Memorial Weekend Camping
Mood:  hungry
Now Playing: The Cubicle Hum
Topic: Travel
Camping got off to a rough start. Late Friday night one of the belts in Travis’ car broke and it’s a belt most places don’t keep in stock. We had to wait Saturday until service places opened to call around and find one. He was lucky that there was one near by that had the belt in stock. Getting the belt and getting installed was a pain (I won’t go into all the details). We finally got on the road around 1:30 (as opposed to 9 or 10 as intended).

We stop at a ranger station on our way up to Serene Lake just to check on the conditions. The ranger said it was still under 3-4 ft of snow. Okay, there goes that plan. She recommended we head to Bull of the Woods Wilderness and gave us a map. So we head that way hoping that lots of other people were not also doing that. There were several options for us and we choose the Pansy Lake area because if we got there and there were lots of people we could continue on to some other lakes until we found one with few people. We talked to somebody at the trailhead who said that Pansy Lake was pretty crowded when they went by and that it was also pretty snowy further in so they turned around and left. We decide to head up anyway. By this time it was about 3pm. We get to a split in the trail about ? mile in (before the lake) and decide to head up towards Dickey Lake rather than Pansy Lake (Travis was having an issue with any lake named Pansy). The hike was extremely beautiful but quickly headed up in elevation. Remember – we have gear for backpacking with us (tents, sleeping bags, etc). Travis’ pack was probably in the 55-60 pound range and mine significantly less but still a bit heavy for the first trip of the season. We hit a few snow patches but it was packed so relatively easy to navigate over. It appeared there was no easy access to Dickey Lake from the trail and we continued on. Travis noted on the map that there appeared to be a nice secluded little lake off the trail a ways ahead of us. I mentioned that it looked like a fairly steep descent down to it based on my mad map reading skills meaning that it would be a fairly steep ASCENT the next day with our heavy packs.

We get to the top of the ridge and yes, it was extremely steep. Does this prevent Travis from wanting to hike down there? Of course not. We start descending with our packs pretty much sliding most of the way. Luckily for me, I had my trekking poles which made a world of difference. About 50 feet down and lots of bitching by me, we see no sign of the bottom or a lake. We decide to deposit the packs and go a bit further down to scout it out. We mark our path with bits of an old milk jug to make certain we can find our packs again. We finally get close to the bottom and see the lake. Quite a stunning location. Too bad it was surrounded by thick snow! We sat there for awhile lamenting all our hiking troubles caused by snow. I think the snow gods have it out for us. We start heading back up the trail. We reach our packs and then the real fun begins lugging them up the 50 feet we had gone down with them initially. I think my trekking poles saved my life several times over. Travis had a heck of a time with his back and had to basically toss it up one step at a time since wearing it would have been too dangerous with that steep of a slope.

We finally get back to the trail (which I should mention has frequent downed trees that we have to climb over) and decided to continue up toward the lookout. One person we passed on the trail said that only one group is camping up there. We hoped to find another spot and camp there for the night. Travis puts on his pack, tightens the waist band and *snap*. The buckle broke. Fabulous. NOT what you want with a 60 pound pack It’s quite a bit further UP than I had anticipated but eventually we make it. While quite stunning, there were no other spots where we’d be able to set up for the night. We eat some food and rest for a bit before continuing on the trail in search of a flat area to set camp. At this point we also notice that our map has disappeared. It must have fallen out of the pack unnoticed so now we have to go by memory following the trails. Some threatening rain clouds had moved in and our light was quickly disappearing. We decided to continue on the “loop” trail which should get us down the mountain. Luckily, the trail is now descending and/or flat so the difficulty decreases. Unfortunately, it doesn’t descend very quickly and seems to go on and on and on and on. We’re getting tired and sore. And the trail goes on. The sun sets. Headlamps go on. Hiking in the dark ensues. With the setting sun, we now get a chorus of frogs from a lake below. The sound was truly amazing and kept us moving as we knew the louder they got, the closer to the lake we were which meant a potential place to stop for the night.

We reached a trail intersection and searched for a sign. To the left was Pansy Lake (the lake we were trying to avoid in the first place. One mile to the right – the road we arrived on. We looked at each other and said to hell with it. Let’s go back and sleep in the car. We knew the lake was crowded and didn’t want to hike the rest of the way (in the dark) there only to find out there are no spots. We get to the car, take off our packs and breathe a huge sigh of relief. We rest in the front seats for a bit then decide to head up the road a little to find a turn off where we could park and sleep in privacy. At this point Travis’ shoulder started stiffening and almost totally seized up – serious pain and lack of movement. He popped an ibuprofen and we continued up the road. We found a brush covered road to turn onto and after a couple hundred feet a log stopped our progress. We said that’s good enough, pushed down the back seats, cracked the windows to release our sweaty stench and crashed. We fell asleep to another frog serenade around 10:30 pm. Yes, we had been on the trail for about 7 hours.

