Looking Forward

1. High-Speed internet.  Before anything else.  So I can join the "Old Hearts Senior Living Center" Network on facebook, and see what everyone else is up to.  A friend's relationship status changed from 'married' to 'single'.  Did he get a divorce so he can move in with the 28-year old nurse who's been spoon-feeding him for the past 6 months, or do I send a letter of condolence?
2. Counter-Strike installed on all the computers.  So my generation can continue to shock society with the bloodthirsty virtual battles we fight, which will inevitably turn us all into criminals.  Some day.  For less violent days, I am tempted to suggest Mario Kart, but I'm sure we all agree that the frustration of being hit by yet another blue shell might be a little much for some of the guests.
3. A stereo with big speakers.  They don't need to provide the music, because I will be bringing all of my music on my Apple iDontTouch with 1048576 GB of space and mind-control.  But I mean big speakers.  I'm going to be nearly deaf by then, so the bass better be able to penetrate my skull.  Besides, when the giant magnet in the speaker short-circuits my pace maker, I'll need something to keep me going until the paramedics arrive.
4. Bumper cars.
5. A full bar.  Because I'm going to need something to wash down all the meds I need to keep going.  Actually, I might just feed the meds to the squirrels in the park and stick to the drinks.  After all, Tequila works great on a sore throat, so why shouldn't it work for high blood pressure or diabetes? 
6. A big old tree with a tire swing.  Or a hammock.  Because I will need a place to unwind after repeatetly beating the other senior citizens at Mario Kart.  Maybe with a view of something cool, like a space port.  Obviously not Cape Canaveral, but rather something that won't be 200 ft below sea level by then.  This will give me something to watch on those nights when 'Friends' reruns have finally flushed all other memories out of my brain.
   

Standing by the window, I couldn't help but notice that there were an unusual amount of people outside.  The window at the chemical engineering computer lab oversees the ETH's bus stop, as well as the café next to it.  It was a sunny day, but cold, and the wind up here on Hönggerberg did not help.  Grouping together in the loose clusters "smoking", "non-smoking", and "waiting for the bus", the people were trying to make the best of the sun they could catch.  It was crowded, with more people coming out of the buildings every minute.  In the staircase nearby I could hear steps, going down.  This many people are normally only outside during peak traffic hours.  Engineers, biologists, architects, physicists, the usual bunch at a technical university.  They left their computers with molecular modeling software, AutoCAD, or just Excel, to go outside, not quite sure what else to do.  I went back to my computer.

Waiting for the power to come back. 

q.e.d.

ok, where was I?

The days in the Robinson resort were great, even though they were all the same.  I could go into details, but they would bore you soon, as most days consisted of getting up, breakfast, some kind of activity, lunch, naptime / reading time, some other activity, evening siesta, dinner, a show of some sort, pool bar, and finally the "NiteClub".  The shows were typically some kind of musical, and very good.  Especially considering that the dancers weren't professional dancers, but the regular employees that do everything there (called "Robins").  They cooked breakfast in the morning, organized sports and games, watched the children, gave lessons in a ton of crap, cooked dinner, and performed, which pretty much put them on call from 9am to midnight, with one day a week off. 

