Trip to Switzerland...

So, wow...it is so long time ago I posted something I don’t even know where to start...so maybe a good thing is to wrap up in a nutshell what happened…OK here is the fast forward version: trip to Switzerland, Sandstorm in Amman, back hot again in Amman, water pipe broke in the apartment and flooded everything, first visitors came, another trip and another trip….

So when I arrived back from India we celebrated my birthday and it was very nice. As I wrote lots of people dropped by and it was a blast! The week after India was quite calm and nothing really extraordinary happened. The week after I had to give a presentation at a workshop held in Zurich and therefore I took advantage to fly in during the weekend and meet with some friends during the weekend. So I flew in on Friday morning to Zurich with a stop over in Geneva. Royal Jordanian, the only carrier that flies straight to Switzerland from Amman flies a circle: Amman, Geneva, Zurich and back. Therefore, depending on what day you fly from where, you have a stop over or not. Flying in I had to wait for 45 minutes in Geneva (which is really easy and no problem at all) and flying back I flew straight Zurich to Amman. So I arrived around noon in Zurich and after having dropped my bags I enjoyed Zurich downtown. My good friend A.B. finished his work at something around 5 and we started to check out bars and restaurants. We ended up hitting the sack at 1.30ish… The loud music and all the people made that I woke up with a headache ;-) and as I am not 20 anymore it took me the whole day to recover. Even worse, I went out with a very nice colleague of mine and I almost slept away… (sorry E.H. for the boring evening…) Anyway, I did so enjoy my weekend in Zurich! My friend and his girlfriend S.A. took so good care of me. They went for grocery shopping and brought me typical Swiss stuff and prepared a delicious breakfast on Sunday morning! I did so enjoy it that I could have stay longer. Sunday at noon time I took the train and went to see my very nice and good friends who live some 45 minutes by train away from Zurich. They will come to Amman end of this week! I am so looking forward and cannot wait to see them here! We spent a wonderful afternoon under the beautiful sun at the foot of the Jura hills.

Monday then, and the rest of the week I was then taken by meetings and a presentation I had to give at a regional training. The training was very interesting and especially nice as I met many old but also new colleagues from all over Europe. After the meeting I met another colleague from Italy who happened to be at headquarters and came across to meet ma at the city I was which is some 30 minutes away as he wanted to take advantage of seeing me face to face. After the meeting I was finally done! I went back to the hotel and met my Spanish, Slovak, Turkish and US colleagues for a very nice dinner downtown Baden (a city in Switzerland). Next day I went up in the morning as I was supposed to leave at noon for Amman. I stopped at the office at it is on the way to the airport to say goodbye to all my very nice colleagues at HQ. We had a coffee together and I walked across with my very nice colleague to buy something at the mall and I took advantage to buy all tings that we did not manage to find so far in Jordan. I was at the airport way more than on time and here is my question: why is it that when you don’t have time and are running at the airport the plane is on time and you don’t make it but when you are way ahead of time the plane is delayed…?! Of course I was delayed and for all those who did not realize…I was traveling on Friday which is my weekend and I was just so keen to get back home as I just wanted to get back home and on top of it my brother in law and his girlfriend were at our place in Amman. Yes, correct: the first visitors were already in Amman and I was not there! Stay tuned for part two… Take care wherever you are in this world. Big hug from a city not in Jordan…