In the late morning we wake up to find a great little pond just on the other side of the tree. We make coffee and head home.

Travis’ shoulder was quite a bit better the next day. The muscles were still fairly tight so I tried to massage them out. Carrying the pack without the waist support really did a number on him. I’m just sore all over – nothing particularly bad. All in all, it was beautiful, we did get away and it wasn’t a bad trip – just not quite what we were expecting! We had expected that the loop was about 4 hrs and couldn’t believe it took us so long even with our little side jaunt and a few stops along the way. We looked up the trail when we got home to find out it was 7.5 miles with a 2,000 foot elevation gain. Yikes! That made us feel quite a bit better about the trip and that we weren’t the “pansies” we were thinking we were!

Seafood & Wine
Mood:  a-ok
Topic: Travel
Well it can't get much better than that! I spent the weekend with 13 strangers in Newport. I had actually met a few of them at a Halloween party last year so they weren't completely strange. :-) The main goal was to hit up the Seafood and Wine Festival there - I had never been. It was quite the experience as it was a particularly stormy weekend and the fest was in a big tent that you would swear was ready to blow down any second. Of course after hitting up a few wine booths you stopped noticing that! Saturday we were up until 4am playing pool, ping pong and putting together the puzzle that wouldn't die. I neglected bringing my camera so no pics for you.

I got another call about a potential job today. Even if I don't get a job right away at least I know my resume is worth calling about.

Zurich Jan 21
Mood:  a-ok
Topic: Travel
Jan 21 (a day late and many dollars short!)

It is Monday morning (the 22nd) here in Zurich. We are pretty much packed and ready to head off for the airport but I have a little time to kill so I figured I’d write about yesterday.

There really aren’t a lot of specifics. We had bought a Swiss Pass which allows you on pretty much any of the railways anywhere in the country for a 24 hour time period. At first I had thought about Lugano which is down in the Italian speaking section of Switzerland with a ride thru the Alps. I then read that the journey while scenic, is not the best. Instead we decided to head to Interlaken. Basically it is a little town situated between two lakes with the Alps looming over it. If we had time I thought we could head up into these two other small towns that looked amazing. Our first stop was back in Luzern though since we didn’t get that much time there Saturday. We did some shopping and mom got some additional photos.

While waiting for our train to Interlaken we headed over to Coop to grab a sandwich for lunch. As we approached that end of the station there was this horrible, god-awful, retching smell. We came up on a little booth selling plates of raclette. Remember a few blogs ago I thought I wanted to try that. Uh yeah, NEVER WILL I EAT THAT SHIT! Honestly, it is hard to even describe. Here is what mom said: “it smells like a 40 day old, worn by every member of a football team, yeasty, sour jockstrap”. While I’ve never actually smelled a jockstrap I can imagine that is pretty horrendous. We hightailed it past the booth into the coop where the smell permeated in there. We grabbed sandwiches, Cokes and Pringles then booked it back through the station until we could find a bench where we couldn’t smell the stuff. However, seeing as how I swore I kept smelling it periodically throughout the day I think it must have burned into my nostrils.

Anyway, on to Interlaken. The scenery was amazing which is the entire reason we even took this train ride. We didn’t feel like over-exerting ourselves but wanted to take in more of the countryside. I don’t have pics along the way mostly because I didn’t feel like taking them. :-) I did find interesting the mix of old and new. Spotted around the hills are these houses you know are several hundred years old, very Swiss-like and there is a little Smart Car or BMW parked in the driveway. It was just an odd picture. And the places they build houses? As far up the sides of hills and mountains that you can see. I’m surprised they don’t get washed down the hills.

We arrived in Interlaken later in the afternoon than I anticipated. The town was okay. It took us 20 minutes to walk from one end to the other. It was extremely touristy (as the book mentioned). Unfortunately, it was pretty cloudy so we couldn’t see all the mountains I had hoped too. It was also too late to head up to the other towns. There were some magnificent old hotels and you could tell that back in the day this was quite the ritzy place for the wealthy to get away. Now it has silly shops and some ugly more modern hotels.

Our next planned stop was in Bern, the capital of Switzerland. We got there around 4:30pm and it was starting to get dark. We decided to say screw it and just went back to Zurich which would give us time to get a decent dinner. The train ride from Bern to Zurich wasn’t very scenic and it was dark about half way through. For dinner I took mom to the place that was the old armory where I had eaten lunch before. Mom had the sausage variety platter with rosti and dark beer and I had cordon bleu with rosti and wine. It was a good last dinner here.

We have a few more pics of Luzern and Interlaken to post but I’ll do that once I get home.

We now have about a half hour until we have to leave for the airport. I should be back in Portland around 9pm on Monday. Yay!!

