New Beginnings in Switzerland

  Yes, I am getting into cooking. Did I mention that I love hotels? Breakfast in a hotel is an interesting thing. They have all kind of machines producing coffee, juice, toast, etc. I quite like the egg boilers. They are simple. Cooking an egg should be simple. This machine is a container full of boiling water with egg dippers made from wire. The idea is the put an egg into a wire dipper, and lower it into the boiling water. I am sure you have guessed that first I dropped the dipper into the boiling water before I even managed to get an egg in it.   It was quite a challenge to fish it out as you very rarely fish in boiling water. The holiday makers started to watch me, they probably wanted to get on with their own boiled eggs, or maybe they were fascinated with my resourcefulness. I used knifes, forks, coffee cups, and then another egg dipper. My efforts were rewarded with success. When I managed to put everything back to where it was I still ...

  I already mentioned how a good intention can go horribly wrong, and suggested some useful tips and strategies. This is a similar scenario. Good intention is present, but at the end, the purses, credit cards, passports, and mobiles are missing, while you are in an unknown town, in a strange car, driving only the GPS knows where. The strategy in this case will be different. Let me explain. I love hotels. Todays hotels are just a work of art with the most fascinated bits of IT thrown in to entertain guests. I love to stalk in to our new room and check everything out. The keys are not keys any more, they are cards with chips, they are in charge of your electricity, they lock your room, and they can be programmed to lock you out of your room if its after checkout time. I am also fascinated by hotel room safes. I just can't help myself. I need to try and find out how they operate. Some use fingerprints, and...

  The worst day so far. I am not superstitious. However, it was a strange date yesterday (12/6/12), my mobile went funny. If my great grandfather was alive he would be confused from a date like that.   Today I can say that yesterday was only giving me warnings that today is going to be the 13 th . I thought the bad luck thing worked only on Friday the 13th, but today I can confirm that the bad luck for me happens on Wednesday the 13 th . It all started in the very early hours of the morning, 6 o'clock to be precise, when I was trying not to fall asleep and eat my breakfast. There I am, minding my own business, milk, cereals, and making an effort to keep my eyes open, when my mum today out of the blue and out of character opened my homework diary. It appeared that I was supposed to have done 6 pages of multiplication and division. Thankfully not much French was involved in this, but we were working with decimal numbers and brain teasers like 0.24 :...

  I've been thinking for a long time what to write about school. There are good things and bad things to write, I could boast, or I could make a total twit of myself. I've decided to take the most unbiased approach I can. I will state some facts, then I will boast a little bit, and at the end I will entertain you with some practical insights into my every day school life, and how you can make a fool of yourself a few times a day. Unintentionally. In my previous post I mentioned that I have 16 hours of French a week, and that I start at 7 in the morning, and finish at 3 or 4 in the afternoon. True : I do have 16 hours of French a week. Tuesdays are devoted entirely to French lessons. False : School is not that harsh. Some days start at 7 and end at 1, and others start at 9 and end at 4. On average school is probably 6 or 7 hours long a day. The annoying thing is that one day I wake up at 6, and the next I wake up at 8. School isn't regular like in ...

  If you want something really badly, and you know your parents will say no, give it time, and they will come to you and ask you for a favour. The favour will be your deepest wish. For example, it can happen like this: I knew that my new French school will be a bother, and the early mornings and late finishing of this school will give me nightmares for life.  I noticed that from our village goes a train to Nyon. This is the supper duper top-of-the-world-and-universe train running from Geneva to Lausanne, and further to Zürich. It became my ultimate dream and ambition to obtain permission from my parents to travel to school by train.   The twice a day journey would in my mind compensate for the suffering in between.   My parents said NO  both at the same time (my parents often say the same thing at the same time, and it's usually  NO ) What to do? It's important at this point not to start begging, winging, or pre...