Saturday 12 Jan, 2008

Woke up to the strident sounds of Carons alarm clock which I have definitely not missed at all. It turns out that both Caron and Carl were kept up to all hours with the upstairs neighbour cleaning and packing up. Kirsten and I were blissfully unaware of the bumping, scraping and water noises going on overhead.

I haven't been looking forward to the next day or so of travelling because one never actually sleeps properly, not even in business class as we found out. Georges quote on flying rings quite true, the difference between business and cattle class is proportional to the strength of the sleeping table that needs to be used. So true.

We were packed and ready at 09:00 ready for inspection with Karin but no Karin arrived due to the heavy snow causing a bus to crash so it was only about 09:30 that Karin arrived and we confessed that we had broken the lamp. We didn't really break it but it certainly doesn't work anymore but she was generous and didn't impound out 200EUR deposit which would have caused me to have a serious wobble.

We all went downstairs and waited for ages for a horse drawn sleigh, the girl that was supposed to be helping us proving to spectacularly useless. Eventually one arrived and we bundled Megan and Alistair as well as ourselves onto it for the ride up to the terminal. Fortunately ski-lifts phoned to say that they were running late so it didn't matter that we were also a bit late. From the time we got to the terminal to when Kirsten and Carl arrived, both out of sorts, must have been at least 30 minutes but at least I had spent a little time taking photo's of their progeny.



The trip from Avoriaz to Geneva was too beautiful for words, the following photograph doesn't even begin to capture just how spectacular it was. Everyone was quite sad to be leaving this winter wonderland but it's time to go back and start paying off the trip.



Once we arrived at the airport in Geneva we managed to check our luggage in and drop most of the remainder in left luggage. Carl was very apprehensive about getting the train into Geneva but it sounded like a much better way of spending the six or so hours that we had to kill.

One thing is for sure, Geneva is not cheap. Caron saw a bowl of soup for 12EUR or R120.00. For the same amount at home, both of us can eat a full meal in a moderately upmarket restaurant. It seems that there isn't a lot to see in Geneva bar the big fountain which seemed to be obligatory although it was very interesting to see all the brand names which are so familiar. The interesting bit was that here, it isn't a shop selling Patek Phillipe, it's the Patek Phillipe shop or building itself.



We arrived back at the airport with plenty of time to spare and were quietly winding down the hours when Caron spotted that our flight to Zurich had been delayed which meant we were at risk of missing our flight to Johannesburg. To everyones relief we managed to get on board an earlier flight but our cleverness was shortlived because all we actually achieved was a longer wait Zurich while we waited for all the other passengers from the flight we should have been on.

No such luck as getting bumped up to business class to we had to get used to cattle class again. Bummer. So that is it, the holiday we thought about, saved for and planned has come and gone and now it is time to get back to work. Can't say I am really looking forward to it but I've got to pay for it somehow.