have thinned?
Back in the olden days when I was a usefully employed member of society I used to have lunch at about 1.30pm, if not later. I was having breakfast by about 7am, and dinner probably at about 7pm, so lunch at 1ish made sense, and even later made even more sense because it made the afternoon seem that much shorter. What is going on with all these crazy Swiss, then? Do they start work that early (my poll of one, Reto, says no. He usually manages to get there by 8am, but even then he doesn't ever have breakfast before 7am)? Do they not eat breakfast at all (poll of one says no again)? Is it some sort of race to get the best sandwiches? Do organised people sneak out at morning tea time and buy up all the delicious ones, and then sensibly go to the park to eat them at 1.30pm when the crowds have thinned?
Sunday, 22 April 2007
Cheers
In an effort to combine the admirable features of being a little bit more civilised and of drinking more, Reto and I have added the excellent feature of cocktail hour to our household. After a few practice runs on the previous weekend, we had our official inaugural drinking frenzy, I mean civilised drink on the balcony, last Friday evening. We had excellent heavy glasses, we had gin, we had tonic, as had slices of lemon, we had ice cubes (no small thing in this country, where as it turns out it’s hard to buy an ice cube tray. After a long and fruitless search of Aarau for this very thing though, I got home and realised we already had one, in the freezer, full of ice). Not only this, we had the pleasantly setting afternoon sun, we had the strains of the accordion as played by the woman over the road who seems to like to sit in her garden and practice (which might seem as though it should be horrible, but I really enjoy it. Think more Amelie soundtrack than lunatics and Germans), and we had blini with smoked salmon, crème fraiche and dill.
It was all ridiculously upmarket and fancy until we got a bit carried away, finished half the bottle of gin and ended up sprawled all over the place like a couple of drunks. Aah, the fun of being a sporadic drinker.
It was all ridiculously upmarket and fancy until we got a bit carried away, finished half the bottle of gin and ended up sprawled all over the place like a couple of drunks. Aah, the fun of being a sporadic drinker.
Tuesday, 17 April 2007
A Grisly Hello To Summer
Yesterday, in an abysmal display of apathy and hopelessness, I failed to go to Zürich to watch a snowman be set on fire.
Yes, it's sechseläuten time of year, which means that Zürich goes on holiday, there is much parading and dressing up, and then a snowman effigy is set alight and watched eagerly until his head explodes. This snowman bit is the focal point of it all, and it involves a huge bonfire, a pretend snowman (called the böögg, and described in Wikipedia as a "rag doll", but it seems a lot more slow-burning than that) perched atop the bonfire and stuffed full of explosives, and a stopwatch. The idea is that the time from when the böögg's pyre is lit and when his head explodes is taken as some indication of what the coming summer will be like (a quick time means a long, hot, dry summer, a long time means a rainy short summer).
Happily, for slackers such as myself, it's all shown on telly. It took 12 minutes or so for the böögg's head to explode, which apparently bodes an average sort of summer (although Reto tells me that he read something recently which said that research shows there is no correlation between the time taken for the head to explode and the quality of the summer, which is too bad, because I like a nice ordinary, non-hot summer).
My impression of it all, possibly because I was in a bad sort of mood while I was watching it, is that it was a bit much like some sort of public burning-at-the-stake for my liking (although apparently a fairly historically inaccurate attempt). The crowd of people gathered around, the smoke and flames creeping ever higher, the enthusiasm with which we all watched and waited for the grisly end. If only I had brought some knitting.
Yes, it's sechseläuten time of year, which means that Zürich goes on holiday, there is much parading and dressing up, and then a snowman effigy is set alight and watched eagerly until his head explodes. This snowman bit is the focal point of it all, and it involves a huge bonfire, a pretend snowman (called the böögg, and described in Wikipedia as a "rag doll", but it seems a lot more slow-burning than that) perched atop the bonfire and stuffed full of explosives, and a stopwatch. The idea is that the time from when the böögg's pyre is lit and when his head explodes is taken as some indication of what the coming summer will be like (a quick time means a long, hot, dry summer, a long time means a rainy short summer).
Happily, for slackers such as myself, it's all shown on telly. It took 12 minutes or so for the böögg's head to explode, which apparently bodes an average sort of summer (although Reto tells me that he read something recently which said that research shows there is no correlation between the time taken for the head to explode and the quality of the summer, which is too bad, because I like a nice ordinary, non-hot summer).
My impression of it all, possibly because I was in a bad sort of mood while I was watching it, is that it was a bit much like some sort of public burning-at-the-stake for my liking (although apparently a fairly historically inaccurate attempt). The crowd of people gathered around, the smoke and flames creeping ever higher, the enthusiasm with which we all watched and waited for the grisly end. If only I had brought some knitting.
Sunday, 15 April 2007
Everyone's A Critic
You know how they occasionally make school kiddies participate in projects aimed at making the local area more "beautiful"? Yesterday Reto and I went to his sister's place, which is in the general vicinity of one of Reto's former schools. There is an unattractive tunnel near the train station that apparently Reto and his school colleagues were each allocated a section of to paint. Having seen the section that Reto painted, I don't think it is unreasonable to say that art might not be his one true talent, but I also think that the graffitist who wrote "Alles ist Scheisse" over the top of it was probably being a bit harsh.
Saturday, 14 April 2007
Spring Has Sprung
These crazy sun-starved Europeans are really into summery weather. I first noticed this in Norway, when it seemed the entire population would leave work in the afternoon, go to parks, take most of their clothes off and then lie around in the sun until it went away (which in the height of summer was never. Which may go some way towards explaining why Norwegians have such serious tans). One of the more wackily appealing traits of Norwegies is that they are really into these little portable barbeque things, and so they would all be there in parks in the summer, semi-naked and eating sausages until the small hours. Interestingly, I once read somewhere that Norwegians eat more hot dogs than anyone else in the world, which doesn't seem at all surprising when you stroll around Frogner Park on a summer's evening. And apparently It's Canadians who eat all the doughnuts.
