Another vacation

I'm off tonight on another foreign trip. It seems like not long ago that the planning of an overseas trip was all-time consuming and involving large amounts of discussion with most everyone you know, relaying details about where you are going and how long it took for your passport to come through. The whole concept of going some place that required a passport was somewhat mystical.

Alas, here in the land of five-weeks annual leave, people go on like two of these trips a year. And by 'these', I mean trips to far-off lands that require at least a week (if not two!) off of work. Therefore when you do go on what would be a hugely long trip by American standards, it's really not that big of a deal in these parts and it's almost expected that you do so a couple times a year. In my mind my Paris-Seattle endeavor is somewhat major. However, of the 7 people in my little group here at work, 5 people are taking at least a week off in the month of May. One guy is taking 3 weeks off. My leave is the second to shortest of the lot.

Personally, I always find that the build-up to a trip is nearly as exciting as the trip itself. While trip planning is obviously a major hobby of people in these parts, at the same time you don't feel like you need to be as selective in your choice of location, given that so many desirable locations are not too far from here, the general cheapness of flying these days, and the fact that even if it's not that great, you can give it another whirl in a few months (as opposed to the following year, as things are the the 2-week American system).

Anyways, I'm off to Paris this evening. Leaving work an hour and a half early to try and get to Heathrow in plenty of time so my bag doesn't end up in that Terminal 5 lost baggage pile with the 15,000 other bags. Like, really really hoping. Just in case, I do have a few clothing items in a backpack that I'm carrying on. Although now that I think about it, if I was really wise I might put an extra pair of shoes in there as well...

I'm looking forward to Paris. It should be, by lack of a better word, really neat. Although one major downside is that French does not manage to attain the same level as silly word-ness that the Germans do with their Ausfahrt business!

Mini-fridge

I've spent a considerable amount of time the last few weeks looking at pictures of apartments for rent on-line. And maybe it's just my price range, but there is alarming trend of places being offered with what I would categorize as a dorm fridge. Some of these places have two 'double' bedrooms, meaning it's conceivable that four people would be living there, all sharing a fridge that can barely contain a brita filter, a lump of cheese and, if you're lucky, a six-pack of beer. Wait, sorry, they don't sell beer in six-packs. So let's say a four-pack of beer. And the freezer capacity on these things roughly resembles the shape of a single frozen pizza. I'm starting to find this quite appalling. But it's really a sign of a trend I have noticed not only in apartments, but in transportation planning as well.

In the US, we generally accept that bigger is better. Which, within reason, is most likely true. Why have a single bed when you can have a double bed, why have a double bed when you can have a California king? Why have an Expedition when you can have an Excursion? Why not toss some lift on that bad boy? And don't get me started on fast food chains, with the same burger on offer with one, two or three patties.

The UK, on the other hand, seems to be quite keen on keeping things as small as possible. By this I am in no way referring to education or personal values, just hamburgers, flats, and parking lots. Well, not really hamburgers I guess. But let's add in cars.

In my line of work, a big component of what we do (and by 'we' I mean I give to the CAD guys to do), is checking out the feasibility of different architect designed parking lots to see if it's possible for cars to actually get into and out of the spots. You'd be surprised how many of them work by what is seemingly the tiniest margin, and this involves cranking the steering wheel and using the minimum turning radius, and perhaps pulling forwards and backwards several times. We give these sort of things the green line for being built. Luckily, the English also think that two-door hatchbacks that can (as in that one commercial) be parked in the tailbeds of mid-sized American pick-ups are reasonably attractive cars.

A large percentage of apartments in London are converted from old townhouses. So this means that there is no often reasonable floor plan option, so developers sort of improvise. You get bedrooms with double beds in them where it's touching the wall on three sides, you get 'single' bedrooms where you can't even fit a double bed. Kitchens are constructed with under the counter fridges (but really that's just laziness, I would gladly give up two feet of counter space for a freezer). While I realize it's more profitable to sell places as one bedrooms instead of studios or three bedrooms instead of two, I just don't envision these sorts of things ever getting off the ground in the US. Except perhaps in Manhattan, where I think these sorts of things are probably quite common.

