16/06 - I awoke on time, but by the time I had done the washing, tidied up, put a wash on, left the house then come back in to change into more appropriate clothing (it was pissing down) and got to CERN it was 12 o'clock. I had an absolutely massive paella for lunch (it is Spain vs. Switzerland today, so I guess lunch was themed), then came back to the office to try and get some work done.
I was in here for a while, in fact I was still in the office when Switzerland scored against Spain - I heard the commotion from R1 when this happened. I arranged to meet James and Dan for a Mike Wong's dinner after work, and as I was the first there I ended up sitting in Café Rond Point for a while, where I had a couple of glasses of wine and read my Dawkins book. The tiny waitress there took an interest in it and we had a bit of a chat - it turns out she is Quebecois, as Dan very keenly spotted when he arrived. Dinner was good, as always, and I went home to begin the process of readying my flat for Dad. This didn't really involve much, as I mooched about doing some vague tidying, and ended up watching the first half of Yann Arthus-Bertrand's film HOME, during which I fell asleep.
17/06 - Hmm, well today I am not too sure what I got up to - I came to CERN and had a couple of meetings, had a chorizo pizza for lunch (to which I added two extra types of cheese) and then went to Balexert a bit early so that I could pick up some stuff for Dad's visit - I ended up spending about CHF 100 on fancy foods, and then had no time for my own dinner, so I ended up having a Happy Meal as it was quick and cheap - I did get a free leatherback turtle toy though, so I think it was worth it. At French there were once again only 5 people present, although I was the only one who was there last week, which makes me think most people have opted to not attend any more. I am on shift next week, so I will miss the very last class anyway. It was pissing down when I headed home, and the rubbish connections meant I didn't get home for about an hour - when I eventually got home I had to finish the cleanup operation which I failed to do yesterday.
18/06 - I went to bed at about 2, and awoke incredibly hungry as the Happy Meal had been far too small. I quickly guzzled some chocolate croissants, occasionally swearing in pain as I aggravated the holes in my cheek/gum which I made on Tuesday. I struggled into CERN and since my arrival I have been trying to compile some thoroughly recalcitrant code, which has definitely worked before (I know this for a fact as I wrote part of it) but now refuses to do so. I am going to persevere for another half hour or so, but at 6 o'clock I am fleeing home then to Zack's house to watch the England match before going to get Dad. I won't pretend I really care about the match, or indeed football in general, but I would like to hang out at Zack's with his multicultural friends. Well, they will probably be mostly Croatian, but it's still pretty exotic.
It ended up being pretty much all English people at Zack's - two couples, some awesome snacks and some wine. The match was rubbish, a really dull game, even the football fans among us agreed. I spent most of the time playing with Finn on the floor. I went to get Dad, running through the Fête de la Musique which was struggling on in spite of the pouring rain. I arrived at the airport about 10 minutes before he did, then we got the bus back to his hotel via the park, where we had a beer and watched a Peruvian band from above. At the Hotel Adriatica we stayed up for a beer at the bar, so that he could watch some highlights of the earlier match - although he is easily distracted, so we spent most of the time talking about comics. I left him to it at about half past one and went to bed, promising to meet him for breakfast.
19/06 - We got things off to a pretty late start - by the time I had got up and left, returned to change my clothes when it started to piss down and eventually made it to Dad's hotel it must have been about 12 o'clock. We went straight to CERN, where we remained for at least four hours. We had lunch in R1, during which Dad grilled me about various physics matters, quite a few of which I could not properly answer, which was a little embarrassing, I think I managed to blag my way through it though. We wandered around a bit and managed to get in to a tour party to watch the introductory film, which was made in 2004 and is therefore very out of date by now. In fact, it was awful. Really badly produced and dull, Dad fell asleep at least three times during it. We went over to the ATLAS control room, I showed him my desk, and we headed back towards town sometime after 4 o'clock, and after a discussion about piracy I downloaded Iron Man while we made dinner.
We had a selection of small treats for a starter, involving lots of cornichons, bruschetta things and some truffle carpaccio, which was amazing. The main course was horseradish crusted salmon with gnocchi & red pepper pesto, and a rocket and radish salad. I mucked up the salmon, choosing the weakest of my three versions of horseradish, so you could hardly taste it at all. Dad said it was great, but only had a pretty small portion. Well, I mean he didn't have seconds. After dinner we had been toying with the idea of going out and finding some of the Fête de la Musique to watch, but the rain had turned torrential so we watched Iron Man instead (which was actually really good, much better than I expected). I walked Dad back to his hotel at around midnight, pleasantly full of food, wine and beer.
20/06 - I managed to make an earlier start today, and met Dad while he was still having breakfast. We started the day with a stroll through the old town, climbing the cathedral and stopping off for a beer and a bratwurst (well, I had an amazing empanada and some pan de queso). We wandered for ages with no aim in mind, eventually finding ourselves down by the Mont Blanc pier just before a boat left, so we got some tickets and treated ourselves to an hour long tour of the lake. The leaflet claimed that there was a bar aboard the boat, but this proved not to be so. The trip was somewhat enlightening, at various points on out trip we were given information by a recorded smarmy sounding man. I was getting hungry, but Dad suggested that we find somewhere to catch the end of the New Zealand - Italy match, so we stopped off in Brasserie du Molard for a couple of drinks. We were in there for an hour or so, then popped round the corner and arrived at L'Entrecôte ice minutes before it opened, so we were second in the queue. We had a good meal and some great wine and cheese. The cheese was so good, in fact, that Dad interrupted the neighbouring couple's desserts to give them some of the reblochon to try. We had a bit of a chat with them (or rather Dad did) then we went over to Zack & Masa's to watch the Brazil - Ivory Coast match, via my house to pick up a bottle of wine. They had some friends over from England, and Dad engaged in some odd conversation with their friend Jo (who was heavily pregnant) about chapped nipples etc., from a veterinary(ish) perspective. Sounded pretty odd to me though. We stayed until the end of the match, then Masa announced that dinner was nearly ready so we went back home - it was nearly midnight by this point, so we went our separate ways. I feel a bit bad about letting Dad pay for so much this weekend - in fact when we were getting the boat tickets I expected him to, which was a bit bad. I also think that Dad was a bit worried about me earlier when I went to get the wine - I ran across the road and heard him shout "there's no rush! Just relax!", as if I was a lot drunker than I really was.
Dad in the belltower, investigating
21/06 - I didn't sleep too well, but was up on time and met dad at just after half past 8. We got the bus to the station and then the train for a change (even though we were on a bus to the airport). We arrived in plenty of time, had a cup of tea in departures and I sent him on his way, CERN umbrella in hand. It was a rally good weekend, much easier and more relaxed than I had expected, and I am pretty sure Dad had a good time. Once I got back to the flat I had some leftover salmon for breakfast, then tried to muster energy to tidy up but ended up falling asleep for half an hour instead. On my way to CERN I stopped off at McDonalds to take advantage of an offer I saw in the paper earlier - as Switzerland are playing football today, hamburgers are only CHF 1 each! I had three, and a coke which cost more than all the burgers, and made it into the control room at 1459 - my shift started at 1500. I started in relatively high spirits, as I had been informed that my shift would only be until 2100, but I have recently found out that today they are going back to the regular shift schedule, and I will not finish until 11 0'clock. Bugger.
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