: : Murphy's Law : :

So our accomodation plans fell through for Prague. With some help from Dearest Maria, and two days of madly booking, emailing and reserving, I got it sorted. Now another issue.

Turns out that the hire car we have rented cannot enter the Czech Republic - it ain't insured there. I only found this out because a colleague at work suggested I may need a letter from the rental company to travel there. I found this unusual, so I sent a mail and today (xmas eve no less, what a great present) received the following reply:

MR HOFMAN,

SORRY FOR THE LATE ANSWER, WE'RE VERY BUSY THOSE DAYS.
YOU'RE ABSOLUTELY NOT ALLOWED TO DRIVE INTO CZECH. REPUBLIC, WITH OR
WITHOUT A STATEMENT. EUROPCARS CARS ARE NOT INSURED IN THOSE COUNTRIES.

BEST WISHES ALSO TO YOU
REGARDS
(Car rental company name removed)

How much does this suck. Now I have until the 30th to try and make another booking, during the busiest holiday period of the year, without the great discount rates I get from work! Incidently, this has prompted me to really read the rental agreement before (Jen before you say anything, I know details focus and all, but come on - who really reads these things) and it seems that you are not allowed to drive the cars to Italy either. I am guessing the last 3 trips I was not covered with insurance when I was there so I should at least be thankful that those trips were incident free!

Well expect a positive or extremly jaded update about the car rental excersie next week - until then, have a great xmas!

: : The 12 Brett's of Christmas : :

It snowed last week and a little last night and the forecast is good for Saturday to be having my first white Christmas. It will be my second with Laura. Tonight will be my third trip to Barfusserplatz to walk around the Christmas markets - and with that my fourth time drinking vin chaud, or as its called here, Gluhwein, in the last 3 weeks. Laura will have a go at making it for Christmas Eve dinner. With appetizers, soup, main, dessert and cheese, we will be greedily devouring five courses during the dinner.

On the menu is Roast Chicken, (at least I hope it's a chicken - my German is really awful and the picture on the wrapping looks like a Rooster. So for correctness, lets say we are having Roast Rooster (Red Rooster for the WA kiddies), herb butter potatoes, julienne carrots and fine beans. Following this, an awesome fromage platter delivered this morning by my French buddy Bertrand. The father of French gastronomie, Brillat-Savarin said that, "A meal without cheese is like a beautiful woman with only one eye." And with 5 cheeses to choose from and Raclette for Lunch on Sunday, we will be eating six cheeses over the weekend.

Twice trollied (drunk) with the team from work, once at a Global Marketing Summit, and then again two weeks later at our Xmas work dinner; plus drinking beer towers with Teo, beers with Dinner at Brett & Jolene's, a nasty night of vodka and absent room mate bonding, last Friday bender at Paddy's and some swanky new joint in the middle of town, and the combined affects of the Santa Xmas party in the work cafeteria and the AIESEC Xmas dinner mean that I have been drunk seven times in the last few weeks - not bad seeing as I am planning on giving up drinking (the first of many not maintained new years resolutions I am sure).

Eight is the number of DVDs I plan to watch between now and Sunday, as after months of Turner Classic Movies (more recently including, North by Northwest, Singing in The Rain and Ryan's Daughter) and the cartoon network (admittedly, I am hooked on X-men Evolution and Samurai Jack) I am looking forward to some English programming of my own.

Nine is the number of presents I have bought for Laura, the most embarrassing purchasing story I will come back with after Christmas day, after the surprise of it all - I hate surprises when they are happening to me, but I love to surprise others!

In about ten minutes I am heading home, albeit a little bit early but the hallways at work here are empty - everyone is gone home already.

Eleven franc left in my pocket at the moment until pay day (well 11.85CHF) - between going mad shopping for presents, buying food and decorations and with the cold weather taking the tram to work every day now, I am broke. Side note - after 9 months here I found out the other day that it is possible to get an all day ticket for the tram, not just single journeys. AIESECers everywhere, please assume nothing for the knowledge of your trainees - tell them everything no matter how trivial. A few months ago, I found out that a portion of the 300 bucks a month I have to pay in medical insurance can actually be claimed back from the local govt. You get back paid from 3 months when you send the form, that means quite a few months of lost money for me :-(

Finally, I spend the next few weeks trying to figure out what I do over the next twelve months! Look forward to catching up with old faces and new friends.

Merry Christmas to all, and have a hell of a new year, wherever you are in the world.

: : Dinner with the Canadians : :

Went to Brett and Jolene's last night - my two Canadian friends, also here on a traineeship - Jolene is still waiting for a visa to come through even though she moved here in September/October - I read Zoe got screwed around in the same way with the Suisse visa, That sucks, and I feel for you Zoe, but at least you didn't come here first, like Jolene. Poor girl is stuck at home all day, and the weather is not the best for getting out and doing stuff; Must really be going out of her head being couped up in that small apartment all day...On the flip side, she is becoming quite the gastronomic delight what with all the free time to cook, and dinner and beers last night was a great pre-christmas get together. They head to France for xmas, but next week we all drive to Prague. Hopefully she can start working 2 or 3 weeks into Jan...

I feel the pain of the visa issue too, having been selected for the best possible position for my development only to have it taken away for the colour of my visa, a nice shade of Aussie blue and commonwealth - considered a third country status by Suisse....

Well, my xmas and new years has a heap load of uncertainty - I really have no idea where I will be after March 05 - heres to throwing the deck in the air and letting the cards fall where they may....Laura is here tomorrow morning!!!!! Now I am off to buy a snowboard!

