Office space

What happens when I (Andrew) am slightly bored and I should either do the dishes or make the 4.5 lbs of chocolate sitting in the fridge do something useful? See for yourself...


Now THOSE are chocolate letters. Not like those ones you get from Oma or Tante or Mom at your annual Sinter Klaas shindig... you know, the ones where you just know you've been gypped if your name starts with "I" and your sibling's name starts with an "M" -- no matter how many grams the packaging company typed on the side of the box!

After a childish attempt at chocolate creativity, I adorn my humble office with just enough energy food to last me through the afternoon. And then I get back to work. With my trusty Sylvester-and-Tweety mouse pad. Which by the way is 12 years old... almost half my lifetime!! (cough, cough)


And yes, those dishes will get done.

Snow at last

We brought some winter stuff to Geneva just in case, but for a while it looked as though those items weren't going to be of any use. Well, half an inch of fluffy stuff outside says otherwise! Or maybe a little more.

The shots below are from our west-facing windows. This is primarily because our apartment has no other windows. Notice the overpass a ways down the road. Notice also the tram parked there in the second picture. Until recently, when we wanted to get somewhere fast we would walk over to this conveniently nearby transit stop to take the tram. Then we would poke the ticket-dispensing machine for a bit whilst locals snickered at our ignorance. Then we would walk to wherever we had planned to go but were by now late for. NOT ANY MORE!! No longer do the machines mock us with their silence and their metalness and their not giving tickets... we have since become their masters.

But I digress.

No sign of winter...


What's this now? Some flakes?

Half a day later.

Well it snowed all night... we kind of thought there should be more snow.

Oh well, snow on the ground and sun in the sky (yes there is a hint of sun if you look closely), that's what winter should be all about!

All right, so we won't be building any igloos or snowmen, but snow beats rain hands down.

Where we live

Since most of our faithful readers have no doubt marked the date on their calendars when they intend to visit us, I (Andrew) thought it fitting to show you where we live. Hey, Switzerland is small, but not THAT small... and I may be tall, but not THAT tall. Actually I made up a little map and didn't like the idea of all that wasted time if I didn't use it somewhere. So, lucky are you who lay your eyes upon it...



Zooming in a little further, here is most of Geneva, with our place at the green marker. The big body of water is Lake Geneva (Lac Léman en français), with the Rhone River as its tail. The airport is visible at the top left. (Don't forget you can always click on an image for a better view.)



And a little closer. The WTO complex is circled in red, so now you know how arduous Carrie's commute to work is (500 metres as the crow flies).



And just now I found a great site that will no doubt take up a few more hours of my life: Wikimapia. In the same spirit as Wikipedia, anyone can contribute by selecting almost any area of the Google globe and naming or describing it (e.g., landmarks, buildings, parks, monuments). To date, over 2 million places have been marked.

Thanks to Wikimapia, I'm able to add the interactive map below, with our apartment building right in the centre. We're on the 5th floor looking west.



Well, that's close enough. Perhaps soon we'll post interior pics... there seems to be some demand for those.

Going to the Top of Europe

On Saturday, after only one week of work, I (Carrie) thought that it would be nice to take a trip into other areas of Switzerland. So we checked the forecast (which was for sun) and made plans to go to the Jungfrau region of the Swiss Alps and the Top of Europe.

The first hurdle was to get the train tickets. In order to get a discount on our tickets we needed to have a picture taken for a half-price card. This required figuring out how to use the little photo booths at the train station for the lowest price (they don't give change), in French and at top speed so that we would not miss the train we'd planned to take. My first attempt, for the lowest price, netted me a picture with my face inside a Valentine's card. My second attempt, which Andrew also copied, was to get a large portrait, which we shortly found out was too big. Twenty minutes -- which was long after our planned-for train had left -- and far too many Swiss francs later, we had passport-sized photos that would work.