While this really probably all comes down to the whole space issue, which is in general cheaper and more abundant, I can't help but think that sometimes people around here sell themselves a little short. Like it's really not too much to ask for a bedroom where you can climb out of bed without having to inch to the foot of the thing. Nor is it unreasonable to be able to want to store food in a city where it's so expensive to eat out! Although, I must concede that many of the little cars are very cute. Please search for the Fiat 500 for a prime example.

'Discretionary' Service Charge

I've noticed an emerging trend in English restaurants. When you get your bill, there is a discretionary service charge of usually 12.5% added on to the total, so there are two totals displayed. Now, giving guidance on how much they'd like to be tipped is one thing, but most everyone pays for meals in restaurants with cards. Being slightly in the future in the world of paying, when you plop your card down on the table, the waiter/waitress brings over this little portable device that read the pin on your card (no swiping in this parts, people!). The staff person inserts the total and then hands it over to you to type in your pin while they sometimes turn their backs so you're left trying to hand it back to them while they can't see you. Anyways, when they type in a total, they include the service charge. In what is generally a mixed blessing, sometimes you have the option of adding additional tip using the little machine, but this doesn't occur as often as you would think. So personally, pardon my English here, I find it a bit cheeky that these restaurants basically bully you into paying them a 12.5% tip and then sometimes try to get more just because you're paying with a card and have no choice in the matter, unless, that is, you are willing to loudly make a point that you do not want to pay the extra charge. But remember, these people are English and that's not how they roll.

In the US, where you typically tip between 15 and 20%, this 12.5% automatic tip might not be particularly obscene. However, the UK is a relatively tip-free society. If you are impressed with service in a restaurant, you might tip 10%, but really no more. So for restaurants to just automatically decide that they are worthy of a 12.5% tip is more like an American restaurant deciding they're going to add on a 20 to 25% tip and then give you the option of leaving more. What's especially tricky is that if you don't pay close attention, you might not notice that this sum has been added on and then leave an additional tip. It's really just a tricky, sneaky way to get more money out of people already paying exceedingly high prices to eat out, especially in London.

I can think of only one occasion where I actually evaded the discretionary service charge, and this was when I was dining at a pizza place called Fire & Stone with Chris (Hi Chris) a few months ago. Garishly showing up without a reservation, they said we could have an hour, which seemed fine. However, it took about 20 minutes for us to flag down our waiter before we could even order, and a similar scene resulted when we wanted the bill. We were therefore not particularly impressed with the service and did not feel the waiter was worthy of the 12.5% tip he graciously wanted. With service charge, the bill came to about £22, without, a little less than £20. Needless to say we plopped £20 on the table and made a run for it, well over an hour after we'd been seated and surrounded by empty tables. (Note: this experience did not hurt my overall opinion of the place, I've been back twice since then. Opinion helped by deliciousness of pizza, uniqueness in topping combinations, and Mark's ability to have acquired a never-expiring, re-usable 20% coupon for the place).

Given the increasing wily-ness of restaurants in these parts, it's advisable you keep a close eye on these things, try to carry cash, and don't let the sad look of the nicely paid waiter/waitress bully you into leaving additional tip on the little machine. Oh, and in case they don't give themselves a tip and then don't give you the option of adding one on the little machine, it's useful to have some one pound coins!

The Futon Strikes Again

So I'm going to have to move again soon. Here is a brief summary of why: when we moved into our apartment in August or September or whenever it was, there was a horrible old futon in the living room. We wanted to get rid of it, but there didn't really seem to be any way to do this as it was a furnished place. Every time you sit on it, it makes a noise like it's going to break and it's horribly uncomfortable. It's had a crack in it since we've been there, but we seemingly failed to document and photograph every single defect in furniture in the place and now the landlord things we have broken their 90 year old futon and told us to buy a new one. We said no, we didn't break your old futon and it certainly hasn't deteriorated in our tenure beyond the realm of regular wear and tear. Because of our obstinance, the landlord has given us two months notice to move out. We're like, uhhh, so you're making us move because we won't buy you a couch, seems odd, but okay. While I could write a separate, very long blog just on the insanities of our landlords, let's just sum it up and say that they're crazy, illogical and German. The manager of the estate agency even swung by on Saturday to have a look at the couch in question and sort of concurred that the couch was 90 years old and we probably didn't do anything to it, but we're not sure if he can do too much as does technically work for the landlord.

