h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I just thought I'd drop in and say Hallo and that I miss your country. And to wave. I can't forget to wave.

*waves*

Hi!

*waves back* Hidy Ho Krissy!

Well, I miss your country...

Sorry it's taken me ages to reply to this, I could only take 4 days of work before I had to nip off to Italy for a week of skiing to recover from the stress of it all!

*waggles fist in Jonny's direction*

YOU! YOU! YOU!!!! arrrgh!

Was it fabulous? Beautiful? You SEE? You SEEEEEE why I want to live in London???

*sob* I want to pop off to Italy!!



So was it loads and loads of fun?

First read that as "waggles fish...", there are a number of possibilities here:

1) I need more sleep
2) I need more coffee
3) I need a new screen
d) I need to learn how to read

Anyway, I shall forever be waggling fish to indicate frustration and anger from now on.

The bit of Italy that I was in (Claviere, which is in the north-west on the French border) wasn't so much beautiful as a charming little village ruined by the needs of snow related tourism. Attractive buildings interspersed with a few hurridly constructed blocky hotels. The accommodation was incredibly basic, the shower sprayed water in every direction and the curtain was thoroughly indadequate as far as preventing regular flooding of the bathroom floor was concerned. However, the people and the food (and wine!) more than made up for that. Never been so stuffed in all my life. 2 or 3 starters and a couple of main courses every night.

Nearly forgot about the electrics. Just switching on a light was an adventure, we eventually gave up after a nasty experience when the light blew up with a bright blue flash and threw the trip switch.

Oh yeah, and the skiing wasn't bad either. Could have done with a spot more snow, but no complaints otherwise. Apres-ski wasn't too thrilling because the village was over-run by school parties, but at least that meant it was easy to get to the bar so we still managed to enjoy ourselves!

As for the "popping" thing, that was a bit of an exaggeration when it came to the return journey. We were stuck at Turin airport for 8 hours due to a burst pipe at Gatwick.

Pictures of the resort may be found here:

http://www.equity.co.uk/ski/italy/accClaviere.htm

YAY! It sounds like a good time was had.

And availability of the bar is a BIG plus.

Did you have two single beds in your hotel room? Andy and I did in Lugano, and they had wheels. They rolled all over the room if you tried to do ANYTHING on them.

We were encouraged to be creative.

I want to ski...I want to go to Italy... I'm jealous of you and I'm still waving a fish.

*walks in slowly*

Now Krissy, put the fish down. Once you put the fish down we can talk...

...right, that's better.

The hotel bed situation was a little worrying, there were 5 of us (all lads) and they gave us two rooms. Each had one single and one double bed. We went down to find the rep to complain, but she was nowhere to be seen so we went to dinner instead. After a few glasses of wine the problem seemed to go away. By the time we'd finished eating/drinking and been fitted for skis we'd all but forgotten the bed problem.

After a few drinks in the bar (it was just after midnight by now) we caught up with our rep to discuss lift-passes, Apres-ski and a few other things. It was only as an after-thought that we remembered our double bed dilema. The rather uninteresting end to this dull tale is that it turned out the double was simply two single that had been pushed together. No wheels though.

I guess I shouldn't really pry any further into your creativity!

Oh yes, and it's a lot easier to ski in America than it is in London. You can't pull the wool over my eyes and use that as an excuse as to why you want to move to London. Call me shrewd, but I think there's another reason. Buggered if I know what it is though.

1. Andy Baker
2. The Government (I hate mine)
3. Andy Baker
4. Random politeness
5. Andy Baker
6. BBC
oh I could just go on and on and on and on.

A lot of it has to do with the small-mindedness of the people I know. I think it does something to your psyche when you can literally drive for days and never meet anyone that watches different tv, eats different food or speaks a different language.

I want to travel all over Europe. It's hard to do that from here. Proximity to places like Cairo is exciting for me.

I wouldn't say the UK government was any better than the US. It's far more entertaining over there, I like GW Bush's "I'm just bumbling" comment the other day (I think it was yesterday, but I've given up trying to work out time zones).

BBC, yep. Agree with that one, although really it's only the radio that's any good these days.

Random politeness. Hmm, on the whole I'd say that the people I met in everyday life in America were way politer than over here. I guess it's different depending upon where you are. Mind you, I was 'accused' of being polite once simply because I said "thank you" to a waitress in some Denny's-like place in San Jose. Maybe it's just a different attitude as to what being polite is.

I don't think the UK government is any better than the US government except in one respect, (and this is all just opinion, obviously. People tend to be much more critical of the system they have experienced the most), I think that the UK government is less subversive.

There is just so much underhanded behaviour going on in this country, and it's not the underhanded behaviour so much as the "Yeah, so what? What's YOUR problem?" when the behaviour is uncovered. If the whole idea is that I get to have a say in what the government does, I take the idea that they can flip the public the bird and f**k off with our money really upsetting. If they're going to do that, then for GOD's sake don't call it a democracy and ensure that most of the country remains ingnorant and pliable.

*sigh* I don't think the UK's government is a lot better, but I would much rather have a middle finger stuck in my face than behind my back. Pardon the rudeness of what I'm about to say, but if I'm going to get shagged up the ass, I'd at least like to know who's holding the stick so I know who to hate. I don't expect not to get screwed, I just think it's time for a change of partners...at least that way it'll feel less personal.

As far as politeness goes, I'm not talking about the thing here where people tell you to "have a nice day" and they actually DO hope that you have a nice day, (something that still amazes Andy), but I'm talking about general civility. I would rather not have my waitress really care about whether I enjoy my meal or not, AND have people that say "excuse me" and "thank you" around me. I'm not picky. I mostly just want to be left the heck alone at this point. I don't care whether the guy bagging my groceries really CARES about bagging groceries, but it's nice to be in a city where people don't spit on the sidewalks as a rule.

I think there are an equal number of issues in both countries...I'm just ready for some new issues instead of the same old crap. You know?

You are sooooo right.