With our little photos, purchasing our tickets was easy. But then we needed to validate our tickets on our way to the platform. Not having validated tickets before and seeing all kinds of ticket dispensing machines, we had no idea which machine would do the trick. Finally, we had to go back to the ticket agent, who told us it was the orange machine, not all the blue ones. Good. Tickets validated.

We then spent three hours on the train to get us to Interlaken, the base town from which we would ascend the mountains to go to the Jungfraujoch. The ascent also took place on several trains, which slowly chugged up the mountain (on a railroad built 100 years ago) and afforded us some spectacular views of the mountains and all the little towns high up in alpine meadows.

Once at the top, we enjoyed breath-taking views of the Swiss Alps and, because of the high visibility, we could see towns an hour or more away. There were even claims of being able to see France and Germany.

Inside the building that is perched on the side of the mountain, there was also an ice palace, which would have been more aptly named an ice cave. Inside were many tunnels through the ice, with an ice floor. There were also a number of exhibits of various ice sculptures of penguins, Eskimoes, arctic scenes, eagles, bears and a mouse (don't ask me why that was included...artistic freedom, I suppose).

The Sphinx observatory (the shiny building perched high above the rest) is accessible via an elevator that brings one straight up through the mountain, sparing tourists a rigorous climb; it might just have been our imaginations, but the air up at 12,000 feet seemed a little thin, causing us to tire quickly.

Outside the buildings, there was also a small plateau where frigidly windy views of the surroundings could be had. Here, we took the opportunity to take many pictures.

During our train ride up the mountain, we saw a clearing with dozens of helicopters parked like so many toys. We suppose they are for those heli-skiers among us, although there is hardly enough snow here right now to make that an attractive adventure. Note the gear track on the rail line at the bottom of the photo... the train hooks on to that to prevent its brave passengers from plummeting to their deaths on those 25% grade portions of the track.

All in all, a very worthwhile trip to the middle of nowhere and the top of the world!

An educational clip

Oh, c'mon, just funnin' around! (Gulp... one of us is gonna maim the other!)

Did you know...

1. A blue whale's heart beats nine times per minute?
2. Killer whales have tiny non-functioning legs situated behind their fins?
3. Flies jump backwards when they take off?
4. A research lab in Kobe, Japan has developed lenses to improve a house fly's sight by 300%?
5. There are 160 words for "camel" in Arabic?
6. The camel's only natural enemy is the vampire bat?
7. Redwood trees can have bark that's up to 30cm thick?
8. The president of Nairobi built a mansion inside a giant hollowed-out redwood tree?
9. Kung Fu master Bruce Lee had to slow down his movements so the camera could catch the action?
10. Bruce Lee was 5'5" but could jump unaided through a basketball hoop?
11. Clinophobia is the fear of beds?
12. Clendobarilliophobia is the fear of encountering a rattlesnake under the bleachers in a stadium?
13. The Pentagon has 17.5 miles of corridors?
14. The Pentagon has a rotatable base so that a different side can face south every month?
15. Sound travels five times faster under water than in air?
16. When a tree falls in the forest, all the other trees point at it and laugh?
17. That only the odd-numbered items in this list are true?

Switzerland is like the moon

I just realized that Switzerland is very much like the moon:

1. They're both neutral territory.
2. There hasn't been a war there in ages.
3. They are both made of the same material (seriously, go here and zoom in as far as possible).
4. You need lots of money if you want to live there.
5. The Bactrian camel is not native to either region.

Geneva's Jet d'Eau

We've gone for a number of walks through the city by now and have seen several of the "must-see" sights, at least from the outside (free is always good, n'est-ce pas?).

One prominent landmark is the Jet d'Eau, which is a fountain that shoots a zillion gallons of water almost 400 feet into the air. (And yes, I use imperial measurements with impunity!) Metrically speaking, water leaves the jet at 200km/h, and at any given moment there are 7000 litres of water up in the air.

I've included the important info, but if anyone cares to wiki it, there are further details as well as lovely photos. The one to the right was taken by us -- doesn't look much like winter now, does it?

