http://www.makepovertyhistory.org

Thursday, September 28, 2006

I just want to eat!!!

Tuesday I passed the third part of my CMA exam. I still have two parts to go though. So my girlfriend decided that we should go out and celebrate.

We wanted to have Fish & Chips, so we drove all the way to France to get it. The only place in the vicinity where we live (and we live in one of the biggest cities in Switzerland) that sells Fish & Chips is in another country. When we got there, the place is shut and will be only open on Fridays and Saturdays as "self-service". Which is shit for us, as we were craving some nice Fish & Chips. So we drove back into the country while pondering what to eat. Can you believe it that there isn't another place that sells something simple like Fish & Chips? We even though about going to the supermarket to get some food, but it was after 8pm and the late supermarket is already shut.

So we drove to another restaurant where we can eat something else. Turns out the restaurant is full and there wasn't any free table for anyone showing up without reservation. On a Tuesday!

In the end we settled for Italian, but it was a long and tiring and annoying journey just to find some nice food. If you crave some good food around here, chances are you won't get it and will only eat it once your craving is gone. You can't do any decent shopping after 7pm. You can't find any decent food after 11pm. You can't do anything on Sundays.

Why oh why am I still in this place???

Monday, September 25, 2006

Cleaning a lake

Lake Geneva / Lac Leman / Lac Geneve / Genfersee is the biggest lake in Switzerland. I think it's one of the biggest lake in Europe. As lots of people make use of it, the lake surely becomes dirty. People just chuck random things in it and before you know, the lake is a dirty place filled with lots of litter.

That's why some people organised the cleaning of this lake. It started last year and is now becoming an annual event. My little dive club organised a cleaning around the port of Pully. I jumped in with my girlfriend and together we looked for rubbish underwater for about an hour.

We didn't find anything interesting, just the normal plastic bags and aluminium cans but other people found more interesting stuff. There was a pair of skis, a Migros shopping trolley, two trotinettes, a tire and a part of a toilet.

Things you can find in the lake.

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Wedding

Last Saturday one of my good friends got married. It was my first European wedding and I was in charge of the music as well. The weather forecast the days before were saying that it's going to be cloudy and some rain but it turned out to be a very lovely day. We all put our best suits on and all looked magnificent for the occasion.

The wedding started at 2pm at a small church at the lakeside and finished at about 5am in the morning for some but not for me. I DJed until 1h30 and left a CD playing when I left. Apparantly for the people dancing it didn't make much difference whether I was there or not.

As usual, anything that can go wrong does go wrong and in my case it was my iPods. Yes, both of them. My old 60GB photo one decided to freeze the previous night and just when I was about to plug it in to the speakers for some chill music, it froze again. And my 30GB video one - which was supposed to be my back-up - froze when it was connected to my PC. Fortunately the 60GB one decided to come back to live while we're having dinner so I was using that one to add to the CDs I brought with me but my 30GB is still freezing.

We all had a wonderful time and I hope that my dear friends will enjoy their holy matrimony.

Monday, September 11, 2006

Five Years Ago

It's exactly five years ago when 9/11 happened. It's an event that has changed the world. It even affects my normal living (getting visas, getting on board a plane, etc).

It's one of those events that has that "what were you doing when it happened" question eternally attached to it. I still remembered what I was doing at the exact moment.

I was sitting at work, in my office which I was sharing with 2 other guys. Suddenly at around 3 pm my colleague gets a ring from someone and then he tells us that New York is under attack. Seconds later another colleague comes into our office and tells us that a plane crashed into the WTC. Since our work revolves around the airline industry, this news became a hot topic for the remainder of the day. I frantically tried to open news websites to read what is happening but almost all news sites were down. Some colleagues huddled around a radio trying to hear what is going on from the local news. We basically didn't do any work for the rest of the day. When I got home I turned on the telly and then realised what exactly happened.

So that was what I was doing five years ago. I'm sure almost everyone in the world can tell their story as well...

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Crikey!

Sad news from yesterday: Steve Irwin, the crocodile hunter died after a stingray barb. Stingray barbs are very rare and it was more a freak accident.



I liked his programs, he always came across as a kind of fool who just toys around with animals, but he knows his animals very well and he does most things to educate the viewers about these animals. His movie was a flop, but I watched it with some mates and had a big laugh. Just the way he goes "Crikey!" when seeing a venomenous snake was just hilarious! I've seen him on Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien as well, sure had a couple of laughs from that.

He made me aware of what animals do and don't do, especially crocodiles.

Read his obituary from the beeb.

RIP.