28 February

Well, I didn't end up going as far as Zurich. We went to Bern where we discovered that it is the Bern yearly festival "Fasnacht". Although, with the kids, we couldn't really stay for the whole do, it did mean that we got to see some fun things and have a nice lunch at the market. We got back on the road to head to Zurich, but the traffic was at a standstill, and after an hour of getting nowhere we gave up and headed home.

What do you think of the baby eating ogre? Cool huh? Bern has lots of really cool fountains and statues. Click on the image to see the whole thing.

and for the medieval cook, check out these vegies in the Bern markets... pastinakes and yellow carrots!

 

27 February

I am babysitting for Paul and Sheila tonight, and then in the morning (at some hideous hour) we are going to drive to Bern and then Zurich, with the plan being to stay in Zurich for the night. This means that early next week you should have some pictures of Zurich to enjoy!

22 February

I had both a quiet and busy weekend. On Saturday I caught the train out to Alleman to Ikea to buy an "uplight". Hefting it all back on the train was interesting. I then headed out to an Irish bar called "Spring Brothers". There I met up with a bunch of the Geneva Expats email group. Everyone was lovely, and I ended up being walked home by Christian, a Danish guy. I showed him where you can buy a kebab at 2am in Geneva (believe me there aren't too many of those!). He is an exercise enthusiast and walked home all the way to Servette, which is about 3/4 of the way to my work!

In the morning I met up with Paul and Sheila, and Paul's mum and sister. We had lunch (fondue for me!) then walked around for a bit, to the outdoor skating rink. I showed Paul's mum and sister the fancy part of town while Sheila and Paul ice skated with the boys. In the evening I had dinner at what is becoming one of my "regular" spots. The waiter there is very patient with my lousy French - I have nicknamed him "l'ecole d'Ibo". (Ibo being his name)

17 February

Not much on the news front so far this week. On Monday night I got together with a new friend and we played recorder together. It was just lovely to get my fingers working again. In a grand piece of irony I got some sort of stomach bug or maybe a mild case of food poisoning. More than a week in Thailand without any problems and I come back to Switzerland and promptly get sick.

14 February

There isn't much other news about the trip to Thailand. After dinner at Condoms and Cabbages we headed to the Bangkok bar and danced till 2am. Sadly everything is required to close by then, but it was probably just as well.

Our last days in Bangkok were relatively high achievement. Picked up Adrian's suits and my shirts from the tailors, picked up my jewellry from the jewellers and dropped into Pantip Plaza. Mainly we stayed in and enjoyed each other's company. After taking Adrian to the airport, I headed to Chatuchak markets for a last minute shopping session. I am sure I was ripped off outrageously by some of the stalls, but I am still delighted with the value I got.

I forgot to mention that David's daughter, my niece Kai, was visiting her dad in Thailand. She is a gorgeous young woman - here is a photo of the two of us together. I really enjoy Kai's company. She is intelligent and very independant. Mind you with her slack dad {grin} she would have to be an independant sort to survive!

Kai got much teasing in Thailand because her name translates into Thai as "chicken".

I was happy to be home to collopse (spelling deliberate), but then to start work in my new job the next day.

I expected that I would have much worse jet lag than I seemed to. The only problem seemed to be that I woke up two hours or so early every morning for 4 mornings.

My new job started out very quietly but by the end of the week was really quite busy. There are a lot of acronyms that I don't understand yet, but that is the way with all new jobs and I don't doubt that I will get the hang of it all. My workmates all seem really lovely, and very patient with me as I get my bearings. My boss has been including me in everything that is going on, which has been great, helping me feel welcomed, if a little overwhelmed!

10 February

Well the week in Bangkok was interesting. Not entirely positive, but it ended up well. Its all a bit of a saga really. I started off going to the airport after work on Wednesday. There I discovered that London had had 6 inches of snow and my plane was delayed. I had two choices. Go home and attempt to fly out of Geneva the next day, or wait for two hours and fly to Heathrow and be stuck there overnight. Since Geneva was expecting to be snowed in the next day I chose to head to Heathrow. Of course by the time I arrived every hotel in London was completely booked as they had cancelled all the domestic flights as well. I called Terry who was kind enough to put me up on his couch. It wasn't bad in the end as it meant that I could pick up a pot from among the stuff under Terry's bed (though it seems particularly daft to carry a cheap pot and some Tupperware all the way to Thailand and back) and I also got to buy a bra and some pants in Marks and Spencers.. a bit of a life saver in the end!