Anyway, spring has sprung and even though there is a dearth of Scandies with sausages, it is really noticeable that winter has gone. There are flowers galore (and I do mean galore), and I keep getting sunburnt, and people are wearing sandals and shorts and no coats (actually, today I went outside without a jacket for the first time since I arrived here), and all the restaurants and cafes in Aarau have now got their outdoor seating in full swing. Actually, it's quite nice because the streets in the main part of town are car-free and so there are tables in the streets and flowerpots and people dawdling around, and it's all really summery and pleasant.
All of this outdoor loveliness means that you can't walk through the town at busy times without running into someone you know (which is really something, considering I hardly know anyone here), and everyone seems somehow friendlier. Every time I go out for lunch with Reto we spot at least a handful of his colleagues, all smiling and waving and wishing us en guete, and people are sharing park benches and throwing bits of their sandwiches to the birds that flock around and so on. Even the waitress in the cafe that we usually have coffee at has become far friendlier in the last week or so.
More interesting is that whenever I am wandering around town without Reto, stray men inevitably flirt with me. I suspect this might be weather-related, because it didn't happened so much before last week. The charm of it all is that because they are always speaking in german or swiss german or whatever, I have no idea what is going on and can therefore convince myself that it is something charming and witty and excellent, instead of being sadly shown that they are oiks yelling "oi love, show us yer tits then", as oiks so often do.
Of course maybe I am just flattering myself and they are not flirting with me at all. Maybe they are smiling and winking suggestively, but yelling "get out of our country, you messy-haired, laundry-rule-flouting foreigner". Hmm.
Anyway, spring has sprung and even though there is a dearth of Scandies with sausages, it is really noticeable that winter has gone. There are flowers galore (and I do mean galore), and I keep getting sunburnt, and people are wearing sandals and shorts and no coats (actually, today I went outside without a jacket for the first time since I arrived here), and all the restaurants and cafes in Aarau have now got their outdoor seating in full swing. Actually, it's quite nice because the streets in the main part of town are car-free and so there are tables in the streets and flowerpots and people dawdling around, and it's all really summery and pleasant.
All of this outdoor loveliness means that you can't walk through the town at busy times without running into someone you know (which is really something, considering I hardly know anyone here), and everyone seems somehow friendlier. Every time I go out for lunch with Reto we spot at least a handful of his colleagues, all smiling and waving and wishing us en guete, and people are sharing park benches and throwing bits of their sandwiches to the birds that flock around and so on. Even the waitress in the cafe that we usually have coffee at has become far friendlier in the last week or so.
More interesting is that whenever I am wandering around town without Reto, stray men inevitably flirt with me. I suspect this might be weather-related, because it didn't happened so much before last week. The charm of it all is that because they are always speaking in german or swiss german or whatever, I have no idea what is going on and can therefore convince myself that it is something charming and witty and excellent, instead of being sadly shown that they are oiks yelling "oi love, show us yer tits then", as oiks so often do.
Of course maybe I am just flattering myself and they are not flirting with me at all. Maybe they are smiling and winking suggestively, but yelling "get out of our country, you messy-haired, laundry-rule-flouting foreigner". Hmm.
Friday, 13 April 2007
Black Holes And Quark
It seems that the building where Reto and I live is just too good a place to leave. Ever.
Yesterday, as I was angrily doing some laundry, I was accosted by an aging neighbour. I like to discourage conversation in the laundry room because there's no escape, and it's inevitably confusing and scary and heavily garbled (because it's in german, people. Do try to keep up), but this woman would not take no for an answer (not that I actually said "no" at any point; I just looked like a startled bunny the whole time). Anyway, once the conversation progressed to the point where she realised I speak abysmal german and it was all going to be a huge struggle for us both (which incidentally was a very small distance from the initial "grüezi"), I had hoped she would leave me alone with my laundry and my silent solitude (god, how depressing) but no, her interest was piqued and suddenly she wanted to know all about me. This included where I am from, who I live with, what floor we live on, how many rooms we have and how long we have been living here. If she had been younger I might have suspected her of being some sort of undercover immigration officer there to grill me and throw me out of the country, but I think her point might have been that she wanted to tell me that she had been living in her flat (5th floor, 3 rooms) for 25 years. Which struck me as strange conversation. And also as a long time. Actually, I was surprised that the building was that old.
Later in the day I was in the lift with Reto when another elderly neighbour got in with us. Interestingly, but not relevantly, he was very, very short. Anyway, he and Reto made a bit of polite chitchat while I smiled inanely, and apparently (I later discovered) he told Reto that he has been living in his flat (10th floor, undisclosed number of rooms) for 40 years. Lordy.
Why do people keep telling me this stuff? Are they trying to warn me that we have inadvertently moved into some sort of bizarro vortex thing that we will never get out of? Am I going to live here forever? I mean, Aarau is okay, and our flat has some amount of charm, but 25 years? 40? Really?
Yesterday, as I was angrily doing some laundry, I was accosted by an aging neighbour. I like to discourage conversation in the laundry room because there's no escape, and it's inevitably confusing and scary and heavily garbled (because it's in german, people. Do try to keep up), but this woman would not take no for an answer (not that I actually said "no" at any point; I just looked like a startled bunny the whole time). Anyway, once the conversation progressed to the point where she realised I speak abysmal german and it was all going to be a huge struggle for us both (which incidentally was a very small distance from the initial "grüezi"), I had hoped she would leave me alone with my laundry and my silent solitude (god, how depressing) but no, her interest was piqued and suddenly she wanted to know all about me. This included where I am from, who I live with, what floor we live on, how many rooms we have and how long we have been living here. If she had been younger I might have suspected her of being some sort of undercover immigration officer there to grill me and throw me out of the country, but I think her point might have been that she wanted to tell me that she had been living in her flat (5th floor, 3 rooms) for 25 years. Which struck me as strange conversation. And also as a long time. Actually, I was surprised that the building was that old.
Later in the day I was in the lift with Reto when another elderly neighbour got in with us. Interestingly, but not relevantly, he was very, very short. Anyway, he and Reto made a bit of polite chitchat while I smiled inanely, and apparently (I later discovered) he told Reto that he has been living in his flat (10th floor, undisclosed number of rooms) for 40 years. Lordy.
