Saturday, July 28, 2007

Break out the fake tan!

Daz 2 Leichtenstein

Guten Tag! You`ll have to excuse me if the spelling goes a bit strange in this post. I`m re-adjusting to the European keyboard. It`s not so bad except that the y and z kezs have swapped places. Gets me everz time.

We left NZ on a 10 hour flight from Christchurch to Singapore and then spent 1.5 days sweating off the winter flab and alternately shopping or trying to stave off the jetlag with strong coffee and short naps. The shopping was worth the effort of staying awake and the skies even turned on their best`wake up' weather. We got caught out in a tropical thunderstorm which, for a tourist, felt like being put through a verz noisy, flashy, terrifying insinkerator. The locals seemed oblivious to both the storm and the flaky, shaky travellers. For those of you watching my waistline, you`ll be pleased to know that I managed a certain amount of self-restraint, in spite of being in the face of dire temptation - a 24 hour all you can eat high-class buffet at the Grand Plaza Hotel and a dazzling array of `never seen THAT before (and therefore must try it)` street food. I think they were they were trying to make me fat so that I would have to visit one of those pink neon-lighted `Slimming Spas` that are on nearly every corner.

The youngest member of our travelling party is taking to it with flair and constant use of the descriptive word `wow!`. She was in such a fizz to get on the plane that all she could do was jump up and down announcing `plane, now` repeatedly. At about 8 hours into the flight she was suddenly over it (as we all were!), grabbed her bag, said `bye, bye, car now` and headed for the door. Luckily they didn`t let her out, but it did cause a major tanty right there in the economy class aisle. This was only stopped when some Volcanoes came into view out the window (this got a `wow`). The harness, for which we are all grateful, goes on in the morning and stays on all day. That way we only have to endure the screaming fit once.

Our second flight was 12 hours Singapore to Zurich and we got on the plane at 1am which is not fabulous if you are like me and don`t sleep well on planes. We were picked up at the airport by a friend and the first stop was to visit his mum, whom speaks no English. Thanks to Stephans German Podcast and my good friend Tony, I`ve managed ok with the German so far. I made basic, if jetlagged, conversation with Gostas mum and have so far only came seriously unstuck at the supermarket when the checkout lady started using a lot of strange words. It turns out she was talking about loyalty stamps or something similar that clueless foreigners know nothing about. Either that or she was saying `I am blinded by the glare of your pale winter skin, how can you venture out in public looking so un-european?`.

I`ll be based here in Leichtenstein for most of the next month but head into Italy for a week on Tuesday and we are booked for two money-strangling nights in St Moritz mid-August. Leichtenstein is a clean and quite wealthy principalitz and I`m looking forward to getting out and exploring the shops and castles. For the moment I`m still recovering from the jetlag. The coffee machine is my little friend for now, even if I had to break out the German-English pocket dictionarz just to get my espresso.

And now it`s 12 noon, about 25 degrees and time to do something constructive. I think from this spot right here on the balconz..

2 comments:

  1. OOOO sounds like you are having fun, and nice a warm... booo hooo.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sounds wonderful so far - do plenty of relaxing. Oh, and more photos, please!

    ReplyDelete

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