Anyways, so Mark and I have to move. And we sort of technically started our search last Saturday (and via the internet over most of last week...). Our primary issue is whether we want to stay in our current neighborhood, or perhaps seek out greener, cheaper pastures in another one. This being London and all, we've discovered that there are not really that many parts of town that A) we'd be willing to live in and B) would allow us both to get to work in reasonable amounts of time. This second point, given the sort of random non-city center locations of our works is slightly tricky and the main reason we've ended up in Fulham in the first place. This being said, we've decided that we will try and stay in Fulham so we don't have to have the added hassle of leaving our really nice gym, but if we are unable to find a place we like that we can afford, we are willing to venture elsewhere.

The elsewhere that reached the top of our list (and because there are so many areas, each full of estate agents, you need to keep your list short) was Highbury & Islington in north London. My point of reference for this part of town admittedly stems primarily from the movie About a Boy, as it's apparently the area in which the characters live, but other than that my exposure is limited. The main drag in this area is called Upper Street, and extends from Angel station in the south to Highbury & Islington station in the north, with shops, bars and restaurants (and estate agents) lining the street in between. We walked up this street on Saturday afternoon, stopping occasionally to look at restaurant menus, brace ourselves from the bitter cold and strong winds, and peak in estate agents windows. We registered some interest with a few, as we had done in Parsons Green that morning, with hopes that they would get in touch with us if something that fits our criteria should come onto the market. The area up there is really very nice, but I'm pretty sure it's no cheaper than Fulham and while Mark's commute would be pleasantly shorter, mine would be longer and require the use of multiple deep underground trains, instead of the often-broken yet cut-and-cover, often in the open district line.

Most places come on to the market shortly before they're available, so there's really nothing much out there that's available in June quite yet. Given the upcoming slew of travel, it seems the nitty gritty aspects of London apartment hunting will be delayed until mid-May, at which point I will most likely be slightly bitter towards life. But with any luck, we'll be able to find a nicer place with natural light, a bathroom tap that works and an at least somewhat sane landlord!

Black & Brown

In between rain showers on Saturday, while encased in dry yet unbelievably preppy surroundings, it finally dawned on me that mixing black and brown is indeed the fashionable thing to be doing in London these days. Now, I had noticed this before, but it has now finally been driven home. So yes indeed, if you want to be cool and trendy, it's time to start mixing your black and brown, but there are rules to be followed! Luckily I shall relay them, based on my keen observations. (Note: for females only!)

1. Black tights, brown shoes - the black tights remain a mainstay in these parts, and so to keep things fresh you have to alter what you wear with your black tights. Oh, and black tights are still most commonly worn with black skirts. Anyways, you change the shoes! Black tights provide a good backdrop for showing off your latest foot fashions in a wide variety of colors, which now seems to include any and all shades of brown. In fact, red is a bit too obvious, while brown seems to be the colo'u'r of choice amongst those that are fashionable without looking like they're trying to hard. But don't think that you can get away with wearing your matte dark brown pumps here, these shoes are generally somewhat glossy if of a darker brown, or in lighter shades of brown. I think if I was cooler I could wear my tannish t-straps with black tights and be somewhat cool, but I don't have the guts to even try. Oh, and they are generally heels when brown, but people will wear other colors in flats. It's all very confusing.

2. Black skinny jeans, brown belt - this is what I noticed while at the yuppie pub on Saturday, as there were two girls standing in my direct eye-line as I was sitting down both wearing very skinny black jeans and brown belts. I only saw one of their shoes, and they were black extremely flat slip-ons. Personally, I wasn't sure what to make of this. I still can't help but think that you shouldn't wear a brown belt with black pants. Of course, I also think that you'd have to be nuts to walk around in black skinny jeans so perhaps I'm not the best judge. They seemed to be at ease with what they were wearing, and the fact that two of them had made the same choice while dressing implied it wasn't a one-off sort of situation.

3. Black and brown bag - it's cheating a bit to list this separately, but one of the girls at this same table of uber-preppiness (it was someone's birthday, apparently, so there was a table with about 20 people at it and a load of empty bottles of Bulmers, which costs about £4 a pop) picked up her bag, and it was black with brown detailing and a brown flap. If the black jeans/brown belt girls didn't drive the trend home with me, then this bag did. I was like, what?? It's everywhere! Mix your blacks and brown!!