Zurich January 19
Mood:  accident prone
Topic: Travel
**7:19**
Today is a tourist day. Yay! I’m actually laying here in bed trying to get the motivation to move. There is some construction going on outside the hotel so every morning at 6am they start all this awful noise. Oooh – just sounded like a dump load of broken glass. Lovely. Plus, I think all the buildings here are kept at a temp of 80 freaking degrees. So hot. Luckily the windows open so we can cool our room down.

Gmail is not the mail to have overseas. At least not here. It never renders fully and tells me that it is taking too long to load so I have to use the basic HTML view. That’s fine but then when I open a message and if it is long and goes past the bottom of the page I can’t read it because there is no scroll bar. I can only read it if I hit the reply button. This morning I can’t even get the basic HTML to load. Blah. I’m sure nobody emailed me since last night anyway.

Interesting. I just got into gmail via the Google Switzerland site. Still had to go with basic HTML rendering though.

**20:23**
Oh my lovelies – quite the day… We headed out for the trolley tour around 9:15. The weather was quite cool and windy. The trolley was fun, got to see lots of the city including areas where the locals live. There was a couple on the bus from Ft Lauderdale who were freezing their ass off. We went by churches and got to go into one that mom had already been in with the stained glass by Marc Chagall. It was quite beautiful. I took a lot of pics on the trolley but they are blurry. I figured I’ll post them anyway so you can get the feeling. :-) Some things we learned about Zurich and Switzerland on the trolley:

Extremely high taxes
70% of Zurich residents rent
Very few houses seem to have yards
There is not a nationwide school system – each canton develops it’s own system (including starting ages)

After the trolley we came back to the hotel first stopping to pick up some baked chicken thighs, potatoes-gratin and green beans. Quite the feast! We then headed out to catch a train to Rapperswil where there is a Medieval castle (I almost said old medieval but realized that was kinda stupid). It took us awhile to even figure out which freaking train to catch and where but eventually we were on our way. We went thru some great little towns along the lake that looked like the Switzerland I imagined. I had a sudden urge to put shutters on all my windows but I know that would look ridiculous on my house. When we got to Rapperswil and stepped out of the train it was freaking COLD. And windy. Yikes. We found the visitors center since we had no idea what we were doing or where to go. Guess what? The castle was closed. Yeah. But we were still able to walk to it and take pictures of it from the outside and in the courtyard. It was pretty cool. We walked by a monastery that was interesting and it had a hill side planted up with roses (not blooming of course) but the way it was designed was interesting. We then had a cappuccino in a pizzeria filled with Italians. They all looked like they were part of the mob!

We then got on another train to cross the lake into Pfaffikon which is where Alpamare is. We boarded a bus that took us up to a shopping center where we then had to weave our way thru some walkways to find Alpamare. This place turned out pretty cool too. After figuring out where to change, shower and then how to get to the pools (no signs in English at all) we finally got into the iodine-brine pool which was a slight tint of reddish brown. Weird. It was really warm (36C) though and felt great. They had these lounges in the pool that you could lay on and the Jacuzzi bubbles would come up under you.

After a bit we decided to check out other spots. We started to go into this Rio Mare which on the brochure looked warm and had a current that floated you along the edge overlooking the town. Well it felt rather cool after the other pool so we hopped out. Then we saw this water ride where you sit on an innertube and slide down stopping in little pools along the way. It looked pretty fun and an easy ride down so we got a tube and headed down. Okay, easy ride is NOT the right term. It was freaking FAST. And a little scary. It looks like you would just slide down nice and smooth but that was not the case. It was hard to even stay on the tube. Anyway, I get to the last slide part (Mom was up a few from me) and it looked short. I was thankful for the end. I set off and at the bottom the water dips down and suddenly I was upside down in the water whacked the top of my head on the bottom of the pool, scraped my knee and swallowed a gallon of chlorine. Yeah, we’re having fun now. After I determined I wasn’t going to die and breathed in some fabulous oxygen I sat there waiting for mom so I could warn her. She couldn’t hear me of course… She made it down and fell off the tube but she didn’t go under like I did. I now have a bit of a knot on my head and my knee hurts like hell with some nice chunks of skin removed. Mom swears it looks like there is a black mark under my eye (perhaps where my glasses pushed into my face) but I don’t see it. We then went back to the Rio Mare pool which felt much warmer. It was pretty spiffy because the current really does take you along the edge. I was missing my noodle from home though since I do NOT float very well. It was quite pretty with the view and I can just imagine how it might be if the skies were clear and you could see the Alps.

After that we headed to the thermal pool but saw that they finally had waves going in the big wave pool. So we hopped in there – that was a blast for the short time they it going. We hung out in the thermal pool (30C) before heading for the sauna. THAT was nice. It had some citrusy scent and felt amazing. Post-sauna we were finished and hopped a bus and train back to Zurich (30 minute trip). It was dark so then we got to see some of the towns all lit up which was very pretty. Now we are going to make dinner in the kitchenette here (tortellini and salad) before crashing.