Why do people keep telling me this stuff? Are they trying to warn me that we have inadvertently moved into some sort of bizarro vortex thing that we will never get out of? Am I going to live here forever? I mean, Aarau is okay, and our flat has some amount of charm, but 25 years? 40? Really?
Thursday, 12 April 2007
Catch Of The Day
The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, my sunburn is receding and I am sick.
Somehow, it seems, all the (semi-)relentless holidaying I have done for the last 2 weeks has left me weak and vulnerable, and now I am getting my revolting revenge on Reto for making me put up with his recent-ish bout of incessant coughing and spluttering and nose-blowing. Yes, I have a cold, and now I am the one creating seas of snotty tissues, I am the one waking up in the night to cough and snort and whinge, I am the one who lolls in bed all day and is waited on hand and foot.
Possibly surprisingly, Reto is doing quite a good job of the nurse-maiding. He came home especially at lunch time yesterday to drop off an emergency delivery of Vicks, he made chicken noodle soup last night (admittedly from a packet, but whatever), he has been force-feeding me oranges, and aside from the odd bout of yawning, he hardly complains at all about the constant interruptions to his sleep that come from me waking up every half hour or so to blow my nose and cough up phlegm. What a sweetheart.
Tuesday, 10 April 2007
Olivia - Wackily Endearing. Or Possibly Just Wacky
Reto and I headed to Montreux over the Easter long weekend, hoping for a relaxing time and some pleasant scenery. We stayed with my friend Olivia who I know from the bad old days in Australia when I was employed and therefore wasn't free to sleep in until lunch time every day, and then spend the afternoons wasting time on the internet.
As it turns out, Olivia's 'sensibly employed' Australian persona was all a bit of a con and in fact she is kind of bonkers. One of the first people we met (and I use that term loosely) was Foster the pig:
As it turns out, Olivia's 'sensibly employed' Australian persona was all a bit of a con and in fact she is kind of bonkers. One of the first people we met (and I use that term loosely) was Foster the pig:
Foster isn't just some garden-variety Swiss pig. He was brought, deliberately, all the way from Australia as hand luggage. Admittedly he is extremely squashable, and Olivia likes to pretend that he doubles as a pillow on aeroplanes, but frankly I suspect that Fostie would never have to suffer the indignity of having a tired head smush him into the shoulder of a stranger in economy class. Actually, I think that Fostie is to Olivia what my parents' cat Sammy is to my parents. Sometime I think my parents treat Sammy better than they treat me (for example - no one ever gets me a birthday present any more, but Sammy routinely gets prawns on his birthday).
Fosty may be adorable but he is not particularly self sufficient, so one afternoon when Olivia was busy carousing around town, Reto and I forced her to let us babysit him (which I suspect she didn't really want us to do because she didn't think we would keep him out of trouble):
Apart from assorted Fosty-related fun and revelling in all the english-speaking with someone who is doing practically the same sort of stuff I am doing, we mainly spent the weekend walking around the shore of Lake Geneva and eating ice cream. Olivia and I had a brief adventure on a pedalo (a pedal-powered boaty thing) on the lake.
We made a small attempt to go to the Olympic museum in Lausanne, which ended up only really involving walking around the gardens and the shop there and not actually going into the museum itself (I might like the Olympics, but really, I'm not that interested in sport that I am willing to pay to find out about it). We all ate a huge amount of scary looking easter eggs, we loafed around a lot, we slept in a lot, and we all managed to avoind being killed by the ceiling in Olivia's flat (which is kind of falling down). We were entertained by the excellent garden-based statues in Montreux 
(Montreux being home to the well known jazz festival, hence the musical garden sculpture theme). I made two attempts to steal books from youth hostels, only to be met with failure both times (there was nothing on offer at all in Vevey, and the best I could find in Montreux was christian propaganda about a Chinese communist who found Jesus, but not even at Easter was that particularly appealing).
We made a small attempt to go to the Olympic museum in Lausanne, which ended up only really involving walking around the gardens and the shop there and not actually going into the museum itself (I might like the Olympics, but really, I'm not that interested in sport that I am willing to pay to find out about it). We all ate a huge amount of scary looking easter eggs, we loafed around a lot, we slept in a lot, and we all managed to avoind being killed by the ceiling in Olivia's flat (which is kind of falling down). We were entertained by the excellent garden-based statues in Montreux (Montreux being home to the well known jazz festival, hence the musical garden sculpture theme). I made two attempts to steal books from youth hostels, only to be met with failure both times (there was nothing on offer at all in Vevey, and the best I could find in Montreux was christian propaganda about a Chinese communist who found Jesus, but not even at Easter was that particularly appealing). All in all it was a really lovely weekend, but be warned, people. If you ever find yourself in possession of small children, think twice before you let Olivia be in charge of them because she may well entrust them to other (untrustworthy) people to look after, use them as pillows on planes, or coerce them into potentially dangerous (yet entertaining) photo opportunities. 
(No animals were harmed during the making of this post. None that are actually alive, anyway. Fosty survived mostly unmangled)
Friday, 6 April 2007
Good (Boring) Friday
Who would have thought that Boring Wednesday would be so controversial? As it turns out I was persuaded by the enthusiasm of everyone's comments to look into it myself (through minimal google-based research), with the outcome that I have decided to thumb my nose at this European snobbery for washing clothes in warm water. Frankly, the only advantages of that method that I can see are that germs might be killed if the water is hot enough (which it won't be, and really, as if I care about germs anyway. As if I haven't survived, nay flourished, for almost 30 years swaddled daily in apparently germ-coated clothes), that greasy stains are more readily removed in hot water, and that your clothes might all shrink and fade and generally be ruined (which might be an advantage if you want to make space in your closet for a bunch of new clothes. Since I'm an unemployed quasi-shop-a-phobic, I can't see how this might be an advantage for me).
