Playground on a train, mugged by Teenage Gypsy Mutes, and the beginning of Rich's saga

12/03 - This morning I had the last of the cosmology lectures, and consequently missed half of my meeting (which I can't say I minded). The discussion was mainly about the note we are planning to write, and which bit of it I should do. That decided, I had an awesome Chinese something-or-other for lunch, and went to the Top Reconstruction meeting with Matilde and Jody. I left after an hour or so to await Rich's arrival - he got a bit lost but eventually managed to hop on a CERN shuttle back here. We went for a brief walk about, during which I realised how little I knew about the place, then popped our stuff in a locker and had some beers with Dan, James, Sarah etc. I had to leave at 7 to go to Lausanne, where I was meeting my cousins, Caitlin and Siân - my train was really expensive (CHF 40!) but amazing. It had two floors, lounge areas, a restaurant with table service, a casual bistro area, and really comfortable seats.

Once in Lausanne, I met the twins and got the Metro one stop to Flon - it was a 30 second journey, but seemed worth it considering the incline. I realised quickly that I had gleaned insufficient information from the internet about where to go, as we seemed to be in a massive shopping precinct, and the only available place to go was called 'King Size Pub'. That said, it was decent enough, and had two chaps playing piano who were pretty good. We talked about their time so far in Switzerland; apparently they have had every moment planned out by Romi, a friend of my aunt's, and they had been instructed to be on the 2245 train at the latest. They are 32 years old and quite capable of looking ater themselves, but they weren't even trusted to have a key to the apartment building.

On the way back I was sitting between some rowdy blokes and a load of Chinese teenagers. One of the former begged a cigarette from one of the latter, which he proceeded to smoke on the train in the seat behind me. He clearly enjoyed it, as he was later heard to shout "Hey! Hey China! This cigarette is delicious!" I moved down the train in search of beer, and instead came upon a playground. A sodding playground, with a slide and a climbing frame, all decorated to look like dinosaurs!

Playground on a train!

I was going down the slide when I was approached by two gypsy-looking girls, who couldn't have been more than 13. They presented a form on a clipboard to me, the jist of which was that they were deaf and mute, and I should give them some money. As I was a little merry by this point, I reached into my wallet, expecting to find a CHF 10 note, but could only find a twenty. I decided to give it to them anyway, but after I did so they shook their heads and pointed at all the other alleged donations on the form, writing "CHF 30 MINIMUM" on the side of the page. I showed them that I hadn't got a ten, whereupon they gave me back the twenty and whipped a fifty out of my wallet! I was not best pleased, and ended up snatching the fifty back, leaving the twenty and getting up to leave. I got downstairs as we pulled into Genève, and couldn't find the button to open the door, so the girls reached up and opened it for me. Embarrassing, to be mildly mugged by teenage gypsy mutes and then need their help to get off the train.

While I was in Lausanne, I had received a few phone calls and messages from Rich and co., telling me that he had forgotten the combination to the locker and was there anything I could suggest. I called them to find that they had not opened the locker, containing all Rich's ski gear, money, clothes and passport, and so had left CERN, had pizza and were heading home. Rich and I had been undecided about whether to ski on Saturday or Sunday, but this made the decision for us. I had bought beer and wine in preparation for Rich's visit, so I invited them round to drown his sorrows. We did this quite effectively - Dan Short, Dan Hayden, James, Rich and I made our way through a couple of litres of Chasselas (one of which had a fizziness to it which is not meant to be there) and some beers, before retiring at about 2, Rich and I sleeping in my bed.