20/03 - We crawled out of bed slightly the worse for wear, probably due to the aforementioned 'bit if rough' that I had last night. We had a tiny breakfast of leftovers and were faced with the task of clearing up the house, washing all the bedding and stuff and generally making it nice. This wasn't too arduous, and by lunchtime we were on our way back to Geneva. It was a very long very dull drive back. On more than one occasion the satnav told us something like "in 303 km, bear right." I was impressed Kelly managed to maintain concentration for the required 5 1/2 hours. The most interesting part was when, on the motorway in the middle of nowhere, the fuel light went on and we were informed that we had only 50km of petrol left. We carried on on our way, hoping to encounter a garage before too long, but this didn't work out too well so we had to take a detour to the nearest small town. By the time we arrived, the estimated km remaining was showing "---", so I assume we made it just in time. We ran out of Euros on the way back as well, and ended up trying four different cards at the péage before one worked and we could actually get on the final stretch.
When we arrived back at the rental office we found that someone had parked in their single parking spot, and as there was nothing else about we ended up nuzzling in behind them, with the back metre or so of our Micra sticking out onto the pavement. Kelly asked a passing policeman if this was fine, and I think the response was "Oui, c'est bon. No billet", but I can't be sure as I was off looking for a parking space and Kelly doesn't speak any French. We went for dinner at La Trattoria, as it was nearby and not too pricey, during which we discussed whether or not we would go skiing on Sunday. We started off with me proposing it and Kelly being unsure, and ended up with Kelly insisting she should go, and me questioning whether she would actually enjoy it at all after her horrible time last week. Confusing. We went home and I sewed up the leg of her salopettes, which took much longer than I expected, then we set alarms for 0645 and went to bed.
21/03 - As it turned out we needn't have worried. We woke up at the allotted time, I checked the forecast for all the places we might have gone on the bus, found them all to be rainy and rubbish, and we went back to sleep for another four hours. Definitely the right decision. With our newfound extra time and money we got the bus to La Salève, a massive table of rock that sticks out just over the French border east of Geneva. Cloudy as it was, the views were still pretty impressive.
Geneva from atop La Salève
Mont Blanc & some alps, obscured by cloud
22/03 - Less perfect was the next morning, when Kelly awoke at 0345, dozed fitfully until getting up at 0445 and actually leaving at at 5. For some reason I chose 5 am as a good time to go and pick up my laundry from downstairs, hang it up and then fall asleep for another three hours. On my way in I bought a new phone to replace the one I dropped in the lake the other day, had lunch with James and read papers (scientific, not news) all afternoon. At 7ish I got a lift with Ricardo and some others to Bains des Pâquis, where we were having a leaving meal for Teresa. Unfortunately she was chairing a meeting which overran massively, so by the time she arrived we had already eaten our share, and left her some - this may seem impatient, but they were closing at 9 so we left ordering as late as we could. we had a drink somewhere up the road afterwards, which Teresa insisted on paying for - we had covered her fondue and wine, but actually the round of drinks came to more than our individual contributions. Simon mildly berated us PhD students, asking how much actual work we had done today. I think I avoided the question quite well.
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