Oh, on a very potentially disturbing note, with the high winds they have been having there is a possibility that our Titlis trip up the mountain could get canceled. This would royally piss me off. The trolley tour guy said that his company who does the same tour had to cancel it today because of the winds. Personally, I think the local winds have died down a bit this evening so I hope the same is true for the mountains and we can still go. If not, I have no idea what we’ll do. I will try to post my pics after dinner but I can’t guarantee it. I’m tired and this Strongbow is gonna put me under.

Zurich January 17
Mood:  chillin'
Now Playing: noises from the street
Topic: Travel
**9:18**
Es ist Mittwoch! Yay!

Mom arrived safely yesterday and we are now in a new hotel/guesthouse place. Turns out that it is not all it is cracked up to be on the website (of course). First of, they don’t speak English. At all. And they don’t speak German. They are Portuguese. Yes, you read that right. I guess there was one gal that mom saw yesterday who was able to do some translating. Anyway, I get there and they needed my credit card plus I wanted to pay for wireless access. Well trying to get that across was difficult enough but eventually we got it figured out and she gave me the password. Yeah, that’s a huge help since it refuses to even let me connect to the network despite an excellent signal. So I’m getting my money back for that. I’ll either use the per minute charge for the computer they have or walk over to the rail station and use the Swiss-Com hotspot which is what I was able to use at the other hotel. The only problem is that I HAVE to have a plug because the battery in my laptop doesn’t hold a charge anymore. I tried to get a new one before I left but since it is a couple years old it would have to be ordered and I wouldn’t have gotten it on time. I debate whether or not to just get a new, smaller, cheaper, laptop that isn’t as powerful as this one since I don’t use it as my main computer anymore. Just for travelling. Then again, I don’t do that much travelling that I really need one but it is nice to have it. There are other issues with it too – I think the fan is going out. It makes a pretty awful sound sometimes.

**10:19**
These pants look ridiculous on me. I thought I’d be able to get some laundry done last night since the website of the hotel made it sound as if there were laundry facilities we could use ourselves. Nope – they do it for you. We’re not allowed to touch it. So I had to wear these older pants I have that I thought fit okay before I left. Now I realize they are way too big and baggy. It just looks ridiculous (to repeat myself). Oh well.

**10:35**
Everyone keeps telling me how safe Zurich is, hardly any crime, blah blah blah. And I believe them – I felt completely safe walking home from the pub at midnight last Saturday. However, as with any place it does have it’s share of loons. Mom and I were walking down Bahnhofstrasse going to get dinner. Suddenly this guy runs up to one of those little fold-over signs sitting on the sidewalk and kicks it VERY forcefully! Then he makes his way down the sidewalk kicking all the other ones. He walks by this older lady and for a second we both thought he was going to hit her. It was a little freaky. Needless to say, we decided to go the opposite direction of where he was headed.

**13:08**
I know you are all dying to find out what was for lunch today… We went to another cafeteria style place where you had 4 options. Penne w/marinara (looked completely bland), wienerschnitzel and fries, lamb pieces in a gravy with spatzle, or a sausage sliced open with cheese in the middle wrapped in bacon along with fried squares of potatoes. I know all your mouths are watering right now… ha ha. So what did this good little WW girl do? I got the sausage with cheese and bacon. Yeah, that’s right. I do have to say it came with cauliflower which I ate all of although it did have these yellow bits in that I think might have been egg but I’m not really sure. It was weird but at least it was a veggie.

**13:23**
So I have to tell you about this one guy here. I don’t know who he is or who he works for but he started coming to lunch with us last Friday. I am quite certain he is either local or from somewhere in Switzerland/Germany. Anyway, he has got the craziest freaking hair - think Nick Nolte’s mug shot only longer and curlier. It’s giant. He’s a fairly big guy too. He usually dresses pretty casual (jeans and shirt) but yesterday he had on these black jeans. From the knees down they were covered in dog hair. Literally covered. Today he had on a dark blue t-shirt with about 3 BIG dark stains. Kinda oily looking. If he is local he is one of the exceptions that is for certain. Most people I see are uber-professional looking in their black suits or any other Manhattan black clothing.

**14:40**
The MS guy came back this afternoon. He sure talks loud on the phone. There is some issue he is having with a server and trying to get somebody else to help him. I almost wish he was speaking in German because then it might be easier to ignore it but no, he’s talking in English. The guy on the other line sounds Indian. Only one day and about 3.5 more hours of this. Yay!

Now he’s on the pc, talking on a normal phone, looking at his laptop and his smartphone keeps buzzing. Lovely.

**14:54**
You’d think the loud voice would keep me awake. Not so. I was tossing and turning last night as I have been many nights that I’ve been here so I’m exhausted yet again. Mom was very sweet though and demanded a coffee maker for the room (as advertised but really they just supply instant coffee) as she brought some of my good coffee from home. It was so fabulous this morning!