: : What Every Geek Boy Needs : :

All I want for Xmas....USB Cup Heater [usb_cup] - $21.33 : GeekStuff4U.com
USB Cup Heater [usb_cup] - $21.33 : GeekStuff4U.com

: : The Little Things : :

So I spent the first weekend at home in about 6 weeks and it was awesome. Got to give the apartment the "Brett Clean". You can't help but feel you are growing up when you actually have internal discussions about "how clean is clean" and "how much scum/mould is acceptable in a rental property" before taking off 2 or 3 layers of skin scrubbing happily with domestos...

On my mum's visit I had her bring all sorts of things, Iced Vovo's, vegemite etc, but the one ting she protested most about, but I am so grateful she brought with her is the Preen Stain Remover - I cannot find anything here similar.

Some Nomad I am. Going on and on about domesticity....The thing is, after being so mobile all the time, I actually find myself enjoying time at home. Maz wrote about Maz Time, for me Brett time is cleaning!!

Had time to do some more xmas shopping and looked at Snowboards - so excited to actually being part of the snow scene in Switzerland! Mostly though, a busy but well enjoyed time at home.

Oh, met up with Teo last night - used to be a trainee here in Basel, now doing some external work for the company, based in London. Thought it would be a few beers, but turned into 3 Beer Towers at the Fischerstube, dodgy Sam's kebab on the way home and lying in bed feeling sorry for myself until about 4am. Today will be an incredibly long day. Tonight having dinner with Brett and Jolene, 2 Canadian friends who won't be in Basel during xmas. Let the festive season begin.

: : Comments : :

Was in Geneva for the weekend, catching up with Mykey. Great to see him again, although bit upsetting that the Coral gown was nowhere in site. The city was celebrating "esclade" which commemorates when some savoy troops tried to invade the city but were held back by the walls and the people within - in particular, one lady who poured a hot cauldron of soup over the potential invaders - she will live forever, remembered each year with miny chocolate cauldrons filled with mazipan!

AIESEC had a reception weekend on at the same time, and whilst I had the full intention of joining in the agenda, Saturday the pull of a guiness, a counter meal and euro rugby was far too great. We made it to the AIESEC party, held in a dungeon and according to Mykey, reminiscient of a blue light disco - maybe I am getting older....Sunday, fighting off a hangover, we did manage to get into the old town and go to the AIESEC agenda items, albeit a bit delayed, I guess we were following them, but we didn't catch up.

Oh, on Saturday, I had to find an internet cafe, as Mykey had read my blog the day before and said there was some not nice comments added to a posting about my mum's visit. Turns out it was some absolute looser obviously trying to draw people to his retarded comments and stupid political viewpoints home page - not going to give him the recognition of even using his name here - but this is the first time I have had to use the delete comment function! I would see on the other blogs, "Comment deleted by author" and wonder what was going on - now I know!

Anyways, thanks Mykey for a great weekend - looking forward to Fasnacht in Basel!

: : My Love Hate Relationship - looking for advice : :

I love computers, most of the time - I am always annoying the hell out of Laura jumping in and out of Electronics stores and the like when we are shopping or site seeing or any other random activity that puts me in the vicinity of my passion...

However, tonight the honeymoon is over...9 months work that is (was) saved on my hard disk has just vanished...The complete folder structure is still there, but every single file is missing...Gone...

Bastard!! I will need to call the helpdesk for ideas (I use the term 'help' loosely as the support I expect will be far from qualifying as help....I suspect that plugging in my laptop seperate this morning as well as my desktop has created a complete balls up of syncronisation, but I am unfortunately not tech savvy enough to know this for sure....Any geek boys out there have any advice? (Geek boy is a term of endearment for my best mate back home who really knows his pc shit!)

Help!

: : Servette player loses finger in goal celebration : :

BERN, Dec 6 (Reuters) - A player in Switzerland's top division has been left without a finger after a goal celebration went horribly wrong.

Servette midfielder Paulo Diogo was forced to have his left ring finger amputated on Sunday after catching it on a perimeter fence during his side's 4-1 win at Schafthausen.

The 29-year-old Swiss-Portuguese player jumped up on the fence in celebration after setting up his team's third goal.

Diogo, who got married recently failed to notice, however, that his wedding ring was caught in the metal barrier and severed the top two joints of the finger as he jumped back down.

He was then shown a yellow card for his excessive celebration.

Doctors at a Zurich hospital were unable to re-attach the finger joints and advised the amputation of the remaining stump.

: : Slaughtered : :

Been a while between blogs I know, but in this instance it is with a valid excuse, my mum is in town!

Haven't seen her for over 20 months and then one day she calls to tell me, "Brett, I am thinking I will come and visit - is that ok?" Sure mum, get on over here!!

Been good to see her again, catch up on all of the parts of my life I left scattered behind in Perth. Hearing about my lil Bro and his wedding plans/house/grown up life (for a momentary lapse I felt that maybe its time I grow up, settle down etc - just for a moment - much too happy living it over the other side of the planet for now).

Have been trying to take my mum everywhere and show her Europe, which has meant in between my overloaded work schedule, I have been country hopping to Italy (Venice, Florence, Verona, Bologne & Pisa); to UK (London, Bath and Stonehenge); Germany (well shopping over the border - Laura took her to Frieburg) and just got back from France (Paris). Its just been go go go the last 3 weeks and now, as slaughtered as I am, its coming to a close and it will be sad to say good bye. She will leave on Friday, back to 40 degree heat, prawns and scallops for xmas dinner and a life that I do miss. Thanks for coming mum, its been awesome!!

Work is flat out as always, and if I find a minute, I will try and upload some pics from the travels...but then I always say that don't I!?