I no longer live in Switzerland!

02/08 - Right, that's it. Six months and two days after moving out, my LTA at CERN is over. Leaving was reasonably stress free - I got up with Kelly at 0515, and intended to do some final cleaning before being checked out at 0930. What I actually did was to eat leftover chilli from last night, pack some stuff and then fall asleep for two hours on the sofa in the sun. I was awoken by a ring on the doorbell, which I assumed to be Aimee coming to get my plants - this was not the case. I think I was fortunate in having Celine conducting my checkout, rather than the feared Mary-Elizabeth. Even so, I had to get back in the bath and give it a hearty scrub before she was convinced that it was not grubby through lack of effort (also a large bathtowel seems to have been misplaced). The broken glasses will be taken out of my deposit, but GenProp (the managers of the building) waived the CHF 8 for a new plate so that I didn't have to go to the cashpoint specially. I think I won't have much of a dent in my CHF 300 deposit, which I am rather glad of, especially after Kelly and I spent so long cleaning the place - probably more time than I have taken in the past to clean much bigger flats.

I was out of my flat by 11, at which point the heavens opened. I dragged my 45+ kg of stuff (as I found out at the airport) to Globus to attempt to get a refund for my Prince ticket, with partial success - the lady has taken my details and will hopefully contact me when they can get a refund, then keep the money for me in the safe until my return in September. I then dragged myself up to the station, where I managed to print out my boarding pass after some cafuffle with the manager of the cafe when I walked in and tried to print directly from my memory stick, for free, as I had last time (when the printer was playing up, I wasn't just being tight). I was at the airport and checked in with an hour to spare, and spent the time pottering about the shops, looking for any last minute duty free bargains (there were none). On the plane, I was disappointed that they did not have the ingredients for a Bloody Mary, but pleased to be heading home - we arrived a little early, I got my luggage incredibly quickly (in fact I had to run across baggage claim to avoid it going back out through the door) and got various forms of public transport back to home, which is now 50 Jedburgh Street. As I remember, I arrived slightly before Kelly. I am very glad to be back here - I came to really enjoy Geneva by the end, and I am fully aware that RHUL will seem pretty awful in comparison, but I think that being back in London with my friends and family around me will more than make up for that.