Lunch in Lausanne

So... I had a brief brush with Basel (excuse the little pun - if you spot it) and the Christmas market there is spiffing. Thanks Tina for tipping me off about that - I think it was you anyway.

At the moment of writing I'm whizzing through the countryside of the decidedly French region of Switzerland on an Intercity train so it occurred to me to blog something.

I'm en route to Geneva with a stopover in Lausanne. It wasn't till the last minute I realized the train I was riding didn't run via Lausanne, so here I am on another train. It was about -2ºC this morning so I'll be ripe for a good warm lunch when I arrive.

After exploring Geneva for a couple of days I'll be flying away to the UK to see my family for Christmas. Given the price of the flight (with EasyJet, never flown with them before) I didn't have much of an excuse not to. Today I read in the paper about an incident on an EasyJet plane flying to Nice, that the passengers were forced to brace for an emergency landing 'cause the flight crew thought the landing gear had failed, and then everything miraculously turned out all right! Why watch Air Crash Investigation when you can experience the real deal? :o

Since I'm now in francophone territory, guess it's time to scrape a little rust off the schoolboy French. Over and out... merci pour votre attention, et au revoir.

Eins, zwei, Polizei

If you're coloured, you must be a drug dealer, right?

Well that's what the Swiss police seem to believe. I was committing the "heinous crime" of Ambling Along Marktplatz Looking For A Nibble On A Sunday Afternoon While Black, and was approached by two unmarked, ununiformed police officers. I backed away a bit, 'cause I thought they might be a bit dodgy, but then one of the agents tugged me gently by the arm and the other drew a police id. Ahh... then it was the usual "where's your id? Got any drugs? What are you up to? Empty your pockets and let us pat you down" spiel before they left. They asked "did you think we were gonna mug you?" but after getting myself together a bit I realized that I suspected something very vaguely along that line. I've been mugged before (in Sydney though) and I didn't even realize these guys were cops till one showed the id. It's been my second stop'n'search in less than a month here.

The racism is not so much in the "show your id" Personenkontrolle, which is almost de rigueur in a lot of the European subcontinent (and some other parts of the world) - yes, sometimes even if you're white. It lies in the belief that anyone with a dark skin colour is probably a drug pusher. Switzerland is known as a "benevolent" police state but I didn't find this stop'n'search check all that benevolent. If I'm going to settle in Switzerland permanently, can I handle this every month or other week? I don't know. When I'm married I'll be able to reëmigrate to Australia or New Zealand (if I, rather we, wish) where the police, while not perfect, are not anywhere near as paranoid as to believe that practically every person with a coloured face must be carrying drugs or doing something dodgy.

I still bid the officers a good day after all that: it's the courteous thing to do, even to the racially prejudiced Swiss police. I'll bid an extra good day to you blog readers too of course. :)

Farewell Australia

And ne'er again an "international student" shall be.

It was an interesting three years or so - a good deal of which was spent in New Zealand anyway.

Still célibataire. No problem with that per se. However...

- I spent a whole semester at uni. I made not one real friend as a result of that, in spite of attending classes diligently and being signed up to almost every social group under the sun. Add to that the visa issue, inability to defer studies and the banal attitude of the uni admin, and it was a short road to the exit.
- BLESS THE LORD for the good Christian friends I made in Brisbane and Sydney through the church. I am grateful to/for them for making my time in Australia better/more bearable/more enjoyable.
- CURSE the Department of Immigration And Citizenship (DIAC) for making this country so closed to outsiders, but those are the rules and that is that. Thanks for nothing DIAC!
- Advice: don't be an international student or guest worker. Permanent residence, tourist or nothing are the only ways. Also I will not openly advocate illegal migration as a good solution.

I missed seeing the Great Barrier Reef from Port Douglas and Cairns due to terrible weather conditions. That will have to wait till next time.

I did not make it to Uluru/Kata Tjuta. However, given that Uluru has been sitting there for 100 million years, it will most likely still be there when I visit Australia again. And I surely will be back!

Advice to the lovely sweet laidback drop-dead-gorgeous young Aussie chick who enters my life (when this finally happens!): please love me for who I am. Don't just marry me for my 10315 Singapore Airlines frequent flier points. ;)

With any luck, I'll be back over here for a bit... in a year or two. I'd best think about making my way to the airport: my flight to Singapore leaves soon.

Plane sailing

I could write more about celibacy and/or why I'll only date Aussie girls - I probably will - but I'd rather change the subject for a while. Since I'm typing this midflight en route to Avalon airport (Victoria) I might instead contemplate all the technological marvels in which I can recall being privileged to fly:

Airbus A320; A330; A340 series
ATR 42; 72
Boeing 727; 737; 747; 757; 767
Bombardier Dash 8-300
Cessna 172
Embraer 170
Fokker 28; 50
McDonnell-Douglas DC10

The above list is not exhaustive. For starters I've flown in two Cessnas and they were different models but cannot remember the number of the other one. One was a seaplane and the other not. There may well be other omissions since I've flown well over 100 times in my life and long since stopped counting!

Exciting times! (Relatively.)

Not only am I due to fly to Sydney in a couple of weeks' time, but I've finally booked tickets to Switzerland with a brief Singapore stopover, with Singapore Airlines. So a new country to visit, even if briefly, and then a prospective new European home, if the work is there (a strong if during the current economic climate).

While I don't presently possess outstanding academic or vocational qualifications, I at least carry the advantage of flexibility: I'm willing to (find) work in any of the 26 cantons (states), though without Italian, my prospects in Ticino probably aren't great.

