Yeah, I know I've been remiss in my posting. I have a ton of material to post about too. I really need to get my ass in gear and tell the tales of our trip. However, I am enjoying my lazy morning, complete with my planned lazy weekend... so... I'm going to start small with a short post about the most disgusting bathroom I have ever seen. It was in the Lausanne, Switzerland train station and it looked like this:

Now, I guess I should start by saying that this was a "free" bathroom. So what should I expect, really.... I will also clarify, that yes, that is just a hole in the ground with, I guess, spots to place your feet and squat. There is a tap thing that sprays the metal "launching pad" when you are finished your business... though from the TP still resting on it, it's clear that it's not the most effective at "flushing" things away.

I will also say that I apparently didn't have to go as badly as I'd thought, as when confronted with this... I just took pictures and left. I can imagine that maybe a number 1 might not be too bad, but there are plenty of scenarios I can dream up where this kind of bathroom facility would make me cry huge hot jumbo tears and scream bloody murder. Perhaps the real reason I felt so freaked out was that I don't believe myself agile enough for this kind of operation without say... pissing on my shoes or without say, the aid of geriatric-like handle bars on the wall to aid myself from falling over... though, the thought of touching said bars just makes me want to vomit all over my desk....

So it is confirmed! This is a no-win situation to encounter. Thank god, it wasn't an emergency.

I WILL post more over the weekend. I have to... don't want things to get more "dated" than they already are....

• everyone in Europe smokes... why???
• Beer, wine, champagne is cheaper than water and/or coke
• we've toured the Sound of Music sights
• we've fallen in love with Salzburg
• we are now in Germany... Munich to be exact.
• we may never come home....

• auf wiedershen!

sorry... I'll post more later

Spent 2 days in the Tirol region of Austria, this is our last night in Innsbruck. Beautiful here! We've had some friends (Thanks so much, Randy & Sabine) show us around and we've both fallen in love with Austria. Went to a music festival in the town of Schwaz - all bars open until 6am - so much fun was had! Innsbruck and the Tirol region is so beautiful. We stayed in a Castle one night - very cool.

Having fun - Neil and I have finally hit our travel stride. Tomorrow we head to Salzburg. Hope our German phrase book is enough -- our German is pretty sketchy.

PS. In love with Prosecco (a sparkling wine - delicious!)

PPS. Wine is sold everywhere here -- some bottles as cheap as 1.80 Euro

PPS. Neil is enjoying the beer and schnitzel (which is really really good).

PPPS. Oh my lord, the chocolate and pasteries and gelato and cakes.

PPPPS. i still think Neil needs Lederhosen.

So day 2 got off to a shaky start. Neil has now comes to term with the fact that staying in the U of T apartment was the stupidest idea ever. Yes, we could stay there for free, but it was not a convienent location to get around from. Buses there ran at most once an hour... that bus would take you as far as CERN (a 30 minute walk) which could be easily done without our packs, but with our packs it would be not so fun. For breakfast, we went to a local patisserie for croissants (mmm, yes they are better in France). Divine! We bought cheap french wine at the grocery store (because we could). We bought a ton of chocolate to bring home to Canada for some of you lucky readers. That part started very well. The part that sucked was missing the bus into town by three blocks because Neil was "sure" that the bus stop was in the other direction... he was wrong. He's still grumbling that there was an invisible stop there that we couldn't see... or wait, now he's claiming that they tore it down yesterday.

Needless to say, the clock was ticking and rather than sit around another hour for the next bus we took a cab to the train station.

As we are old, we HAD to buy a first class rail pass. Travel by train in Europe is sublime. Absolutelty a pleasure. We headed into Geneva to check out the sites. Had a great time. Then we took the train to Lausanne and had a fantastic evening sight seeing and had a nice supper. Tonight we are staying in a youth hostel which is a step up from last night if you can imagine that!

Highlight of the day: We were approached by 2 people dressed head to toe in orange. They told us they were concerned for our security and proceeded to hand us little orange packages. We opened them moments later and found they were condoms. So we either looked horny or sexually repressed. hmmm.