Speaking of giant bidets, our apartment bathroom used to have one but it has been removed. This leaves us with a roomy bathroom that could seriously be used as a spare bedroom (so, who's coming to visit first?). Until any distinguished sleepover guests arrive, we're using the ample space to dry our laundry on a nice big laundry rack (since the building has a washing machine but no dryer).

Speaking in tongues

The city of Geneva lies on a squiggly of land at the western end of Switzerland. This squiggly is surrounded by France to the north, west and south. (In fact, our apartment is less than 4km from the French border.) As such, the predominant language used here is French. The official language of the canton (state/province) in which Geneva lies is French, which is one of the four official languages of Switzerland.

Since we reside in the squiggly, it turns out that it would be extremely handy to have the ability to speak and/or understand French. Our recollection of the language is very vague indeed, our most recent lessons being over 10 years ago (in western Canada, no less -- how high a priority has learning French ever been out that way??!). So we're signing up for French classes to try and remedy that. The prof knows only French, so it will be an interesting undertaking.

Wish us luck. Oh revwar mezamee!

Fine... comments are enabled

Yowsers! Due to an overwhelming number of complaints by all those Vanderveens out there to "let us leave comments already so we can tell you a thing or two", comments are now enabled. We await the barrage...

iPod vs. Washing machine

I (Andrew) bought a shiny new jacket a bunch of weeks ago. It was sleek, it was stylish, it was fraught with pockets. After our Christmas holiday to BC, my jacket wasn't looking quite so sleek. I decided it should be washed, so I checked all the pockets for stuff. And by "all" I mean "all but one". My coat of many pockets was still unfamiliar to me so somehow I missed a cranny.

After a nice vigorous wash cycle, my dear mother (yes, when we visit my parents in Ontario I'm more than happy to let my mom do my laundry) was transferring it to the dryer when she felt something that didn't belong. "Andrew!" she asked in alarm, "Is there a cell phone in here?" I was confident that there wasn't, since I knew where my phone was. So we dug out the offending article and voilà! ...out came a rather soggy iPod Mini!

Now, if I'd given in to my curiosity, I would have tried to turn the iPod on and it would have died instantly and permanently. Instead I resigned myself to a long chore with no guarantee of success. I googled my problem and took it from there. (In case you've been living under a rock, any problem you encounter has been encountered before and has probably found its way (hopefully with a solution) onto the Internet somewhere, although not necessarily in English.)

You'd be surprised how many iPods have been submerged in water, with most cases involving toilet bowls. As such, it didn't take long for me to find a website that outlined how to take apart my iPod and try to dry it out.

An iPod Mini dissected (click pics to enlarge)

I ripped the thing apart, then dried what I could with a cloth and a blow dryer. Then I left it overnight with a good draft blowing across it. Next morning I slapped it back together and went for broke. It worked!! Not at all what I was expecting but I shan't complain.

Oh, by the way, the battery (the blue pack in the picture) is of the Lithium-Ion variety and can explode violently if exposed to water. I'm utterly amazed that during the wash cycle the water didn't penetrate where it shouldn't. Ah well, all's well that ends well. The iPod now joins my USB key on my list of Things-That-Shouldn't-Work-After-Going-Through-The-Wash-But-Do.

A good-as-new iPod!

Back online!

Well, we're back and finally online! We made the mistake of taking our computer to Switzerland without the power cord. But it was nothing that a week of waiting for snail mail couldn't fix! Now that the laptop and her cord are reunited, I (Andrew) am out of excuses... back to work I go. Carrie has been working for a week already, in which time I've done more reading (yes, fiction, let's not get carried away now) than I have in the last umpteen years.

Expect a flurry of posts in quick succession, now that we're plugged in again. What not to expect, however, is any sort of cohesive monologue; I suspect I'll be making most of the posts, since Carrie works and I simply do whatever it is I do, perhaps giving me more time. I've never kept a journal, diary, blog or similar that requires transforming thoughts into sentences, so let this be my disclaimer. Woohoo, I'm now safe to prattle on to my heart's content.