So let's say you want to mix brown and black, here are the finer points to keep in mind. Perhaps the most important thing is not to attempt to do so with your darkest browns, you want to make sure that it's obvious that you are purposefully mixing your shades and not give the impression you got dressed in the dark. And the other key thing is that you should use brown as an accent color to go with black, black is not used to accent brown. So brown shoes with black tights but no black shoes with brown tights.

Mark is secretly trying to start his own male black/brown trend by using brown shoelaces in his black work shoes. He claims to just not have noticed the color laces he was buying, but I think we all know he's secretly attempting to be seen as uber-chic!

The Rain in London Falls Mainly on Me

This weekend I woke to two sunny, spring days. The sun was shining, I imagine somewhere there were birds chirping, and the temperature was only mildly cool. On Saturday, still feeling quite ill from my lingering illness and thinking that going running at the gym might not be the best idea, I decided to walk up King's Road into Chelsea to go dress shopping. After the initial blasts of arctic winds, things calmed down a little bit and all was well and good. I had somehow managed to convince Mark to come, and we stopped in the Chelsea farmer's market to look over the amazing food they have on offer and lunch time and got some pleasant sandwiches, eating them while basking in sunshine. Again, all very spring-like.

A few stores later, I looked up at the dark sky and assumed we must have been getting on a bit in the afternoon. When I looked at my watch to discover it was only 1:30, I got a bit worried. Low and behold, while we were in John Lewis, we missed the majority of a rain shower, leaving just as the last drops were falling. Thinking we'd triumphed over adversity, we decided to start walking back. After not too far, it started to rain again. Quite profusely. I had promised Mark I'd buy him a coke in a pub after having dragged him to about 10 stores to look at dresses, but needed cash. We therefore passed a couple of nice pubs in the rain as I was looking for a cash machine. It eventually stopped raining just as we found a cash machine and then a pub.

Again thinking we had seen the worst of things, we continued on our way back home. It's a long walk, I'd say about an hour from the John Lewis end of the shopping street, thus allowing for seemingly endless variations in the weather. Let's just say the heavens opened up about 5 or 10 minutes from the actual Parsons Green, and despite my umbrella, we still ducked quite soaked into another pub, thunder rumbling in the distance. A moment later a giant flash of lightening and the quick succession of the thunder assured us the storm was right above us. GREAT. It stopped raining, we left, it started raining again. That sort of thing. It was not ideal.

Not feeling that well yesterday, I stayed behind while Mark went into town to try and meet up with people around the end of the marathon. He stood for 20 minutes getting soaked in the rain without being able to get a hold of anyone, turned around and left. It had been nice when he had left the house, and it was nice when he returned, just not in between. In the evening we headed to our local pizza express to use our buy one get one free coupon. Needless to say, after embarking on a calm evening, we returned huddled up under the umbrella as the heavens hurled down around us.

So what's my point exactly? That it rains in London? No, that I was prepared for. Nice Pacific Northwest kind of rain. You know, the kind where you wake up and it's cloudy all day and maybe some rain leaks out for a few minutes before it just goes back to being cloudy. I was not prepared for the quick Florida-style changes in weather that resulted in apocalyptic downpours and window-rattling thunder. I hate to break the news, but they seem to have a bit of the worst of both worlds around here... the constant cloudiness of the northwest and the stormy downpours of the east. Oh, and let's not forget the April snow. The only thing that's missing is, um, what's it called?? Oh yeah, the SUN. And they say we're in for a wetter than average summer too...

The High Street

Every town has at least one! If you've ever been to England then you know what one is, that one street in town lined with stores and crowded with shoppers (often pedestrianized!). What's also relatively well known is that 95% of all England high streets are exactly the same. Yes, that's a bit of a bold statement, but it's 100% true (I think I'm going to roll with this percentage thing, I dig it). London is big and therefore has numerous high streets, sometimes named for the neighborhood, like Kensington High Street or Fulham Road. However, the high street isn't always called the high street! In Southampton, the High Street was a bit derelict and sketchy, and the acting high street was Above Bar Street (to this day I still do not know where this bar is that the street is above, my best guess is that it is immediatly north of the Bargate) and in Chelsea it's Kings Road.