And so I have decided to henceforth re-dedicate myself to the cold water approach. It's more environmentally friendly, apparently no worse in terms of making your clothes clean or getting the stains out (as long as you haven't been rolling around in grease or butter, which as far as I am aware I haven't), and it doesn't make anything fade or the colours run.
The only thing that stands in my way now is the fact that apparently the washing machines here won't let me fulfill my laundering dreams of environmental consciousness. It seems that on a normal wash, the lowest temperature I can get is 30 degrees. Sigh.
And so I have decided to henceforth re-dedicate myself to the cold water approach. It's more environmentally friendly, apparently no worse in terms of making your clothes clean or getting the stains out (as long as you haven't been rolling around in grease or butter, which as far as I am aware I haven't), and it doesn't make anything fade or the colours run.
The only thing that stands in my way now is the fact that apparently the washing machines here won't let me fulfill my laundering dreams of environmental consciousness. It seems that on a normal wash, the lowest temperature I can get is 30 degrees. Sigh.
Thursday, 5 April 2007
We Couldn't Be Heroes
When Reto and I were in Nice we saw a woman have her handbag stolen. Well, we didn't actually see it, but we saw her thief for the evening running down the street towards us (and also towards his getaway accomplice lurking on an idling motorbike just behind us), and then we saw her running after him yelling "Stop him! He's got my handbag!".
Reto and I stood and goggled.
The woman whose handbag it was (elderly-ish English tourist and female friend of similar age) caught up in time to see the motorbike sputter off, and to make stiff-upper-lip type comments within our hearing about how it was only money. She and her friend walked off and Reto and I were left to contemplate.
I've always thought of myself as the useful type who would stick a leg out or give a well-timed shove at the crucial moment and trip the thief/assailant, thus preventing his getaway and saving the day (I'm sure in this little scene there are always other useful types around who can then restrain said assailant and save me from having to rely on my own strength or agility), but apparently I am not that type after all. I'm sure we have all the usual excuses of how quickly it all happened, and how it took a moment to realise what was going on and by then it was too late, and those are legitimate excuses, but I still felt a bit crap about my total lack of assistance.
The strap of the handbag was flailing out to the side as he ran, and I was close enough that I could have easily reached it. The thief himself was within arm's reach of me. I could have easily done something, and the fact that I am not really sure what that might have been, nor what the consequences of that might have been, is not really much consolation.
Contemplating on what could have happened differently occupied most of our conversation for the rest of the night. We both felt bad for not doing anything. Was the woman disappointed that we didn't help? Was she surprised? Would she have been more annoyed or less if we had apologised for not helping (maybe she excused our inaction because she thought we didn't understand what she was yelling)? Why didn't we do anything? What could we have done? Would the thief's interests have been more in fighting back and keeping the bag (if we had tried to grab it back from him) or in getting away? Would he have retaliated against us if we had have done anything? What was he stealing it for anyway? How would we have felt if we were the ones robbed (Reto had already lost his credit card by that point so he would have had less to lose than me, grr)? Would it have made it worse if two able-bodied bystanders had stood around watching and not helping?
I don't know what any of the answers are, but I did give my handbag more thought after that. I just hope I don't one day turn into one of those people who wears a money belt.
Reto and I stood and goggled.
The woman whose handbag it was (elderly-ish English tourist and female friend of similar age) caught up in time to see the motorbike sputter off, and to make stiff-upper-lip type comments within our hearing about how it was only money. She and her friend walked off and Reto and I were left to contemplate.
I've always thought of myself as the useful type who would stick a leg out or give a well-timed shove at the crucial moment and trip the thief/assailant, thus preventing his getaway and saving the day (I'm sure in this little scene there are always other useful types around who can then restrain said assailant and save me from having to rely on my own strength or agility), but apparently I am not that type after all. I'm sure we have all the usual excuses of how quickly it all happened, and how it took a moment to realise what was going on and by then it was too late, and those are legitimate excuses, but I still felt a bit crap about my total lack of assistance.
The strap of the handbag was flailing out to the side as he ran, and I was close enough that I could have easily reached it. The thief himself was within arm's reach of me. I could have easily done something, and the fact that I am not really sure what that might have been, nor what the consequences of that might have been, is not really much consolation.
Contemplating on what could have happened differently occupied most of our conversation for the rest of the night. We both felt bad for not doing anything. Was the woman disappointed that we didn't help? Was she surprised? Would she have been more annoyed or less if we had apologised for not helping (maybe she excused our inaction because she thought we didn't understand what she was yelling)? Why didn't we do anything? What could we have done? Would the thief's interests have been more in fighting back and keeping the bag (if we had tried to grab it back from him) or in getting away? Would he have retaliated against us if we had have done anything? What was he stealing it for anyway? How would we have felt if we were the ones robbed (Reto had already lost his credit card by that point so he would have had less to lose than me, grr)? Would it have made it worse if two able-bodied bystanders had stood around watching and not helping?
I don't know what any of the answers are, but I did give my handbag more thought after that. I just hope I don't one day turn into one of those people who wears a money belt.
Wednesday, 4 April 2007
[Insert Moronic "Nice" Pun Here]
Reto and I spent the last four days on holiday in Nice. We were planning to go somewhere, and, after much arguing, we decided to go to wherever we could get the cheapest flight. Nice won with a ludicrously low price, but we were both secretly disappointed that we didn't get to go to Madrid instead.