**15:39**
So sleepy. I think the MS guy is heading out in a few though so that’s good. I can nod off in quiet. Ugh, I wish. I really need a nap. But I suppose there is time for that when I get back to Portland.

**15:55**
A little jaunt upstairs for some coffee and I’m slightly more awake. I’m sure it will last a mere 20 minutes or so…

**16:10**
Classic DMB. “Ants Marching” Makes me happy.

**16:20**
MS guy finally left. I don’t think he’ll be back tomorrow. I’m sure all my fidgeting annoyed him. Btw, I thought I’d let you all know that you should be honoured I keep fixing all my typos from this stupid ass keyboard. If I didn’t you probably wouldn’t be able to read any of it.

**17:35**
So I figured out this morning that I can actually get to both my angelfire blog and my myspace blog from the office. Of course I can’t click on anything in the mail area of myspace because it warns me that it is blocked due to it being a mail service. Geesh. But at least I was able to post yesterday’s blog. If I can’t get internet back at the hotel later I’ll just have to post this one tomorrow morning. It drives me crazy not being able to get to my email though.

**21:18**
Internet success! First mom and I went over to the train station to get food and so I could connect to their hotspot. Unfortunately I couldn’t find any plugs. Thoroughly irritated we came back to the hotel with fish and calamari. They office people decided to open back up and we tried to explain about the internet again and questioned where the other half of my laundry was since some was hanging in the bathroom and the rest was gone. The Portugeuse lady called somebody on the phone, talked for awhile, then handed the phone to me. Apparently that was the owner who DOES speak English so he explained that they used two different machines so I will get the rest back tomorrow. Whatever. Then the lady got me a cable to use the Ethernet connection. Must be a special cable or they activated the port because I had tried that earlier with my own cable. Oh well. I’ve got internet and now I’m happy so I will post this and then read my book.

Zurich Jan 16
Mood:  rushed
Topic: Travel
NOTE to all readers! The new hotel I'm at doesn't seem to like to let me connnect to the internet. Therefore my blog and email responses may be lacking for a bit until I figure out something else.
***************************************************

**09:21**
Holy Scheist! I just went in the other room to ask the client to grant me permissions on the new test site. He pops open a new IE session and you know what his homepage was? Porn. Girls with big boobs staring right at me. I realize sex stuff is more relaxed in this part of the world but come on, as your default homepage at work?

I’m totally buzzed on caffeine this morning as I had a banana and a Red Bull in my room then had some mystery lunch meat (my last time – sad) and coffee in the breakfast room. I’m moving to the new hotel this evening after work. Mom is meeting me at my old hotel to grab my bag so that she can then let me in the new one. The new one is more of a “guesthouse” so there isn’t a concierge on site all the time and if there isn’t you can’t even get into the building.

**10:13**
Yikes! I just took a look at myself in the bathroom mirror – my hair was all over the place! It was a bit windy on the walk here this morning but I hadn’t realized what it did. Ha ha. I can tell it is going to be another long day. All the same testing but on a new environment. The only interesting part is finding out where we are going to lunch. Everyday it is someplace new. Mom should be sitting in Frankfurt by now waiting for her flight here. It stinks she has a 3+ hour layover there when I only had 1.5 hrs. I guess the earlier flight between Frankfurt and Zurich was booked - probably business travellers. It’s only 30 minute flight. Alex told me today that his 2.5 hr flight from the Ukraine cost about $550 (US). Mom’s flight from Portland was only a bit over $600. Crazy.

**10:43**
Yeah, long day.

**11:17**
Agh! This testing is really driving me batty. I’m getting myself all confused. There are things that were fixed on the old environment that aren’t on this one, things that were broken on the old one that work on the new one… WTH? How do they do that? Really? Lunchtime is coming up. Maybe that will help clear my head.

**11:52**
Bah! Still haven’t left for lunch. Mystery meat is just not that satisfying (usually)…

**13:30**
Mom should be worming her way through the airport about now trying to find the trains (I hope). That place is a little crazy. Lunch was good – went to a cafeteria style place again only much nicer than yesterdays. Had some gnocchi with a gorgonzola sauce.

**13:47**
Wow! I actually got a mint out on the first try. And a second wow! I actually typed the y’s without first typing z on that first sentence. The immediately previous sentence I was not so lucky on.

**14:13**
. I have this weird burn-like mark on my right index finger. Very small and round – not much bigger than a normal sized zit. I wonder where it came from. The big boss is over in the next room. Makes me nervous as he doesn’t really like us all that much.

**14:56**
Bah! They just stuck some other guy next to me. I don’t know why he can’t use one of the other computers. I must type in white lettering now… :-) I can’t believe it’s 3pm and I only have one page of random crap typed. I must be beyond bored so that my mind has shut down. Ha ha! Of course nothing really beats the porn story for the day.

