T’was quite a trip!

For the first time, we (Pina that is) booked a trip 100% via the net, so we were quite apprehensive about the whole idea; especially due to the fact that the hotel we had chosen was barely a year old and still hadn’t updated it’s web page with real pics..

So we started off from Basel airport on a wet Tuesday morning, an airport which just reeks from amateurism: half built terminals, cables hanging down from cracks in the ceiling, dirty carpets and, to add insult to injury, they imagine that just because you’re on holiday you won’t mind paying CHF 6.00 for a can of coke! The vending machines are out-of-order, BTW.

But then it’s EasyJet‘s only Swiss-German hub so…

The flight was amazing and I truely enjoyed it: especially the bit where I sat riveted to my seat, munching a half box of Pringles, while captivated by the sight of Pina’s face colour turning a quite amazing shade of green. She just can’t take a wee bit of turbulences, the old sissy! I wonder how she would have reacted if she would have been caught on this EasyJet flight out of Geneva which intrepidly attempted to fly through a hail storm:

Click pic for more

2 1/2 half hours later we were in Lisbon, picked up our rental car (the guy at the counter seemed totally pissed at the rate we managed to negotiate on the grey market, so he got his own back by requesting a € 1’600 deposit), had a good laugh about the fact that the time on the dashboard was running a whole hour late, switched on the ol’ TomTom and were off towards the Algarve.

More to come…

So Sarah’s school is offering pupils the chance to experience the rat race this week.

As she’s pretty interested in languages and is contemplating a career which will make use of her skills, off she went to the local “Grand Hotel” to work at the reception for the day:

Isn’t she cute?

BTW: Don’t get used to her look. It is TOTALLY atypical…

Me: Sarah, make your bed, ok?

Sarah: Why? What do we have a cleaning lady for?

*Initializing Maximum Teenager Education Overdrive*

And why, may well you ask?

Well: for one, I was left alone for a week.. Yep, Pina abandoned me and took off for a week of sun!

Everything was fully under control, of course: every morning I diligently dropped the dog off to school and the kids to their day-mum.

And I nearly managed to get home, as promised, before 19:00 every day (+/- 8 days).

And I cooked delicious meals for my kids (twice).

And spent quality time discussing such deep subjects as “Why are boys so stupid?”

And when, after serving up a gourmet dinner last Sunday, Sarah looked at me with sheep’s eyes and uttered: “When is Mum coming home?”, I knew I had failed. Miserably.

But I survived!

I was checking out the Swiss Teletext (a.k.a. Ceefax for you Brits) and on this page..

..I noticed this ad for the Volkswagen Touran:

Yep: “Sie sparen Fr. 0.-” does mean “you save Fr. 0.-”

FYI: VW is currently attempting to raise the number of their employees’ working hours/week from 35 to 40 in an attempt to become profitable again.

May I suggest they get rid of their advertising team first?