The sameness of the high streets is for the most part a bit depressing. What's the point in going to visit other towns if you inevitably end up trying to use up some time by shopping when it's exactly the same stores as in your own neighborhood. Going, 'ooh, they put the slouchy sweater display in the front of the store, by my house it's in the middle!' really only has so much appeal. I think I might make a game called high street bingo to spice these trips up a bit. These are the stores that would make the board:

Center of the board (as it's a given): WH Smith, who claim to be a stationary/book store but really aren't. It's where you buy magazines and bottles of water for the train journey home.

First column: H&M, Marks and Spencer (Simply Food or all inclusive), BHS (British Home Stores, not Brian Hemphill'S), Office (they sell shoes), Next (they sell clothes I don'tlike).

Second column: Superdrug, Monsoon, Zavvi (used to be Virgin Music), Debenhams (Deb-in-ims), Schuh (yes, they also sell shoes).

Rest of third column: TopShop, Aldo, Claire's (they're everywhere, even saw one in Switzerland), Burger King.

Fourth column: Boots, Zara, Pret a Manger, Caffe Nero, Thorntons (the fancy chocolate store, Southampton had two within about 100 yards of each other).

Fifth column: McDonald's, Subway, River Island (they sell clothes to 18 year old girl types), Wyman the Stationer (where you actually buy stationary and office supplies), Starbucks (no use in fighting it, it seems).

Hono(u)rable mention: West Cornwall Pasty Company (more likely in old-fashioned cute towns), Borders, John Lewis, Republic (not banana, but also sell clothes), Shoe Express (Payless quality footwear), Oasis (so similar to River Island in my mind they might as well be the same thing), Benetton, Fat Face (clothes that Mark likes but are overpriced), Kew (clothes for the slightly flowy crowd), Hobbs (clothes for the less flowy working mom type), Karen Miller (cute clothes you can't afford!).

And I'm sure there are many more that have just slipped my mind!

My Cultural Immersion

The longer I'm over here, the more often I find myself having little verbal 'slips' where I use the UK word for something instead of the much better in every way American word. When I catch myself using these, especially in internal monologues or when just speaking to myself, I always want to slap myself. Aside from being around a lot of these UK types all day long, I am forced to pretend to be one when writing work reports and work emails. As a result, I feel like there is pressure to conform.

The following is a list of the words I find myself slipping on:
- Post/Mail - you have to admit it's a little hard to justify calling it mail, when you send it from the post office via the US postal service or by putting a postage stamp on it, but that doesn't make it right!
- Bin/Can - well, the word 'can' means lots of things, but bin only really means the one! Although it does sound a lot like 'been'...
- Junction/Intersection - a work one that I still have trouble with in reports, like are they exactly the same?
- Tissue/Kleenex - I know Kleenex is just a brand name and we should call it tissue as well, but we don't, which is why I feel dirty inside when I do use tissue.
- Return/Round-trip - I'm torn with this one. They both make sense and are the same number of syllables, so there doesn't seem to be an easy solution. I'm forced to use this one as it impacts my travels so regularly!

Words/phrases I use despite them being overly English:
- Lovely - I just say this to be polite to people at work, I like to think I don't really mean it. I've been noticed this one occurring more often lately.
- 'Can't be bothered' - this little number I've been using for a good year now and I've forgotten what I said before. It's very handy, for example: 'I should go to the store to buy some milk, but I can't be bothered.' Or, 'I so can't be bothered to go to class right now.'

Things I refuse on principal:
- Pants/Trousers - one is one syllable, the other is two, therefore the shorter one is easier and better in every way.
- Footway/Pathway/Sidewalk - it's along the side of the road and you walk along it. It's that easy. I still don't know what the correct term is in these parts, which makes my report writing a bit sticky.

And while I'm on vocabulary, I can't help but be perplexed when the English insist on making simple words longer and more complex, like sweetcorn and beetroot. It's corn people! CORN!

Of course there are a lot more linguistic differences, and I'm sure I could expand this into something of considerable length, but the only thing you really need to know is that there is no translation for black pudding and you should avoid it all costs.

Transportation Nerds to go Transportation Nerd Land

Yesterday being your typically snowy, early-April Sunday, Mark and I found ourselves in need of some sort of indoor activity so we would have to leave the flat at some point during the day (it's just sad if you don't leave all day). While eating my toast, which clearly helps me think straight, I came up with the idea of hitting the London Transport Museum. Although I had technically been there before (in 2004), they had closed for absolutely ages and redone everything, reopening last November. This fact, along with the fact that having used London Transport considerably more than I had before my first visit, made me think a re-visit would be worthwhile.