Nice was nice, though. Assorted high/low/interesting points follow, in no particular order, illustrated with photos of dubious relevance:
- Owing to a very early flight on Saturday morning we stayed with my friend Cecile in Basel on Friday night. This involved, among other things, eating lots of excellent raclette, which is always entertaining. Aah, cheese;
- I was the only person on the entire flight who had any difficulty at the airport! I had to fill in customs forms and then re-queue and be asked questions and be quizzed on whether I live in Norway or not! Damn those Australian passports;
- Reto lost his bank card thing within about half an hour of getting off the plane in France. Really, it was a Saturday morning and the bank in question apparently didn't open again until Tuesday morning, the day we were coming home, so guess who had to pay for everything? It all seems a little bit too convenient, if you ask me;
- We had bad luck with buses. We missed them, we caught the wrong ones, we were kidnapped by an angry bus driver with an ipod who wouldn't let us out until we got to the airport (which was about 15 minutes past where we wanted to go). On the up side, I suppose we saw more stuff than we would have otherwise, and without the bother of having to walk too far;
- I was verbally assaulted by mean waiters. Sigh;
- The whole of Nice seems to be currently under construction. Around every corner was more scaffolding, more machinery, more noise of digging and building and destruction, more of whatever noise putting down new tram tracks makes, more repaving and painting and so on. All of which made for a lot of noise and a lot of piles of dirt and a lot of taking of detours;
- Nice and surrounding areas seem to be the other home of Australian flora. I haven't seen so many gum trees in ages;
- I discovered that I have less moral fortitude than I imagined (see another post, possibly tomorrow's), or possibly just that I am a bit of a wimp;
- Monaco is excellent. There is really something to be said for these ludicrously rich tax-haven countries in terms of the loveliness of the surroundings.
The beaches there have a far better quality of stones on them (not sand, but not the enormous rocks that you find in boring downmarket Nice either. In Monaco it's more like gravel, but pleasant rounded wave-worn gravel). The streets are pleasantly free of dog poo (also in contrast to downmarket Nice). The boats and the cars are ludicrously fancy (I don't care at all, but even I was happy to stand around gawking. It was also interesting to see how many smart cars and minis there were among the ferraris and lamborghinis outside the casino, which I suppose may have been a stab at environmental friendliness, or possibly people admitting that it's impossible to keep up with the Monaco Jonses).
People who don't seem to be working wear suits, or at least blazers and nice shoes with their jeans*. I didn't witness any crime in Monaco, and no one yelled at me. Sadly I got sunburnt there, and kind of exhausted from walking up and down all the ridiculously steep hills, and worn out from following all the rules (don't walk on the grass! Don't have picnics! Don't litter! Don't touch anything!) but it was sooo much fancier than Nice. Kind of like Switzerland, actually, but in a far better way, hahah; - I saw Australians for the first time in months. They (we) were everywhere, although not as much as English people were;
- I ate some unbearably delicious food. The description of which is hardly likely to do it justice, so you can just take my word for it; and
- Also interesting was my discovery that apparently salade niçoise isn't supposed to have boiled potatoes in it. Weird, because I have never before seen it without them. Also, apparently it has celery in it.
* This "blazers with jeans" look was endearingly reminiscent of my former boss who, on many occasions when he has to dress up, favours the nautical blazer look. You'd fit right in in Monaco, Bob!
Irrelevant
I was reading one of those crappy free newspapers that you get on trains yesterday and there was a small article about Australia's abysmal stance on climate change. The article featured a quote from Australia's prime minister, John Harvard. hee hee.
Thursday, 29 March 2007
Coffee Crisis
I have a terrible confession to make: I kind of want to go to Starbucks.
I really don't like Starbucks. Actually, I've never really given them much thought, but I'm sure they are evil in some way. I think I mainly dislike them because my friend Lidia used to always complain about them (she is Canadian and I think she secretly thought they might one day take over from Tim Hortons, coffee chain beloved of Canadians), and also because they seem to exclusively serve horrible coffee in idiotically large sizes.
The Starbucks in Aarau is pretty, though. It is in a nice location next to a park (although admittedly half the park is taken up with a kiddy playground. There are never really any kids in it, though, possibly because the ground is covered in gravel and if you fell over you would probably lose all your skin as a consequence) and the seats they have in the shop look really comfy and there is a huge outdoor section where there is always sun shining on at least some of the tables. The tables are big and people seem to sit there for half the day with their books and newspapers and laptops and sunglasses (although perhaps only because it would take half a day to drink such an idiotically large coffee).
When Reto and I walk past we often make lame, predictable jokes about going there and ordering a grande komodo-dragon half-caf skim soy americano caramello-hazelnut frappuccino (or something equally idiotic. These jokes were funny when LA Story came out; they aren't any more). It's sad because this is what it probably would be like if we actually went there (we would order idiotic things that came in cups the size of buckets and sit there drinking them until we became lactose intolerant or died of disappointment), but it would be nice because it would be in the sun, in those comfy-looking seats.
There is a coffee shop in Aarau that I really like. It's called Gossip and it's all dark and weird (the other day they had polystyrene rabbits as decoration in one corner of the room. Bizarrely, the rabbits were facing the corner of the room as though they were being punished for being naughty. Or possibly it was supposed to be reminiscent of The Blair Witch Project. This might be more likely, actually, because the next day they had mysteriously vanished. Possibly they had been hideously killed and dismembered, not necessarily in that order. Then again, maybe they had just finished being naughty. Or maybe they were just polystyrene rabbits and I wasn't supposed to take any sort of message from them). Gossip is really cosy and nice and they always give me interesting coffee cream things with wacky pictures of camels on them (I am going to explain that one day. Suffice to say that in Switzerland it is not uncommon to whiten your coffee using very small portions of cream that come in little containers like you used to get long-life milk in) and they have recently made one side of it a non-smoking side.
I intend to resist the evil lure of Starbucks. After all, their coffee is truly hideous, and I don't like being in the sun anyway. I should try to remember that.
I really don't like Starbucks. Actually, I've never really given them much thought, but I'm sure they are evil in some way. I think I mainly dislike them because my friend Lidia used to always complain about them (she is Canadian and I think she secretly thought they might one day take over from Tim Hortons, coffee chain beloved of Canadians), and also because they seem to exclusively serve horrible coffee in idiotically large sizes.
The Starbucks in Aarau is pretty, though. It is in a nice location next to a park (although admittedly half the park is taken up with a kiddy playground. There are never really any kids in it, though, possibly because the ground is covered in gravel and if you fell over you would probably lose all your skin as a consequence) and the seats they have in the shop look really comfy and there is a huge outdoor section where there is always sun shining on at least some of the tables. The tables are big and people seem to sit there for half the day with their books and newspapers and laptops and sunglasses (although perhaps only because it would take half a day to drink such an idiotically large coffee).