I had luckily packed a spare set of clothes (as I always wear a loose dress when I am flying, but had worn something else to work) so I had a change, but I was very poorly prepared for the cold of a London covered in snow! I had my polar fleece poncho so although I was cold, I was not too badly off. Rather annoyed at losing one day of my holidays in Bangkok, but philosophical enough to know that there was nothing I could do about it anyway. I do get to send a bill to British airways for my train tickets. The next day my new flight to Bangkok left approximately on time. The flight was trouble free in itself, but there was a rather large problem upon arrival. No bags. British Airways gave me 2000 bhat (about $60 Australian) to buy undies. Which would have been great if I had actually had the possibility of being able to buy clothes in Thailand. Yeah clothes are cheap, but a size 34 is a medium, a 36 is a large, and I am just a tad larger than a 36!!! Just doesn't exist. What I was really annoyed about was my swimsuit. I had bought over the internet from America a swimsuit just for this trip, and although I found a tailor who could make me some clothes, stretch clothing was beyond them.

I called my brother from the hotel and left a few messages for him. Eventually we talked and decided to spend a bunch of Sunday together. We were to meet him at Pantip Plaza which is this amazing computer shopping mall. 7 storeys high, you could buy anything there, anything at all. Once there we had the usual confusion of trying to find each other, but eventually did. David was looking for particular stuff so we wandered around a bit.

After David had bought the stuff he needed, we headed to the Chatuchak markets. Now these were cool! A huge market of a few blocks in size, this seems to be where bargain hunters, both foreign and Thai go. I loved it.

We headed back to the hotel and the bliss of air conditioning. Adrian and I had dinner at the hotel chinese restaurant, which was great, and cost us 1380 baht. Less than $50 for a lovely meal for two isn't bad at all! The service was pretty over the top, with a waiter or two for every table.

Adrian and I decided to get away from Bangkok. We headed out to Pattaya, playground of the decadent businessman. My bags had still not arrived and I had been reluctant to do much sightseeing because I didn't have my digital camera, but gave up worrying about it. We caught a taxi there - about an hour and a half's drive for about $30. I had chosen the hotel carefully as the one that seemed farthest away from the rest of Pattaya as both Adrian and I needed a break. Boy did I pick well. The Siam Bayshore is a lovely hotel which is on the beachfront. It has two swimming pools, beachside barbequeue restaurant and gorgeous gardens. It is pretty pricey as far as Thailand goes, about $70 a night. But worth it... oh yeah. Here is the proof: that's me in the middle of the pool.

The rest of Pattaya is.. well... hideous. The main street was just ghastly, all bars and girly clubs.

But, while there, we went for an afternoon visit to a place called Nong Nooch Village. Very much a tourist spot, Adrian and I decided that we didn't care that it was blatantly touristy, we were going to go see an elephant, and some Thai dancing and enjoy ourselves. and we did.

There is a gorgeous orchid and bromelliad garden. Here is a photo of me standing among the bromelliads with some pottery owls, that made me think of my mum.

The gardens were huge and very impressive. The show was fun, and the elephants lovely. Some of the baby elephants even did some paintings which was fun, and it was clear that they were all very healthy and treated well.

Both Adrian and I have always wanted to ride an elephant so after I fed some of the elephants bananas, we went on a ride. We tried to persuade the trainers that we should have separate elephants, but ended up on one. It was only a short trip, but lots of fun. Then it was back to the hotel for some more swimming and relaxing.

Thursday was my brother David's 40th birthday. This was the real reason for my trip to Thailand - to say hello and wish him a happy Birthday. The celebration took place at the famous Cabbages and Condoms restaurant.