We timed the visit to try and avoid the Olympic torch relay, which according to the news was causing mayhem wherever it went, and it was basically going right by Covent Garden. Instead we got there shortly after it had passed, so a number of people were walking towards the tube with Tibet flags and protest signs as we were walking away from it. Might I add it was freezing and a light snow was falling.

Anyways, the transport museum was relatively hopping. You learn about pre-tube days and the start of the 'omnibus' service, and luckily a lot about the tube itself. The tube map of today is almost identical to the tube map of 1920, save the additions of the Victoria line in the 1960s and the Jubilee Line sort of gradually between the 1980s and 1990s. Apparently the tube was a very popular way of getting around town in like, the 1870s, when they had first, second and third class options. There was an old first class car (magically elevated to the third floor, which I thought was impressive in its own right) with separate doors for each row and cushy seats, with a few compartments at one end of the carriage reserved for ladies only. There was also a 1920s District Line train looking rather woodsy and smelling a bit dusty, but it's upholstery has seen a lot of dirty bottoms and smokers so I suppose it's understandable.

One of my main points of grief during the visit was the amount of children running around as if it were some kind of candy store. They were clearly not there to learn about London transport history, but instead seemed preoccupied with finding levers you could pull and buttons you could press. I was even attempting to do a multiple choice trivia game when one of them walked between me and the buttons as if she was the 5 year-old owner of the place. If this were my child I would be like, no child, but none of the parents seemed to care that this sort of thing went on. The same thing happened when we were learning about water pumps in Munich, actually, when some kid actually came and took something out of Mark's hand as if he didn't actually notice he was there. Not impressive people.

There is of course a very nice gift shop attached to the place that had remained open during the renovation, but it held little post-museum draw for me as I've been shopping there regularly for some time now. As a side note, you'll find many gift opportunities for transportation nerds in that place.

Overall, I would recommend the museum. However, be prepared for your learning to be constantly interrupting and the placard you are attempting to read being constantly blocked by a child who is pushing a button with little regard to what the display is actually trying to show you (like how they dealt with steam back before they used electric underground trains). Oh, but it's a good place to go if you want to see creepy mannequins dressed in period costumes!

relationships

Margo's off to a site visit for a project shes working on today so asked me on the tube this morning if i would write a blog entry! so apologies if it isnt up to scratch!

so the topic is relationships, in particular country to country relationships. Margo forwarded some statistics i think her mom sent her which were quite interesting and in it it spoke about the UK's special relationship with the US. Now we both questioned this special relationship on the tube together - yes we have some interesting convos! (dont mention when i started talking about convection and conduction before bed one night and by the time id finished margo was pretty much asleep!) Anyways coming from a UK perspective i think the UK has many relationships with other countries in the world - i guess the main ones would be the commonwealth - like in particular Australia. There is also Europe - now Europe is an interesting topic...like many including some senior politicians in Germany and France and the UK would want to make it the United States of Europe and in my uneducated opinion this is probably the only way Europe will have any political say after the rise of China and maybe India with the US as world powers in the future. However it is very unlikely to happen in my life time mainly due to history. Anyways today the UK's relationship with Europe is interesting. I am very pro europe but many are not - for some reason many don't want the single currency because the currency will lose our national identity - i'm like so what! it is not your currency that makes you who you are...but anyways we are still very close to countries in Europe, especially if you listened to what the french president said beneth huge paintings of the battle of Waterloo and Trafalgar in London a couple weeks ago!

but then there is always this relatinship with the US. Now i think there is a relationship there but i would question whether it was 'special'. I know culturally we are definatley closer to parts of America than parts of Europe but this is probably due to language. I'm not sure its an interesting one. I think it is important though that both the UK and the US continue to be good friends....

i'll stop now as its getting a bit boring and id better start work!

Switzerland

I have returned from the Alps unscathed and unsunburned (is that even a word?). Here is a brief rundown on my activities and experiences.