When Reto and I walk past we often make lame, predictable jokes about going there and ordering a grande komodo-dragon half-caf skim soy americano caramello-hazelnut frappuccino (or something equally idiotic. These jokes were funny when LA Story came out; they aren't any more). It's sad because this is what it probably would be like if we actually went there (we would order idiotic things that came in cups the size of buckets and sit there drinking them until we became lactose intolerant or died of disappointment), but it would be nice because it would be in the sun, in those comfy-looking seats.
There is a coffee shop in Aarau that I really like. It's called Gossip and it's all dark and weird (the other day they had polystyrene rabbits as decoration in one corner of the room. Bizarrely, the rabbits were facing the corner of the room as though they were being punished for being naughty. Or possibly it was supposed to be reminiscent of The Blair Witch Project. This might be more likely, actually, because the next day they had mysteriously vanished. Possibly they had been hideously killed and dismembered, not necessarily in that order. Then again, maybe they had just finished being naughty. Or maybe they were just polystyrene rabbits and I wasn't supposed to take any sort of message from them). Gossip is really cosy and nice and they always give me interesting coffee cream things with wacky pictures of camels on them (I am going to explain that one day. Suffice to say that in Switzerland it is not uncommon to whiten your coffee using very small portions of cream that come in little containers like you used to get long-life milk in) and they have recently made one side of it a non-smoking side.
I intend to resist the evil lure of Starbucks. After all, their coffee is truly hideous, and I don't like being in the sun anyway. I should try to remember that.
Wednesday, 28 March 2007
Boring Wednesday - laundry
I've been wasting my time reading all sorts of other people's blogs lately, and since I can't think of much else to talk about here lately, I am going to blatantly steal ideas from other people and introduce Boring Wednesday, although since that has no alliterative charm at all, I am going to call it Monotonous Mittwoch (which is wednesday, people!) and talk about something uninteresting (not to be confused with recent posts).
Laundry here is confusing. The only school of laundry thought that I am familiar with is the one where you wash basically everything together in cold water. I am willing to wash some stuff on the gentle cycle, and I am even willing to do a very small amount of hand washing occasionally, but that's about it, frankly. Not here, though. Here the washing machines are covered in all sorts of stupid buttons that do all sorts of unfathomable things (I spent aaages the other day reading the manual for a weird old-fangled washing machine, trying to work out which buttons made it work properly and which were there just to confuse me. Which doesn't sound so arduous, except that the manual was in german/french/italian and frankly, I don't know any foreign words for any laundry-related terms), and Reto has some obsessive compulsive disorder about washing different things at different temperatures and with different types of laundry liquid. Which is all well and good if he wants to do the laundry, but as I am more often than not the only one doing it, I'm not sure I'm willing to play by his rules. I'm not really sure that I see the point.
Does washing stuff in warm water make any difference? As far as I can tell, the only difference is that it kills my socks more quickly. And what's the point of separating different coloured clothes? Is it to protect them from the clothes-ruining effects of washing them in warm water? Because that sounds a lot like making trouble for yourself.
Laundry here is confusing. The only school of laundry thought that I am familiar with is the one where you wash basically everything together in cold water. I am willing to wash some stuff on the gentle cycle, and I am even willing to do a very small amount of hand washing occasionally, but that's about it, frankly. Not here, though. Here the washing machines are covered in all sorts of stupid buttons that do all sorts of unfathomable things (I spent aaages the other day reading the manual for a weird old-fangled washing machine, trying to work out which buttons made it work properly and which were there just to confuse me. Which doesn't sound so arduous, except that the manual was in german/french/italian and frankly, I don't know any foreign words for any laundry-related terms), and Reto has some obsessive compulsive disorder about washing different things at different temperatures and with different types of laundry liquid. Which is all well and good if he wants to do the laundry, but as I am more often than not the only one doing it, I'm not sure I'm willing to play by his rules. I'm not really sure that I see the point.
Does washing stuff in warm water make any difference? As far as I can tell, the only difference is that it kills my socks more quickly. And what's the point of separating different coloured clothes? Is it to protect them from the clothes-ruining effects of washing them in warm water? Because that sounds a lot like making trouble for yourself.
Friday, 23 March 2007
Not A Very Interesting Tale
Owing to overwhelming requests from my adoring public, I am bringing to you a non-comprehensive, and largely non-offensive, account of Being A Spectator At A Curling Match.
You turn up. As so often happens in Switzerland, there are eating opportunities aplenty. The curling hall place is basically a small ice rink thing and a restaurant that sells allegedly the most delicious apple pie ever, but I am not in a position to either confirm or deny that. Their coffee is perfectly acceptable, though, and there is also the endless entertainment of seeing what picture you will get on the lid thing of your coffee cream thing (I seem to be haunted endlessly by camels lately. I realise that this probably doesn't make any sense. Maybe I'll clear it all up on some other slow news day).
I was expecting that the ice rink would be a normal one, ie. big and oval with small children falling over on the peripheries. The rink here is small and rectangular, all marked up with curling lines and things, and is OBVIOUSLY NOT A RINK ON WHICH ANY SORT OF NON-CURLING ACTIVITIES WILL TAKE PLACE. Not to perpetuate any unfair and outdated stereotypes, but you should remember that this is Switzerland after all, home of not having fun and then tidying up after yourself.