**15:34**
I just realized, as I was huffing up the stairs to get coffee, that I’ve been walking up 5 flights rather than 4 flights. The room I am in is in the basement and the breakrooms are on floor 4. However, the ground floor is actually Floor 0 and the basement is -1 which means it is 5 full flights – not 4. And Iam sure you don’t care but I’m telling you anyway.

**15:49**
I sure hope mom made it to the hotel by now and she’s not wandering around Zurich completely lost. This new guy next to me is from Microsoft but the Zurich office. He almost sounds like he has an English accent when he is speaking English but his German is very good as well.

**16:18**
Seriously, I think I could hurt somebody right now. I just got a NEW set of specs for the config changes that I need to go back to the OLD environment and retest it all. AAAGGGHHH!!! They are all a complete and utter blur at this point.

**16:29**
I think all the caffeine that I’ve had today is starting to have a negative impact on me. Let’s recount shall we? Red Bull, strong ass coffee, coke (lunch), strong ass coffee (a mere hour ago). Yet I’m here about ready to keel over. However my hands are shaking something good! Ha ha!

**16:44**
Not only are these specs updated but it is a different doc entirely with much more detail which means there were lots of things I didn’t catch the first 5 times I did this. Grrr.

**17:02**
Okay, so apparently I’m supposed to ignore half of what is in this doc (the stuff that wasn’t in the other). Will somebody please tell me how I’m supposed to know what to pay attention to and what to ignore? Please?

**17:20**
My hands feel like lead weights. Seriously. This is ridiculous. And the MS guy asked if I just arrived in Zurich because I looked jet-lagged. Nice. Thanks. I look like crap. That’s wonderful. I’m also getting really tired of typing the word test. On my normal test server I can get creative with my testing which keeps me entertained (using artists and songs from the 80s is one of my favourite for test data). Since this is the clients server I probably shouldn’t do that.

**17:50**
Gotta beg outta here in about 15 minutes to meet mom. I probably should have stayed the extra time yesterday because now it is going to look like I’m leaving early two days in a row. Eh, so they don’t let me come back. Who cares?

Zurich Day something (its Jan 15)
Mood:  a-ok
Topic: Travel
**09:15**
Holy crap I feel like a moron! Alex was coming to the office late since his wife was leaving for the airport today. He gave me his badge to get in the building with. Here is how it usually goes - there is a revolving door that is operated by the badge. You swipe the badge, then the go thru the revolving door but it only goes far enough for one person. Then Alex would hit a button on the other side that would open the regular swing door for me. So this was my first time trying the badge and I was a little nervous because Alex always seemed so awkward going thru the door.. I swipe the badge then squeeze myself into the revolving door chamber . I sure hope there aren’t any really overweight people here because it is small! Back to my story… I start pushing the door around and then suddenly it stopped! I pushed it forward, I pushed it back and it wouldn’t move. I started panicking thinking I’m trapped in the stupid ass revolving door and I’m going to have to wait for somebody to come by with a badge. Then, suddenly, my hand went toward the side of the chamber and…. air! No glass! This whole time that I thought I was surrounded in glass, I wasn’t. I had expected to exit directly opposite where I entered (like a 1/2 revolution but it was only ?). Yeah, this is a great way to start my day. I’m just so grateful nobody actually walked by but I would hazard a guess that there are cameras on the entrance. I’m certain that security is laughing their ass off at the stupid blonde American.

**10:07**
Yay – 339 songs to shuffle through versus the 89 from last week. First song up is TLC’s Creep.

**10:28**
I’m telling you – it is a 5 minute process every time I want to get a mint out of that weird little container of mints. Must. Be. Smarter. Than. The. Mint. Box.

**11:03**
Dave Matthews Band “The Dreaming Tree” I think this is probably one of my all time favourite songs. All I can smell is smoke. Ugh. My jacket is just reeking of it. Bleh. Tomorrow at the new hotel they have laundry facilities (where you can do your own – I think) so I can give everything a wash. Bleh. I had no idea this city would be so into their smoking. This testing is getting so boring. I’m retesting the exact same stuff everyday after a few changes are made. I don’t just get to retest the changes – I have to redo everything… It’s fine because it is easy stuff and a bit monotonous but then again, it is a bit monotonous. Luckily something new always seems to pop up with each pass so that keeps me on my toes.

**11:22**
I think the ‘scratches’ on my glasses aren’t really scratches. I think the coating they put on the lenses (for night reflectiveness and something else) is coming off. It looks more like a circular pattern of something peeling which makes sense since it gets worse every time I clean them with my cloth. Argh. That’s really annoying considering how much extra I paid for that. I can’t remember how long I’ve had these ones. I want to say it has been at least a year. I’ll be po’d if it hasn’t been.

