19/02 - I had my second and third shift training sessions today, an hour earlier than I thought. I was happily pottering about the flat in my dressing gown when my laptop, phone and iPod all beeped in synchrony to inform me that I had precisely an hour before my training started. I dressed hurriedly and dashed for the bus, but had to make a stop along the way to buy a Swiss phone - I knew I wouldn't have another chance to get it before Monday, so I decided I would prefer to be 10 minutes late than spend another three days spending loads on every phone call. Incredibly, I think I only missed a couple of minutes, despite heading to the wrong room (again). The training was about as fun as the first session, the basic message that was communicated was that if anything untoward happened, we should just call the experts. That seems pretty easy. I had two training sessions as I have not yet decided which desk I want to work on, and I wanted to see which one seemed like the better choice - one desk involves just monitoring stuff and calling experts, the other requires the shifter to attempt to mitigate problems before calling in the experts. Sounds like more opportunities to make things worse to me, so I think I'll choose the former.
At beers the main chat was ski/snowboarding this weekend. I arranged to meet Jody and Ailsa at the bus stop at half 7 in the morning, and headed off to meet Dan and Clare (a friend of his from Canterbury) for dinner. I had decided a couple of days ago that I would switch from beer to wine after work, as it seemed like a much healthier, less bloaty option. Consequently after three glasses I fell off the bus on the way to meet Dan - luckily noone really saw and I was able to run to my tram with some dignity intact (or so I told myself). We went to L'Incontro, which Dan claimed had the best pasta he had ever tasted. It was good, and also enormous (penne siciliana for three gave us second helpings and a doggy bag), but I wasn't too blown away, for reasons which will become clear in a moment.
20/12 - I got an early night in preparation for my early start, and was awoken at 0310 by some loud noise from dowstairs. After this I found it impossible to get back to sleep, I was sick at about 4, and lay in bed wide awake for the 3 1/2 hours until my alarm went off. Still feeling pretty ill, I met the others at the bus stop and declared that I would use the bus ride to gauge my suitability for the day's activities. Thinking back now I am amazed that I bought the ticket and got on the coach to Flaine - I was exhausted, nauseous and having massive stomach cramps, but for some reason I thought I would be fine to chuck myself around in the snow, with a toilet nowhere in sight. On the coach I managed to get a window seat and the only spare seat on the entire coach - I refused to move for a lady who wanted to sit next to her friend, which I would usually have done in an instant, but my need was far greater than here at that moment.
On arrival in Flaine (fantastically ugly town, by the way) I went to hire a snowboard and sent Jody off to the pharmacy to buy me some Immodium, which he very kindly did. I scoffed them and told he and Ailsa to go ahead of me, do a couple of runs then I'd meet them back at the top. Unfortunately Flaine has a very different layout from the last place I went, as there is one big ski lift which goes up to 2420 m, then various long runs coming back down, making meeting up pretty tricky. As a result I was on my own for the entire morning, a little weak and even more uncoordinated than usual, falling all over the place and rapidly running out of energy. I was very grateful when I got a text from Ailsa at noon telling me she was having lunch at the bottom. On the upside, the Immodium seemed to work, so I assaulted my stomach with a croissant, ice tea, beef bourgignon and coke before heading back to the ski shop to swap my board for some skis - definitely the best decision of the day, even though I haven't been skiing since 1998 within 5 minutes I was on the phone while skiing, dealing with lifts, and heading down the mountain in zero visibility with none of the fear I would have felt on a board.
Flaine from above
I managed some turns, kept up with the experienced skiers on my second run, went a little off-piste and even did a couple of (accidental) moguls without any disaster. As much as it may disappoint Jody and the other snowboarders I think I'm going to stick to skis for a while. The bus ride back to Geneva wasn't ideal, as we were delayed by about half an hour stuck behind all the other buses trying to make it out of the mountains. I managed to get a little sleep in on the way, using my jacket as my pillow while Jody used my shoulder as his.
I had barely enough time for a shower before I had to rush off to Zack and Masa's for dinner, which was brilliant. They have an amazing flat just opposite La Comedie theatre, on the 6th floor with amazing views over the city. Dinner was a delicious salad of melon, mint, goats cheese and cucumber (maybe) with a freshly made sardine pâté, followed by a green pea and mint soup, then scallops with a jerusalem artichoke risotto and balsamic sauce, then a really dense cheesecake with raspberries. All this was accompanied by some great wines too - I have completely forgotten the names of the other dinner guests, two Croatians who have recently relocated from Zagreb to Lausanne, the husband works for Philip Morris and the wife is pregnant (as is Masa, by the way). I was called upon to explain the purpose of the LHC at one point, which I think went OK, although I'm not 100% sure of the factual accuracy of my description. After dinner Zack very kindly gave me (and the IKEA stuff they bought me on Tuesday) a lift back to my flat, a distance of about 900 metres. When I got in I had a chat with Simon back home, during which we worked out that I had been up for 37 out of the last 40 hours. I eventually got to sleep at about half past two, it was a very long day.
21/02 - I awoke to find a cloudless sky and a beautiful day, so I set out with two things in mind - try to take some good pictures, and buy a whole chicken from the food market down on Planpalais. I wandered down through the park and through all the stalls selling tat and shoddy kitchenware, before buying a small chicken with potatoes roasted underneath the rôtisserie in all the chicken fat. I was told last night that it was the best value lunch to be had in Geneva, and I think I agree - it came to CHF 13 (about £7.80) which is a bit less than my average lunch at CERN. I picked up a few low quality kitchen goods before going home, deboning the chicken and eating about half of it in one go with some curry mayonnaise - I am currently having a bit of a lie down after this effort. I am supposedly meeting Sam and Alex (two guys from home who moved out here around the same time as me) this afternoon for a drink, but I'm not too sure if I've got the energy...
Parc des Bastions
OK, turns out I did have the energy. I met Alex at Sam's , which is a ridiculous CHF 6000 a month flat in the old town, paid for by his company - we met Sam in Le Clemence, a bar just near where I met Zack and Masa on Monday night. It was nice seeing them, I'm glad they're here too - we were discussing the series of coincidences that have led us from leaving Wellington in 2002 to all ending up living within 10 minutes walk of each other in Geneva, all arriving in the space of three weeks. Oh, and I finished the whole chicken.
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