Cooling!

The big news today is that I was finally able to procure a couple of fans. Of course the weather has cooled off now. But, I'm still happy to have a breeze.

Hot

It has been so hot here this week. Of course, I have no air conditioning and lots of windows to let the sunlight in. In fact, it's been so hot that they closed work early one day this week to give us a break. Unfortunately, what I have now termed Operation Provide Cooling has been a total failure. All the stores around are completely sold out of fans and air conditioners. Ugh, at least it looks like there might be some relief for the weekend.

Back from Switzerland!

"Here's a towel, in case of a rockslide"...
That is what the guy selling the tickets for the cable car told me. It was comforting to know that the Swiss obviously are familiar with Hitchhiker's. A towel is, after all, the one thing you should never be without. Some might question the effectiveness of a towel against tonnes of hurtling rock; they might think a helicopter and crack team of St. Bernards standing by would be preferable, but not me. (By the way, there were a few small rockslides and an avalanche)

Here is an image from out in front of the hotel.

Yes, it's our very own avalanche bunker! Please wait here on this lovely wooden bench and our first available rescue crew will be with you to dig you out.

My first day of hiking I thought I'd start out easy and so I hiked down a 3000m mountain. I was totally destroyed and spent the rest of my trip recovering from this. On the plus side, look where I had lunch!


The next day I spent recovering by driving over some of the great moutain passes. There are some really fun roads, but I have to say having a turbo really felt like cheating. Those other guys didn't stand a chance.

On the Rösti front, I have to concede that there was some disappointment. It just wasn't the greasy heap of cheesy potato goodness in a skillet that I remembered from the past. Oh well.

The rest of the trip was spent doing hikes of various lengths depending on how lame I felt from the previous days. Every day I was able to touch snow. This is key, because there's something that's just not right about a July without snow. The other main theme of the hikes was a tour of backcountry restaurants. Quite a civilised way of seeing the country. There was, however, the incident with the demonic cows giving me the evil eye:


There was also the free range pork incident for those who have an intrest in these things:


But, most enlightening of all was the sign at the end of the universe:

That's right, the wearing of high heels before you leap off a precipice is strictly forbidden. (Up until the prceipice it is obviously ok).

The rest of the pictures from this adventure can be found here.

Vacation!

Today I head off on my Swiss vacation for a week. Rosti, fondue, here we come! The plan for now is to spend good weather days hiking followed by lounging around the hotel terrace eating said rosti and fondue. Haven't decided exactly which hikes I will do. I'm considering some pretty ambitious ones, which may be foolhardy. For sure I will make a point of visiting snow. What is July without snow?? I'll pretty much wing it when I get there I think. Don't worry, I can pretty much promise lots of good pics when I get back.

Eventful weekend

This weekend was planned as a stay at home weekend to clean and plan for my vacation to Switzerland. It was slightly more action filled than that.

Friday I went out with a herd (yes there was enough to qualify as a herd) of S. Africans. An entire lifetime's worth of afrikaans in one evening! First, to a party cruise around Amsterdam; so I now can cross off canal cruise from my list of typical Amsterdam things to do. Second, to a Brazilian nightclub for an evening of as close as I get to dancing... Friday night in Amsterdam is everything you would expect, police, paddy wagons, guys peeing in the square, and 33euro parking fees. To thank me for my visit, they closed the A44 down on me again...

Saturday I was rudely awoken just past noon, depriving me of my 8hours of sleep. Then off to a latin dance show/party. Excellent dancing made for fun watching and I met a Zambian girl to cap off a diverse weekend.

Results

Now that the WK is over the votes have been tallied: one against the new colour scheme and one abstention. Thus, on the basis of a solid plurality, the old colour scheme has been restored.

Air Show

Well, it was almost a month ago now, but I went up to the airshow in Leeuwarden. The interesting thing about this is that provided me a chance to learn the hard way that quite often here part of your train will go one way and the other part will go a different way. I know, it doesn't make much sense, but that's small consolation when you're running down the platform to get back into the right part of your train.

The airshow was quite good and quite well attended. The Jordanians, Swiss, French, and Blue Angels were all very good. Exiting the airfield was interesting. It reminded me a bit of a refugee march. A hundred-thousand people hiking overland through a field, while helicopters circle overhead, soldiers with megaphones shout unintelligible things, and the Red Cross handing out bottles of water. Interesting.

A bazillion pics are here.