Thursday: flew to Zurich via Swiss Air, avoiding utter chaos that was going on in what I shall call the terminal 5 debacle at Heathrow. Spent a few hours being driven through what could have easily been mistaken for Oregon to get to Lauterbrunnen, near Interlaken. Was disappointed that much of the in-between was filled with industrial and commercial buildings where aluminum siding reigned as king. Lauterbrunnen, luckily, was primarily composed of chalet-looking huts nestled into the hillside on the sides of the valley. Oh, and had a small case of sticker shock when I paid 3.40 swiss francs for a 1/2 liter of coke, roughly... $3.40. Became acquainted with the local beer, Rugenbrau, which is brewed in Interlaken and is really your only option well, everywhere that I went. Luckily it was pretty good.

Friday: after all you can eat breakfast situation where I felt like a coffee fiend as the glasses held only about 3 oz and my normal morning mug is 18 oz. Went up to Wengen to watch others rent skis, went to the top of the mountain, others left to ski while I had a brief meander then took the train down the other side of the mountain to see what went on. It was around 12 and all the stores were closed for lunch, so things were not lively. Went to meet skiers for lunch at slightly extortionate restaurant conveniently located next to a train station at the bottom of a ski run. After lunch, went back over the top of the mountain to pick up cookies from my hotel room to take to the apres ski meet-up. This took approximately 2 and 1/2 hours. Mark became concerned at my lack of arrival at apres ski in Wengen, and we handily waved at each other as my train climbing towards Wengen passed his train heading to Lauterbrunnen.

Saturday: after another massive all you can eat breakfast situation, hid Mark's ski boots and dragged him up to the highest point in Europe accessible without having to exercise, Jungfraunoch. Or something like that. It's over 11,000 feet high (think we peaked at 11,700). It was us and Japanese tour groups. It was a bit odd. Anyways, it was cold and windy, but breathtaking (literally, the air was quite thin up there) and very beautiful. Photos can be seen on picasa. We were up top for about 2 hours, nearly half of which was sent sitting on some very comfortable chairs staring out the window, catching our breath. We then had a quick lunch in Wengen and looked around some shops, where we purchased a lovely cowbell for our souvenir cabinet. Apres ski was in Lauterbrunnen that day at the round table in the bar. You should all be aware that it is a privilege, not a right, to sit at the round table in the bar.

Sunday: after my daily ham and swiss cheese breakfast roll, the skiers shipped off up the mountain and I went the opposite direction to Interlaken. This was primarily so I could mark Interlaken on the 'where I've been map' on facebook. There are lots of cute hotels in Interlaken, but no people as they were all skiing. The shops were closed, but McDonalds and Hooters were both open. Some people were sitting outside in the sunshine enjoying the, um, wings. Was continuously befuddled by the fact that, even when closed, stores kept out their sidewalk displays. It was very tempting to start stealing postcards and things as it was impossible to acquire them by any other means. Found one open shop but it had a distinct Deliverance vibe to it and was just happy to escape with my life. Took train back to Lauterbrunnen, hotel room wasn't clean yet so felt obliged to leave again. Took the aerial tram up to Murren, which was on the opposite side of the valley as Wengen (with Lauterbrunnen in the middle). Was very pretty but alas, everything was shut and the place was pretty much abandoned except for the 70-something set carrying walking sticks. Eventually went to apres ski in Wengen.

Monday: after dropping two croissants during my breakfast eating attempts, sat around hotel for a few hours before heading towards the airport. Stopped at a service station that involved what was essentially a mall straddling the freeway. Next to the bathrooms there was a very open, um, 'adult' shop, which I thought was not a good place to put such a thing as it was where everyone waited for their other party members to come out of the bathroom. I could only imagine the questions kids waiting there for long would came up with to ask their parents. Flew back to London, where it was suddenly spring time and all was sunny and relatively warm.

So that's my Swiss alpine adventure. Things I enjoyed: that when I mentally thought of something as an alpine village, I was able to think, yes, actually, it is an alpine village; the German word for 'exit' on freeway off-ramps is 'ausfahrt'; it was very pretty. Things I didn't enjoy: the stores were never open, making it less than entertaining for non-skiers during the day time; being a ski resort-like area, everywhere could get away with charging extortionate prices; the glasses for coffee and orange juice at breakfast were tiny. Oh, and the stores aren't closed so the owners could take disco naps, nothing seemed to go on in the way of night-life either. We were continually the last people at dinner, having sat down at 7:15. I have no idea where everyone went.

Anyways, pictures are up, captioned and everything, on picasa. Above photo was taken at approximately 11,700 feet.