**12:19**
Today’s lunch was at this cafeteria style place that I think is mostly for the bank employees (or at least I think they get a discount). Anyway, you enter on the first floor and they have a display of all the food offerings for the day. Each plate is associated with a different floor. We went to the 4th which looked like a pocket of something for one plate and then perhaps a piece of chicken for the other? I couldn’t really tell. Then it is cafeteria like where you get your tray, plate, etc and go thru the line and pay at the end. I ended up with a chicken cordon bleu, some weird tater tot like things but it was more mashed inside than shredded. At least I think it was potatoes. The veggie I’m not really sure. It was sort of cabbage like but it was thicker square shreds of something so I don’t think it was cabbage unless that was some monster cabbage. I really have no idea. Nothing was bad but nothing stood out. At least I got another dose of caffeine with my Coca Cola Light.

I’ve noticed when people have something on their plate to eat everyone seems to hold their fork in the left hand, knife in the right and with each cut, eat with the left hand. It’s just odd. I’ve always cut, switched my fork to the right and then ate. Maybe that’s why it takes me forever to eat a meal. I tried it their way today and it was very awkward. Plus I did seem to eat faster which I don’t like.

**12:49**
I think the magic of the alpine water/air has gone. My skin is feeling much drier today. They have restricted the permissions on this network account I am using so much that I can’t even bring up the date/time function for windows. I wanted to look at the calendar but no… It tells me I don’t have permission to change the date/time. Bah.

**13:06**
Tyrone Wells “Hate Song” This is a pretty funny song. If you haven’t listened to Tyrone you should check out his site at www.tyronewells.com. Jenni and I went to high school with him.

**13:30**
Another appropriate song for me as of late… Matchbox Twenty “Unwell” ‘I’m not crazy, I’m just a little unwell, I know right now you can’t tell’ ‘Pretty soon they’ll come to get me’

**13:49**
It will be nice to have Mom here tomorrow. It is always more fun exploring new places with somebody else. I just hope her flight is as easy as mine was (relatively speaking). She does have a longer layover in Frankfurt which stinks. So many DMB songs makes me a happy girl. My rear is getting sore. I’m not used to sitting for so long during the day. At home I’m up and down all the time. I’m very fidgety today. Good thing I’m alone in the room. I’d probably be driving everyone else nuts.

Another awesome song that never gets old. Live “Iris”.

**14:39**
And another good Tyrone Wells song. “What are we fighting for?” Here is something to try on the pc at home. Press the right Alt key (the one on the right side of the space bar) then press the down arrow button. On this computer it turns the screen upside down. I’ll have to try that one at home. Do that again but press the up arrow and it goes back. Also, the left/right arrows also flip it accordingly. It took Alex and I a minute to figure out what he did and fix it. Pretty funny.

DMB “Spoon”. Dave and Alanis sound really great together. They should have done more together.

**14:53**
A large plant/tree was just delivered to the room by a plant care service. They had a bit of a problem pushing it over the door jam but now it is sitting in the middle of the room. Makes me think I should decorate it for a belated Christmas.

**15:09**
For a day that was proceeding along relatively quickly, it has recently come to a screeching halt. Ugh. 80s pop was so awesome. I mean you just don’t get artists like Cyndi Lauper anymore. He’s so unusual. It’s very sad I’m missing the start ups of all my favourite shows. 24 is by far the saddest. By the time I get back I will have missed the first 6 hours. I sure hope I can find them online because if not, there is really no point in watching it at all and I should wait until it comes out on dvd. It is far too easy to get lost in that show. And then Grey’s Anatomy and House started back up. I should be able to watch those on the ABC website though.

**15:33**
Funny - the song that is the theme for House just played. It’s by Massive Attack. Kenny Chesney “No shoes No shirt No problems” Yeah, I wish. I’m not sure it would be welcomed if I started walking around without shoes and shirt here. :-)

**15:52**
I just realized how loose my ring is. Weird. I guess my fingers are skinny again.

**16:09**
Bleh – they are all out of creamers for the coffee. This coffee is barely tolerable with the creamer but a girls gotta do what she can to get her caffeine fix in. It now tastes like a watered down coffee (I dumped a bunch of water in it) with LOTS of sugar. I’ve decided that it is a full 10 degrees warmer in this section of the building than it is in the main stairwell. Seriously. I don’t get it.

**16:35**
I am so sick of testing this application. Not just from this week but in general. It’s pretty much all I’ve worked on for 2 plus years. I need a new job. Even though I’m in a foreign office and pretty much alone in this room it has been nice from the social aspect to be working in public again. But it’s also really nice being able to work from home in my pajamas! If I tried to get a new job I’d probably end up in Hillsboro with an ugly commute (whether I take the MAX or not). I’d also like to be on a normal payroll and not have to do this 1099 shit forever.