Oh -- just one more thought before I run out of time on my computer... probably lots of typos... no time to reread. Anyway, communicating in a foreign language is HARD. And we are in French-speaking country where you'd think our crappy core french might help. It does not. Thank god we bought a phrase book. Tomorrow we enter German speaking land... heaven help us.

Sort of live blogging... written and saved as drafts along the way...

[update from the plane]

As per usual, the start of our trip trying. I'm writing this from the plane as I can't watch a movie or tv because the headphone jack on my seat is jammed with something. That on top of the spectacularly shitty service we have gotten from Air Canada starting last night when we tried to web check-in. As was the case when we were in Regina, the web check-in didn't work. We have ALWAYS used the web check-in as it is super handy and efficient - and you can choose your seats! When I called Air Canada at that time, I was told that the reason we couldn't web check-in was because Air Canada Jazz was now a separate company and that they did not offer web check-in -- which I have reason to believe was a big crappy lie. Last night when I called, they told us we could only web check-in 24 hours before our flight... well, we were within 24 hours of our flight. Then they came up with this crazy story about how it has to be within 24 hours of our connecting flight. Anyway -- that was another big lie. I phoned back and got another agent who couldn't help us, but at least didn't lie and make up stories... he was able to seat us together. It's a good thing I called back as when we got to the airport extra early we were told immediately that our flight was full and that if we hadn't already made arrangements to be seated together there was nothing they could do for us. Just for fun, I tried to check-in again -- within 24 hours of our connecting flight, no dice!

So we are now at the airport, it's 5PM... the time they told us to be at the gate to board... when they announce that the flight will be delayed at least 45 minutes due to a crack in the windshield of the plane. So we are re-routed to a new gate, we get a new plane, we take off 1 hour and 15 minutes late. Now this would have been just a mild annoyance if not for the fact that we have to catch a connecting flight in Zurich. We had a 2 hour window there that is now 45 minutes assuming that nothing else goes wrong... but Neil says we have to get through security again and he's not convinced we are going to make it. We'll let you know what happens next.

PS. Neil almost spilled red wine on my pants. That would have been hilarious (after the fact, not sure I would have laughed at the time) given I was only allowed to pack 2 pairs of pants!

[update from CERN]

Well, we made our connection -- barely -- after taking a shuttle train to our new gate, we barely had time to go to the bathroom before we were boarding for Geneva. Upon arrival in Geneva I instantly realized 2 things about Neil... he can't make a decision to save his life, and he and I are completely incompatible travelers. We are on 2 different universes when it comes to how to approach things. Me, I want to get out there and cram all that I can in a short period of time. Neil, wants to make sure we do as little as possible for as cheaply as possible. Dare I say it, but I'm seriously annoyed on day one. He wanted to take the bus to CERN, then a cab, then he didn't know... while this decision making process was being battled in Neil's head, a part of me snapped. Maybe it was the lack of sleep... as in none the night before on the plane (and I tried to sleep, oh how I tried) but we couldn't make a simple bus/cab trip from the airport. You'd never had known that he'd been here twice before....

I'd like to say that we did something on our first day, having arrived in Geneva at 10:30am. The only remotely interesting thing we did was tour CERN -- and the project Neil is working on is really cool.

My last negative point (because tomorrow cannot be any worse) is this: to save money we decided to stay in the apartment that U of T is renting for colleagues that come to CERN to do research. An apartment that is in France and that has limited transit access -- transit being our sole means of getting around. Imagine a very dirty, old, 3 bedroom apartment that only men have been living in for the last year. Imagine bugs, yes bugs, lots of creepy bugs, crawling on the floor in the bedroom. Imagine a bachelor pad that hasn't been cleaned in months. That is what my husband brought me to. At this point I am too tired to cry. Though I'll give Neil credit -- even he has suggested we move to a hotel for tomorrow night.

Tomorrow can only be better.