Curling, as I have said before, is basically lawn bowls in warmer clothes. Not that I really know how to play lawn bowls either, nor do I know what the rules are (in spite of the fact that I chose it for school sport on more than one occasion. When I wasn't busy playing golf, the other slacker's choice of low-impact torment at school. Sadly I didn't go to one of those schools where "going to the beach" or "dancing in a nightclub" was considered an acceptable sport substitute, and I'm sure that that was not only because the closest beach to my school was hundreds of kilometres away, nor that there was only one nightclub in town and if you went there you were in danger of running into your maths teacher who was out drinking more than can be appropriate for a supposed role model type, blahblahblah). Anyway. Curling is the same as lawn bowls if lawn bowls is like this:
There are 4 people on a team. You try to bowl your bowls to the target area, which is marked on the grass. The people on the other team try to knock your bowls out of the way, or they try to get their bowls closer to the middle of the target (aka the kitty) than yours are. You get a point for each of your bowls that are both within the designated target area and closer than the closest of your opponents bowls to the kitty. The captain of the team stands at the target end and tells you where to aim for by pointing in a strangely effete manner with a rake (which seems a whole weird science of its own, what with the curly nature of the path of the bowl and the fact that blocking the path of your opponents is often a better strategy than just trying to get your bowls near the kitty), and the other two team members either enthusiastically rake the grass in front of your bowl, or they don't, depending on whether the bowl needs help to get to where it is trying to go or not. And then, when everyone has had a go and points have been won (or not), you start again from the other end. And then again and again, up to 10 times until you have (finally) finished a match.
Obviously to fully understand the above as curling the following substitutions must be made: ice for grass, rocks for bowls, button for kitty, house for target area, skip for captain, broom for rake, and sweep the ice for rake the grass.
So. You sit there with your coffee and your book and you watch people bowling bowls or throwing rocks (or whatever it's called) and sweeping and strategising, and one of the first things you notice is that the only reason there are 4 people on the team is so that there are enough people to do the sweeping. Basically, whatever the first two people do with their rocks is pretty irrelevant, because they have long been knocked out of the way by the end of the match. Even the third player is a bit peripheral to the outcome, frankly.
The next thing you notice is that curling is a sport that all ages can embrace. There is lots of bending of the knees involved, so possibly it wouldn't be the sport of choice for my mother (who has one gammy knee these days, as well as a fake hip) but it seems that anyone with functional knees and a reasonable sense of balance can embrace it. The chance of being injured seems minimal, too, although Reto did have a big horrible blistery thing on his thumb after playing last weekend (very similar to a wound I once got while tenpin bowling, actually). Anyway, in a heartwarming display of community or the universal appeal of slow, dull sports, the ice was dotted with oldies and youngies and the odd person in between. Not that I am implying that my boyfriend is particularly old or young or odd.
And then ... well, I'm not sure there is a whole lot more to it, actually. They play thousands of ends and then the winning team buys the losing team some drinks and it's all very jovial and friendly. Then you go home and your allegedly sporty boyfriend uses his pathetic thumb wound as an excuse not to do the washing up.
Incidentally, on the weekend, Reto's team was trounced in their first match, and then they did the trouncing in the second one. I don't remember the scores. I was too busy reading.
You turn up. As so often happens in Switzerland, there are eating opportunities aplenty. The curling hall place is basically a small ice rink thing and a restaurant that sells allegedly the most delicious apple pie ever, but I am not in a position to either confirm or deny that. Their coffee is perfectly acceptable, though, and there is also the endless entertainment of seeing what picture you will get on the lid thing of your coffee cream thing (I seem to be haunted endlessly by camels lately. I realise that this probably doesn't make any sense. Maybe I'll clear it all up on some other slow news day).
I was expecting that the ice rink would be a normal one, ie. big and oval with small children falling over on the peripheries. The rink here is small and rectangular, all marked up with curling lines and things, and is OBVIOUSLY NOT A RINK ON WHICH ANY SORT OF NON-CURLING ACTIVITIES WILL TAKE PLACE. Not to perpetuate any unfair and outdated stereotypes, but you should remember that this is Switzerland after all, home of not having fun and then tidying up after yourself.
Curling, as I have said before, is basically lawn bowls in warmer clothes. Not that I really know how to play lawn bowls either, nor do I know what the rules are (in spite of the fact that I chose it for school sport on more than one occasion. When I wasn't busy playing golf, the other slacker's choice of low-impact torment at school. Sadly I didn't go to one of those schools where "going to the beach" or "dancing in a nightclub" was considered an acceptable sport substitute, and I'm sure that that was not only because the closest beach to my school was hundreds of kilometres away, nor that there was only one nightclub in town and if you went there you were in danger of running into your maths teacher who was out drinking more than can be appropriate for a supposed role model type, blahblahblah). Anyway. Curling is the same as lawn bowls if lawn bowls is like this:
There are 4 people on a team. You try to bowl your bowls to the target area, which is marked on the grass. The people on the other team try to knock your bowls out of the way, or they try to get their bowls closer to the middle of the target (aka the kitty) than yours are. You get a point for each of your bowls that are both within the designated target area and closer than the closest of your opponents bowls to the kitty. The captain of the team stands at the target end and tells you where to aim for by pointing in a strangely effete manner with a rake (which seems a whole weird science of its own, what with the curly nature of the path of the bowl and the fact that blocking the path of your opponents is often a better strategy than just trying to get your bowls near the kitty), and the other two team members either enthusiastically rake the grass in front of your bowl, or they don't, depending on whether the bowl needs help to get to where it is trying to go or not. And then, when everyone has had a go and points have been won (or not), you start again from the other end. And then again and again, up to 10 times until you have (finally) finished a match.
Obviously to fully understand the above as curling the following substitutions must be made: ice for grass, rocks for bowls, button for kitty, house for target area, skip for captain, broom for rake, and sweep the ice for rake the grass.
So. You sit there with your coffee and your book and you watch people bowling bowls or throwing rocks (or whatever it's called) and sweeping and strategising, and one of the first things you notice is that the only reason there are 4 people on the team is so that there are enough people to do the sweeping. Basically, whatever the first two people do with their rocks is pretty irrelevant, because they have long been knocked out of the way by the end of the match. Even the third player is a bit peripheral to the outcome, frankly.
The next thing you notice is that curling is a sport that all ages can embrace. There is lots of bending of the knees involved, so possibly it wouldn't be the sport of choice for my mother (who has one gammy knee these days, as well as a fake hip) but it seems that anyone with functional knees and a reasonable sense of balance can embrace it. The chance of being injured seems minimal, too, although Reto did have a big horrible blistery thing on his thumb after playing last weekend (very similar to a wound I once got while tenpin bowling, actually). Anyway, in a heartwarming display of community or the universal appeal of slow, dull sports, the ice was dotted with oldies and youngies and the odd person in between. Not that I am implying that my boyfriend is particularly old or young or odd.