Anyway, obviously my parents would not be content with just doing nothing for two weeks, so we did a couple of day trips.  We just rented a car and drove off.  Crete is bigger than I had thought.  It's probably about 150 miles long, and about 40 miles wide, and it has mountains over 8000 ft tall.  On the first of our excursions we drove to the Lasithi Plateau, a high plain surrounded on all sides by mountains.  It has very fertile soil, but is fairly dry, so irrigation is important.  To do this, they built windmills with white sails to pump water up there, which were used for centuries.  Apparently, there were some 10,000 of them (says Wikipedia) at some point.  We had to look to find any running, because as nice as they look, it was discovered that diesel is cheaper.  Therefore most are abandoned.  We also drove to Agios Nicholaos, a city on the coast that everyone told us is really beautiful.  It was nice, but we didn't quite get the fuss; other towns we saw were equally nice.  On the way back, we stopped by Knossos.  This palace ruin is apparently the cradle of European civilization, as the first palace was built around 2500BC, a sound 1700 years before Rome was even founded, let alone an empire.  This palace stuck around for around 800 years, before an earthquake increased its entropy beyond recognition.  This is all stuff I vaguely recall from the guided tour we had.  Don't quote me on any of it, as I am too lazy to look it up.  It was then rebuilt, bigger and better.  The most famous king to live there was King Minos, who was famous for several things.  His palace was a labyrinth, one so complicated even the builder could barely escape it after building it.  Supposedly the word labyrinth came from some Minoan word for his palace.  In this labyrinth he kept the minotaur, half man half bull.  It was a pretty cool ruin, but without a guide it would have been mostly rocks.  Still worth it, though.  The second time we went outside our little tropical garden into the dry and non-German speaking world that is Crete, we drove to a town called Matala, on the southern coast of the island, which is mostly known for one thing:  A hill right by the beach has a lot of caves in it, mostly man-made, and back in the day hippies used to live in those caves.  They also have a nice beach there.  But it took us all day to get there.  I was navigating, which is never a good idea.  Despite being an old civilization and all, the Greeks don't seem to have discovered the advantage of street names.  A lot of the streets didn't have names, signs, or even Greek symbols indicating the direction they were going.  So we missed an exit.  No big deal, right?  Except that the next exit put you in a different valley.  So we were only a mile or two from where we wanted to be, but there was a mountain in between.  When trying to drive around that mountain, we discover that there is another one next to it.  And another one.  And our road is smaller than the one we intended to be on.  Needless to say, our little rental Volvo got very personal with the dirt roads through the Greek vineyards.  At least the view was nice.  And the A/C worked.  And in the end, we found the road we needed.  We also made a short stop in Phaistos (sometimes spelled Festos), another palace ruin.  This one withour guides or even signs to help you out.  Just us, our imagination, and rocks.  Old rocks.  Anyway, we found the hippie caves, ate, and drove back.  While the old ruins were interesting and mind-bogglingly ancient, I personally liked the landscape on the island.  It is said that it was once covered in forest, until the Romans came and cut down all the trees.  Not sure it's true, but possible. 

Anyway, so much for the excursions.  The real point of this vacation was to kick back and get a tan, and that we did.  I even took a picture of me every morning, to see if you can tell by the pictures.  But the first thing you see on the pictures is that I didn't get enough sleep on about 12 of the 14 nights.  But I made that up on the afternoons.  The only other thing I should probably mention is that I played golf for the first time.  I was never a fan of that activity, but learning it a little and playing it actually taught me to enjoy it.  It's not for everyone, but I can see myself playing a round on the occasional weekend with my dad. 

Now, putting Crete behind, last weekend I attended an event that is also worth mentioning.  My family and I went to the musical "We Will Rock You", which (who would have guessed) is stuffed to the max with the delightful music of Queen.  The story was basically thrown together to tie the songs together.  Here it is in essence:  After Rock sees its high point in the seventies, it begins a slow but steady decline.  By 2020, owning an electric guitar requires a license.  Soon all instruments are banned.  After that, people forget Rock 'n Roll altogether.  Even the language of Rock, English, becomes a dead language.  The people no longer have an individual taste in music, and before long loose all individuality.  By the 24th century what was once Earth is known as Planet Ebay, ruled by the GlobalSoft coorporation, and inhabited by consumer-clones known as Gaga-girls and -boys.  German is the official language from Monday to Friday, French on Saturday, Italian on Sunday, and Romansh on every February 29th (we are in Switzerland).  Only a few rebels, the Bohemians, still resist the power of the evil Killer Queen, who has outlawed all instruments and other ways of making your own music.  They live in the ruins of the Heartbreak Hotel, guard the "scripture" (old song texts) with their lives, and wait for a day when the "Dreamer" will come and bring Rock back.  This dreamer is just a regular guys that doesn't quite fit in.  He keeps dreaming words in a language he doesn't understand.  He calls himself Galileo Figaro, and his girlfriend Scaramouche (and yes, she does the fandango).  He doesn't understand any of the things that happen to him, doesn't know what his destiny is. Anyway, very entertaining. 

That's all, folks!

q.e.d.