Bachelor Pad

Checking back in, it’s a bit hard to keep up with the pace of change lately. What else is new, eh? So just after four weeks of finally comfortably establishing my work week routine based from the same Lausanne hotel, driving to and from the office, health club, etc., we encounter one additional--and presumably the final--change. The office apartment was more or less ready this week for inhabitants. Namely, me.

Recall the apartment is literally next door to the office, an office that also houses a production facility in an industrial park, which by the geometric Transitive Property of Equality means that my new apartment is in an industrial park. The building is old, better not to ask how old (this is Europe after all), but safely sometime post-Renaissance. From what I gather, the apartment’s recent history was near-abandonment, yet inspired primarily dare I say by me and my new marketing counterpart, who lives in San Jose, CA, but will be visiting the office for extended stays, the apartment’s interior has been completely redone. All new furniture, new double-paned windows to keep the winter breeze at bay, even a new Nespresso coffee machine. We’re only still lacking a new TV, couch, and DSL connection for television programming and soon-to-be wireless Internet. So I moved in Monday afternoon.

Perhaps counter-intuitively, quite helpful to my acclimation was the fact that over Sunday evening to Monday morning, I rapidly became sick as a dog. These European germs still really knock me for a loop (the main contributor to my sickness is also an interesting story, maybe I’ll try to recount it next). Nonetheless my suitcase was already loaded, so as the diligent still-new employee trying to make a good impression I simply swapped out my workout gear for an arsenal of cold medication and caught the 7:30am train Monday morning. Turns out I misjudged the early symptoms and was instead racked by alternating hot and cold spells and intense full-body aches during the two-hour packed train ride--aha, the Euro flu, no doubt! As a funny twist of fate, my new commute again forsakes the car for the bus, and thus includes a 25 minute layover at a Lausanne-satellite train station outside in cold rain (under a shelter of course). I’m sure it’s nicer in the summer and there’s a pleasant bakery there if you have an appetite.

The good news is after trouping through that Monday work day (good American work ethic!), I was in no shape to question the comfort of the new pad. When I finally pleaded uncle around 5pm, my boss graciously drove me to the nearest grocery, since there’s no other way to get there, for the week’s supplies. This was also supposed to be my first week of 3 office-days instead of a full 5, so fewer supplies needed. I baked a pizza, hit the sack a little before 7pm and slept over 13 hours. Tuesday was better, although I felt unable to form a coherent sentence through the haze of cold medicine, yet gave my first formal presentation to coworkers that afternoon. I slept only 8pm to 8am that night. Today, Wednesday, I’m about 80% of normal, thanks very much. That’s one superior thing about the flu--no long, drawn-out relationship like with a cold.

Sorry, have to end here. I’ll have to describe the remainder at next opportunity. It’s 9:40pm on Wednesday night and guess what?! I’m in the apartment again, so much for sticking to the 3-day week (special circumstances, customer crisis, etc., etc.). Although today I watched several guys argue in Italian while other guys were arguing in French--an argument finally settled by espresso--and at the end, they asked me to write the meeting minutes in English. You can't pay admission to an event like that.

Gotta go. Feeling guilty. To post this whole account, I’m “borrowing” Internet from the very nice neighbor downstairs. I haven’t even introduced myself yet. How rude.