And then ... well, I'm not sure there is a whole lot more to it, actually. They play thousands of ends and then the winning team buys the losing team some drinks and it's all very jovial and friendly. Then you go home and your allegedly sporty boyfriend uses his pathetic thumb wound as an excuse not to do the washing up.
Incidentally, on the weekend, Reto's team was trounced in their first match, and then they did the trouncing in the second one. I don't remember the scores. I was too busy reading.
Thursday, 22 March 2007
Stealing Is My Hobby
I was reading an article in the paper a while ago about books that people never get around to finishing reading. I haven't really thought about it that much, but I can't think of many books that I have started and then abandoned. The last book I read (The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion) was annoying but I kept going. The book I read before that (Freakonomics, by two people, one of whom might be called Steven) seemed kind of patronising but I kept going (although admittedly not through all the appended articles at the back). Maybe this says more about the sort of books I read than my fondness for endurance and masochism, but maybe not.
This post could now go one of two ways. My initial thinking was that it would turn into me waffling about how I generally don't abandon things half way through (which is why I had the same job for seven years, and also why I have two vaguely useless undergraduate degrees), but then I thought of several million examples of why that is wrong wroong rong, and they are all a bit depressing to reflect on, so I am not choosing that option.
Instead, this is turning into a post about my favoured method of reading. Or rather, my favoured method of choosing books to read. I like to steal them. Only from youth hostels, mind you, so it's probably not actually stealing, but it seems that little bit more exciting when you think about it that way.
Youth hostels, for those of you too old or with hygiene standards too high to know, tend to have bookshelves full of crappy books that other scummy backpackers have abandoned. Usually the selection is ridiculously small, and half comprised of things in pesky other languages that can conveniently be instantly dismissed. This is why youth hostel bookshelves are better than libraries - you have far less choice and so you are forced to read things that you perhaps wouldn't otherwise have chosen. Anyway, you choose the least offensive book you can find, you read it, you abandon it at some other youth hostel.
I started doing this in earnest in Norway, where the selection of Mills & Boone-style romance novels is remarkable. Never have I come across so many recently-bereaved widows who had married the lovely but unexciting best friend of the man they truly loved, nor so many lovingly detailed descriptions of lingerie in all my life. Sadly this isn't the case in Switzerland. Over the last few weeks I have visited about five hostels (this is part of the charm, too, wandering in and trying to look as though you are staying there and not like some scumbag who has only popped in to nick the best books then leave) and of the 5 or so books that I have taken, only one has been really good (A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, which was super). Sadly, though, it doesn't mean I haven't read them all. Which strikes me as a bit of a waste of time.
Maybe the answer is to save time by giving up on more things half wa ...
This post could now go one of two ways. My initial thinking was that it would turn into me waffling about how I generally don't abandon things half way through (which is why I had the same job for seven years, and also why I have two vaguely useless undergraduate degrees), but then I thought of several million examples of why that is wrong wroong rong, and they are all a bit depressing to reflect on, so I am not choosing that option.
Instead, this is turning into a post about my favoured method of reading. Or rather, my favoured method of choosing books to read. I like to steal them. Only from youth hostels, mind you, so it's probably not actually stealing, but it seems that little bit more exciting when you think about it that way.
Youth hostels, for those of you too old or with hygiene standards too high to know, tend to have bookshelves full of crappy books that other scummy backpackers have abandoned. Usually the selection is ridiculously small, and half comprised of things in pesky other languages that can conveniently be instantly dismissed. This is why youth hostel bookshelves are better than libraries - you have far less choice and so you are forced to read things that you perhaps wouldn't otherwise have chosen. Anyway, you choose the least offensive book you can find, you read it, you abandon it at some other youth hostel.
I started doing this in earnest in Norway, where the selection of Mills & Boone-style romance novels is remarkable. Never have I come across so many recently-bereaved widows who had married the lovely but unexciting best friend of the man they truly loved, nor so many lovingly detailed descriptions of lingerie in all my life. Sadly this isn't the case in Switzerland. Over the last few weeks I have visited about five hostels (this is part of the charm, too, wandering in and trying to look as though you are staying there and not like some scumbag who has only popped in to nick the best books then leave) and of the 5 or so books that I have taken, only one has been really good (A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, which was super). Sadly, though, it doesn't mean I haven't read them all. Which strikes me as a bit of a waste of time.
Maybe the answer is to save time by giving up on more things half wa ...
Wednesday, 21 March 2007
Veni, Vidi, Vici
In spite of what I am fairly sure was determination never to go and watch Reto curl again (never to watch Reto play curling? Never to watch Reto take part in a curling match? Never to watch Reto play some moronic sport involving gravel and ice and brooms? What is the correct terminology here?), I inadvertently went last weekend. And lived to tell the tale.
It's not a very interesting tale, and I suppose that last sentence is actually inaccurate because I have not told the tale and I have no intention of telling the tale (I can't imagine who would want to hear it), but I feel quite smug that I went, I saw, I conquered (conquered my fear of going there again, that is). I won't mention the fact that I was several hours late owing to a poorly (or perhaps not so poorly...) planned visit to the Lindt factory shop, nor that I was well armed with several books and the most expensive newspaper I have ever bought ($7!), nor that I once again didn't watch most of what went on, because that sort of information is frankly irrelevant, and might take some of the sheen off my remarkable feat of endurance.
It's not a very interesting tale, and I suppose that last sentence is actually inaccurate because I have not told the tale and I have no intention of telling the tale (I can't imagine who would want to hear it), but I feel quite smug that I went, I saw, I conquered (conquered my fear of going there again, that is). I won't mention the fact that I was several hours late owing to a poorly (or perhaps not so poorly...) planned visit to the Lindt factory shop, nor that I was well armed with several books and the most expensive newspaper I have ever bought ($7!), nor that I once again didn't watch most of what went on, because that sort of information is frankly irrelevant, and might take some of the sheen off my remarkable feat of endurance.
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