Mike's Zürich Diary

Saturday 29th - Sunday 30th October

Reardon's tournament was this year held in Shades snooker club in Leamington Spa and would this time take the form of snooker. It was held when the regiment came to see me in the stage play "Gasping", in which I was playing a character who bore a distinct resemblance to Alan Partridge.

The morning before the show, the members of the regiment attending the mission, Amal, Chris, Dave, David, Rupert and myself, visited the snooker club for the tournament. The first round involved everyone playing snooker simultaneously, with the first four players to 20 points going through to the next round (fouls counting negative to the player who fouled). However, owing to a time constraint of a 1.30p.m. lunch appointment with David and my parents and the Nolans, the rules had to be revised somewhat. Amal was eliminated first, slumping to -10 points. I was doing pretty well, but then suffered a rather unfortunate elimination at the end of the second frame, owing to a revised rule that whoever was in last place at the end of that frame would be eliminated (Dave succeeded in snookering me several times which caused my previously healthy points tally to slump drastically).

In the last four, David got into his rhythm and got through on 20 points relatively quickly. Chris and Dave also started to play reasonably well and Rupert soon found himself trailing. He was eventually eliminated at the end of the second frame and Chris managed to pot the final black to set up a respotted black situation between himself and Dave. After a lengthy encounter, Dave went in off to put Chris through to the final.

At this point, it was time for lunch, so the final was delayed until the following day. Over drinks in the afternoon, both finalists named their potential destinations should they win (owing to the possibility that they could both get a destination in the draw with the "bum the mascots round"). Chris selected Helsinki as his choice and David immediately followed suit, selecting Helsinki also.

The final was played on the Sunday afternoon and after a fairly long one frame shoot out, David emerged victorious as the third winner of Reardon's tournament. Helsinki would thus enter the draw as Reardon's choice for mission 11.

Wednesday, 14th December

I woke up around nine in the morning, realising that my Colonel's break journey was about to start. However, first of all I went out for a run. I had decided to go for a run before going to David's house, thus enabling me to relax once I got there and my experience had started. I left the house at about 9.30a.m. and set out towards Kenilworth castle. The run was exhausting, but about 45 minutes later, I arrived back at my house pretty pleased with my efforts. I had a shower and finished packing, before loading the car and setting off to David's house. The journey was pretty uneventful and about an hour and a half later, I arrived. David had been to work that morning and had arrived back at his house about 10 minutes before me. I knocked on his door and he opened it, declaring that the Zurich experience had started. We were pretty excited about the prospects.

Having watched a thoroughly exciting snooker match the previous day, in which Steve Davis had overcome Stephen Maguire (the defending champion) in the last 16 of the UK championships, we had a decision to make. Steve was facing Ken Doherty in the quarter-finals that afternoon and we couldn't decide whether to stay at David's house and watch it or go into Reading for the afternoon. Eventually we decided that we didn't want to stay in all day and we might be disappointed if Steve Davis lost, so we left the house and headed to the station. The walk was pleasant and we chatted about the forthcoming break. The miserable bloke wasn't on duty at the station, so we got straight on a train to Reading and purchased our tickets from excess fares upon arrival. We headed straight for the Oracle centre and chilled for a while with muffins and drinks at the muffin and drink place, before doing a spot of feature shopping. We checked out a potential Christmas purchase for our Mum in Woolworths before heading next door into WHSmiths to investigate the prices there. As we walked into WHSmiths, we noticed an argument going on at the door, between some disgruntled, drunk looking guy and the security guard. The drunk guy said, "I want to make a complaint about that bitch in the wheelchair!" whilst the security guard tried to calm him down. We made a purchase of some stamps and it seemed that the argument was getting out of control, as the woman in front of us said, "I've had enough of this", before picking up her stuff and running after the guy. The cashier told us that there had been quite a few problems with this guy. Apparently he was always causing problems there. Happy that we'd encountered our first mentalist of the Zurich experience, we walked towards the waterfront and chilled in Starbucks. We got in some gingerbread lattes and sat down for a chat. David rang our Grandad and discovered that Steve had moved into a healthy lead in his match against Ken Doherty, which we were very pleased about. Eventually we got a message from Chris, informing us that he was arriving in Reading, so we told him to meet us in Starbucks and he soon arrived, getting in a round of eggnog lattes.

