There is hope...a nice person in Switzerland!!!

I know I didn't think it was possible, and in a way I am loathed to admit it, but it seemed only fair to publicise the fact that contrary to popular belief and all my experiences here......there is actually a nice and perfectly reasonable person, who even made eye-contact.....

But just so that you don't think that this is me going mad, I promise that this person is really the only nice person so far and I am not just becoming inured to their anti-social and bureaucratic ways.

Saturday afternoon saw us venturing into Geneva to laugh at the locals who seem to think that it is "fun" to spend a cold afternoon running up and down a hill in Geneva in a competitive fashion to commemerate some important battle or other that took place hundreds of years ago, and which for some reason now lost to the mists of time needs to culminate in the smashing of chocolate cauldrons....yeah quite, don't ask, I don't know why someone thought that would be an appropriate way to celebrate a military victory.

Anyway in order that we might laugh at the locals we had to secure a parking place in the world's most expensive car-park, how difficult can that be eh?? Well this car-park does benfit from a clever little system of lights and pressure points that mean that above each occupied space is a red light and yes you guessed it above each vacant space a green one. But in true swiss fashion this "efficient" system doesn't account for the way that the swiss drive, or park for that matter and so what may look to the untrained eye like a green light winking at you after 10mins of cruising the parking garage is not actually a space, but a large mercedes parked over two spaces and cleverly avoiding any of the pressure pads!

Much swearing at locals and laughing at the rest we set off towards the airport to start our own battle with baggage handling. British Airways having managed to wrench the handle clean off a rather handy and expensive suitbag on Tuesday night. Anyway we turn up at the airport, parking in the arrivals car park as we were expecting this to take some time and a great many forms. However once ushered through to the bit between customs and passport control, where you have to feel that you really shouldn't be as you aren't arriving off a flight we get to the office of the baggage handlers, which to all intents and purposes is empty....not a soul there. I was about to exclaim how useful this was, much like the banks being shut at lunchtime to make it impossible for you to nip in during your lunch hour...when there he was (al though we weren't at this stage aware of his status) the only nice person in Switzerland!!!!

I proceeded to hand over the broken bag explaining I had called Berne and Bremen on Wednesday and had been told we had to come and file a report...he looks at the bag and disappears into the back office from whence he came, and a short while later reemerges with another bag. I thought he was confused and thought we'd lost a bag, although quite why I'd show him a bag to explain this, only God knows. But no, in fact he was very reasonably and most unexpectedly offering to give us a brand new bag, of the same make and in fact of quite possibly twice the value, and no it was not one that they had stolen from an unsuspecting traveller!

Not only this but he only asked for a few personal details, required no forms to be filled in and no signatures or ID to be shown! The man is waging a war against red-tape and it would seem that he is winning, or it was his first day and may be his last? Which reminds me the swiss don't use the word "unemployed," no if you haven't got a job here then officially you are in fact "unemployable."