**17:10**
This day is never gonna end.

**17:38**
Of the 300+ songs on my mp3 player it has now played Hate Song 3 times today. WTH? Almost done here for the day I think. There are some things I need to check on work wise once back at the hotel but shouldn’t take longer than an hour. I think I’m going to grab some food from that Indian place I went to before. It’s right outside the hotel and was pretty good. (((rice and lentils))) Ah yes… Cake with “Satan is My Motor”. I can’t wait to be able to cook for myself again. At least here I’m not going to those awful chains like Applebee’s, Outback, Chili’s, etc and ordering dishes with mass calories and fat like I did in Oklahoma. Plus I’m getting good walks in each day which I didn’t do in OK either.

**19:40**
So I left the office at 6 when Alex and the client guy was still there – I told them I had a bunch of stuff I had to check on the servers in the US and I was going to work from my hotel for a bit. The client looked a little oddly at me and said “Okay”. He does that a lot. I’m not sure if he wasn’t happy about it or not. Eh, whatever. I got my Indian food but apparently you have to get there sometime before noon in order to get half of what is on the menu. I had about 4 options left. So I had curry chicken, lentils and rice. Nice bit of protein. Now I’m going to post this and watch some more ridiculous MTV shows. Maybe CNN for a bit to catch up on what is going on out there.

Zurich Time
Mood:  down
Topic: Travel

Zurich

Zurich Day 5 - Tourist day!
Mood:  bright
Now Playing: CNN
Topic: Travel
**08:55**
I’m laying here in bed attempting to get the motivation to shower and head out in to the world. I’m going to keep it a quiet day, wander the city on foot and take lots of pics which will take forever to upload since this internet connection is so crappy. Then I’m going to see about getting some laundry done. I might just wash a few things in the sink and then let them air dry. The laundry service takes a couple working days and by that time it’s really too late. It looks to be a cloud covered day but at least it’s not raining.

For dinner I went to a little Chinese place down the road had some sweet and sour chicken and a glass of wine. I did stop at a chocolatier shop and bought my first chocolates. Divine! I got a small assorted box and they are extremely fancy (and expensive).

**9:28**
I just peeked out the window again and now it’s sunny! Yay! I guess I better get my butt moving.

**15:08**
What a beautiful city. I know I said that before but this time I saw more than 20 minutes of it! I got out of the room a little after 10:00, headed towards the river, grabbed a bagel and coffee then sat by the water for awhile just drinking and taking in the city. I snapped a few photos then headed along the river towards the lake. There is a great walkway along the water. It was still early (apparently) so it wasn’t all the crowded. As I turned a corner on the pathway suddenly the Alps were in view. Unfortunately it was still a bit hazy so I’m not sure if my pictures will come out that clear. They truly are beautiful and I’m pretty certain what I saw isn’t anywhere near the height of the rest of them. I continued walking along the lake for quite some time stopping periodically just to sit or take pictures. I went by the Chinese Garden which looked completely out of place with it’s architecture and bright red color. I just kept walking because it seemed I was getting closer and close to those mountains. Plus, as time went on the hazy was clearing and the sun was not as blinding coming off the water. I can’t wait to upload my pics to see how they came out.

Around 13:00 I decided to head back towards the city. The paths were much more crowded now. Apparently Zurich is an extremely romantic city. There were couples everywhere. Very few people were out walking by themselves. I crossed over the other side of river and walked up Bahnhofstrasse (major shopping area). Mostly they are shops out of my price range (think 5th Ave, Rodeo Drive) but great for people watching. I went up some side streets hoping to find this overlook I saw from the opposite side of the river. I was lucky and walked right to it! I snapped some more photos and sat again just to enjoy being here. I really couldn’t believe my luck with the weather. Amazing.

I decided to check out the McDonalds (since I’ve eaten there in Japan and Spain) just because. The food was pretty much exactly the same but the place was freaking huge – sort of like the one in Spain. It had three floors and was totally packed. I then hit the grocery on my way back to get some more fruit, bread, water and a few hard ciders. I’m not sure how I’m going to open them but I’ll figure it out! :-) This time I figured out how to pre-weigh and tag my produce so the girl doesn’t yell at me. I also got my Zurich shot glass to add to my collection.

Now I’m resting my feet for a bit as they were starting to ache again. I haven’t decided my plan for tomorrow. There is still a lot I can explore on foot or I could do a tour of some sort. Decisions, decisions.

**17:35**
Okay, I think I got all my pics up but I switched the photos to Flickr. It was just easier because they have a group upload that the other crappy site didn’t.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pdxmichele/sets/

I hope that works.

**17:43**
HA! I just managed to pop open a hard cider with my fingernail clippers. I will win! Of course it is warm since I have no fridge but that’s all good. It’ll hold me until I go get dinner.

I think I’m going to post this blog now since I just posted the pic link to test it out. That way you have the description of what I did to go along with the pics.

New Zurich picture link
Mood:  bright
Now Playing: CNN
Topic: Travel
I decided to create a flickr account to host the pics because it's so much easier to upload than the other one. Check out my photos - yes, there are actually some pics of Zurich here.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pdxmichele/sets/