Switzerland has a pretty steep cost of living (Zürich makes Sydney seem cheap!) so I've got maybe a couple of months to find a proper job. Plus, a solid work contract or stiff bundle of $$$ (should that be FFF? :) is required to smooth the residency (B-EFTA permit) application process. But at least I have the option to settle legally in Switzerland. Other "good" countries/territories aren't interested[*]. Yes, Norway is beautiful, I know, but it's not really my kind of society, even though Norwegians are generally very decent people.

[*] Sadly, the prospects of a Hannan- or Farage-led Britain are pretty scarce at the present time.

Twitter

Now I've taken the plunge and signed onto Twitter. My userid there is nobbynobbynoob. My Twitter page links to here, and this page links to Twitter - lol.

It looks good. Following the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) principle it runs quite a fair jot faster than Facebook, which is refreshing. Since I'm a rookie user, I now have to navigate all its foibles and pitfalls - wish me luck!

Indonesia bombings

Well now, there's been another horrid terrorist attack in Indonesia. It's a terrible event, and thus no shocking surprise that the Australian government is trying to discourage its citizens from traveling to Indonesia at all. Drawback for yours truly, is, if he is still single at the end of this year, the purpose of heading to Bali to try to meet women on summer vacation will be nullified: there won't be any there if the government's plans succeed! So maybe time to scratch off that part of the itinerary. Whistler could still be okay though.

Bloody terrorists.

Today's musical acquisitions

I just pulled yet another bunch of obscure (or not-so-obscure) Kylie songs this arvo, including the original 1987 Duffy production of Locomotion (as opposed to the 1988 PWL remix exported worldwide that's common currency). In vinyl form a copy of this is worth a mint nowadays, apparently: scarcity value is all.

Some people think S.A.W. productions/remixes were heinous crimes against music, but I always really liked the PWL remix more than the older Duffy one. However, I subsequently realized that my issue with the Duffy recording is his mixing and overemphasis on the bass rather than Kylie's (oh soooo sweet) voice. A little tinkering with the equalizer on a good sound editor sorted that out, and my EQ-adjusted version sounds better IMHO. This bunch of tracks is pretty good haul for a couple of hours' work!

"C'mon, c'mon, do the locomotion with me!" :)

I popped into JB HiFi just an hour or so ago to check out the prices of so-called "16-gig" (more like 14) flash sticks. My iTunes music collection is expanding at a furious rate and I need to make a backup copy (it doesn't all fit on my "8-gig" (in actuality 7,4GB) iPod nano). Such a flash stick costs $140, which isn't horribly expensive, but I would prefer not to need to spend that kind of money at the moment, since it's money I don't really have. I already spent money I don't have buying a new HP mini notebook and iPod nano in the first instance. Also, I need at least to try to save up a few pennies to help with my trip to Sydney next month. It's hard to believe this is all coming up so soon. The Bookcrossing Convention and my planned fresh start in Switzerland are only about nine months away now. Goodness.

It's that time of year again

As winter draws in, it seems like action is thin on the ground right now. But next Thursday is Kylie Minogue's birthday, and its rapid approach reminds me not only of the old adage tempus fugit but also why I only date Aussie girls and no others (no way, no how). For better or worse, I had a near uncontrollable crush on Kylie in the 1980s, and other superstars of the likes of Neighbours and Home and Away weren't half bad either. :)

So, on the everlasting and elusive topic of dating, this feels like the right time not just to confirm my continued efforts in the online/distance socializing arena but also to prepare a new "Three Year Plan" to up the ante/effort in order to maximize my chances of meeting [Aussie] women. My uncle D first found his at age 33 or so, so this feels like an appropriate timeframe. If such a serious relationship still eludes me at that point, I can only figure that celibacy is meant for me, part of God's plan, so to speak. After an Aussie "sheila", celibacy for life is my second choice.

The "Three Year Plan" will likely comprise travel plans for Bali and Whistler before the Amsterdam Bookcrossing Convention next year. Further city break and general budget holidays to international hostels and similar locations where single women are relatively likely to be found will also feature on the agenda, parallel to the general career and find-permanent-job-and-settle-in-Switzerland plan. Finding a girlfriend in the meantime will of course upset the agenda entirely, but in a good way - that's a bridge best cross should one be lucky enough to encounter it. There is no use attempting to solve a "problem" not yet extant, IMHO.

This is my first post-Christchurch Bookcrossing Covention update, bullet style.

• Mum seems to be enjoying herself in Queenstown, which is good, 'cause it's a cool place.
• I enjoyed the Convention myself, not bad for a first attempt - LOL.
• I'm making very vague and tentative future life plans around next year's Convention. The immigration controls in Australasia are too much to bear, so the time is drawing in for a new European life, preferably with an Australian spouse (de facto or de jure) by my side. That search continues muchly in earnest. Resettlement in Switzerland as a celibate would have to involve some pretty far-fetched long-distance/online dating plans, and relocating to the opposite side of the world to settle down and look for a (semi-)permanent job in the midst/aftermath of an economic depression is challenge enough. Plus, conservative Switzerland is often more of a "who you know" rather than a "what you know" place, and foreign vocational qualifications may have little to no value there, so getting menial job training on this side of the world, say, as a barista or card dealer, won't mean much. :( (FWIW, Aussie spouse or lifelong celibacy are my only two choices.)
• Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Switzerland are relatively desirable places to live in this generally terrible world of ours, but only Switzerland is willing to take me. So maybe Switzerland it has to be. At least maybe my family will be able to visit me every so often if I'm there.
• Et cetera.
  

Welcome!

This is the first post to the new bulletin-board blog. It's basically a test to see how everything measures up.

This is to be a bulletin board to replace my old LJ blog.

Happy Easter.