Mistakes are funny

So, after the GREAT school trip in Paris, I hung out with my now great mate, Mathieu de Chalvron at his place in Paris. Lots of preparation work for the research I was about to take part on - so it was far from a relaxing time. However, the family retreat in Normandy - bloody amazing!

I honestly cannot remember the last time I had a weekend off to...just...relax - and this house in Normandy had no internet - which was perfect. Armed with Nelson Mandela's autobiography and a body and mind prepared to help do a lot of handy-man work (it was a fix-it-up weekend), it turned out the Chalvron family knew how to have a productive yet simultaneously relaxing weekend - just amazing. We cleaned a lot of rooms out, stacked and re-stacked a wood pile, we swept, we organized equipment - but they were easy 5 hour work days, broken up with a long lunch - very tasty and finished nicely with aperitifs of tasty baguettes (the best in France from the local town boulangerie) and cheese (i fell in love with unpasteurized Epoisses). We played board games, I read my novel, took photos of sunset on the Seine, lit a fire in the huge fireplace - just a really good time - thanks Chalvrons!!

My first stop on my research trip for work was Interlaken, Switzerland. AMAZING! Just a really brilliant time of chocolating, high-ropes coursing (a really good course - actually, I've never done a high-ropes course before and I had so much fun being quite challenged), canyoning, hiking - the place and the surrounding towns are just gorgeous. I went at probably the quietest time of the year, which had its good and bad points, but one of the good points was hanging out with the owner and staff of a massive hotel (think the hotel from The Shining) and having a couple of quiet drinks - and then getting up for breakfast the next morning - only an old lady behind the desk, I walk down a massive corridor and enter a massive dining room - there's no-one else around. The old lady enters and indicates toward the breakfast buffet:"Enjoy - it's all for you!"

Munich was the next stop. I discovered that it's a really cool city too! A lot of beer everywhere - and some very cool gardens. Dachau concentration camp was sobering, whilst Dachau palace gardens was rather enchanting. Both the walking and bike tours I did were ultra fun and enlightening - and I got to go to the last hour and a half of a night of mini-Oktoberfest (aka Spring Fest). Most fun - apart from the drunk sixteen year-old kid who was looking for a fight - and almost got one courtesy of my fun Czech Republic room-mates slash new kick-boxer friends.

So this is where I elaborate on the title of this blog post - the mistakes started happening in Kiev. Actually, on the way to Kiev I realised I had left my belt on the security x-ray in Munich airport (I don't think it came out...hmm).

After withdrawing some hryvnias from a local ATM, I found myself stuck between the glass door I had entered, and the glass door to the main part of the bank - which was shut. Switzerland and German are easy places to navigate - a lot of English is spoken, and the systems they have in place for directions, public transport and facilities are just so clear and simple to understand. Kiev is not so easy. On the one hand, I wasn't as shocked by Cyrillic being everywhere as I'd been to Moscow and St Petersburg before. On the other hand, things just aren't as easy and straightforward as what the German speakers manage. And barely anyone speaks English.

So here I am, stuck in this glass door box, with just an ATM and instructions in Cyrillic. Honestly - the doors weren't opening, and there was no clear button or function to make them open. Eventually, I gain some construction workers' attention (in the bank) and the security guard gruffily screams at me and points. Seeing no other button, I press the small white button that in English reads "EMERGENCY" and the door opens. I think that one got a little lost in translation.

I bought a pizza at a local restaurant - but I had no idea what toppings I was ordering. Ended up being very tasty - that wasn't a mistake. I had a successful shopping experience - bottles of water, cereal, milk, some pastries and some chocolate. All for less than 7 Euro. It's also nice paying 17 euro cents for a ride on the metro.

Next morning, when pouring my 'milk' onto my cereal - i discovered it was thicker than I thought milk should be. The bottle looks like a milk bottle - 1 litre, typical milk bottle shape, white, with a cow on the front. Turns out it was sour cream. Having my lunch of borsch and cheese pancakes later that day - i noticed the huge dobs of sour cream included with both of my dishes, and everything made more sense again.

Oh, and I wrote a blog the other day for my work website about Interlaken - this fascinating, brilliant, mysterious creature that I stumbled across in the middle of the night after a couple of drinks - I had NO IDEA what it was - so I asked for help in my blog. Apparently, it was a plain old hedgehog. Umm...whoops. Maybe I could have guessed that one. It was the first hedgehog I'd ever seen, me thinks, but you'd think I could have been a little bit more wiser on the uptake. The good thing was that I was completely enamored with this animal - being ignorant can sometimes be the icing on the cake of a brilliant day.