Rupert was supposed to be arriving around six o'clock, but as it approached that time, we hadn't heard from him. Eventually, at about five to six, he sent a message to say that he hadn't left the office. David was really annoyed and wanted to go straight for food, but Chris and I didn't want to put a dampener on the break so early by not waiting for Rupert. However, another text message arrived from Rupert shortly afterwards - he had missed his train. We therefore decided to go to Chilis without him. We got a table for four, on the off chance that Rupert would join us and sat down. He didn't, and after we had eaten our classic nachos and I'd had my cajun chicken sandwich, David had eaten his chicken crispers and Chris had had his fajitas, we made our way back to Reading station. Rupert was wandering aimlessly on the platform, so we joined him and caught a train back to Thatcham. On the walk back to David's house, I confronted Rupert regarding his inability to inform us of his plans. Despite Chris' help, Rupert couldn't appreciate that he'd done anything wrong, insisting over and over again that it was him that had missed out. I gave up trying to explain that we actually wanted his company for the pre-break meal and the fact that we were annoyed he hadn't made it was, in a way, a compliment. When we arrived at David's house, David turned on the television and we discovered that Ken Doherty had fought back and was now only trailing 8-6. He succeeded in winning the next frame too and we began to get nervous. The next frame lasted a while, but Steve eventually got a chance on the colours, only to miss the pink, which Ken potted to leave himself a long shot on the black. Fortunately, he missed it and after a long safety battle, Steve took on a risky double into the left middle pocket. The risk paid off and the black went in. David and I cheered in delight, happy that we wouldn't have to go through the agony of a deciding frame. Once we'd calmed down from this tense match, we all punched the sack as we'd have an early start the following morning.

Thursday, 15th December

I woke up at around 2.30a.m. I was shattered, but I managed to drag myself out of bed and go through the shower. David put some coffee on and, once we were all ready, we loaded the car and began the drive to Luton airport. Year 3000 rang out on route to get us in the mood for the holiday. David gave Amal a quick ring, but it turned out he was running to catch a train and would ring us back later. The journey to Luton was uneventful, except for a brave passing manoeuvre on a truck as we made our way onto the M25. Eventually we arrived at the airport and I parked in a rather unpleassant car park. However, it had the advantage of being a two minute walk to the terminal building. As we walked away from the car, David suddenly realised that he'd left the Little Lucky Leprechaun in the car. He returned to the vehicle and collected him and we walked to the terminal. It turned out that we were too early to check in, so we walked over to a coffee area and sat down with some coffee and a pastry to share. Once check in had opened, we walked up to the desk. Amal and Dave were dicking around and hadn't yet arrived, so we checked in. Chris and David had a brief discussion regarding the likelihood of getting a decent breakfast through security. We spent a while looking for a plan of the airport but failed. We eventually decided to take the risk and wandered over to security. After going through and up a long escalator, we arrived into the departure area. There was a large cafe in one corner, so we went over to it. David and Chris went for a cooked breakfast from the selectamead, whilst I got a muffin and Rupert chose some rather bizarre looking ethnic stuff. We chose a table in the corner and soon Amal and Dave called to tell us they were on their way through. They soon joined us, Amal getting himself a vegetarian breakfast. We spent a while chilling, had a brief browse of the shops and then wandered over to the gate to board our flight. There appeared to be some dicking around going on as it took us ages to get on board. Once we'd embarked, I slid into the window seat with Amal next to me and David next to Amal. The others took the three seats behind us. After a while, there was an announcement to tell us there was a problem with the plane and they were sending an engineer out to fix it. I couldn't believe it, but I was so tired I fell asleep. I woke up to find that we were about to take off and I spent much of the flight drifting in and out of sleep. After some time, the plane descended into Basle airport. We disembarked and, once arriving at baggage reclaim, we sent Amal and Dave outside to get the bus tickets to Basle station. Just as they left, we discovered that we could purchase tickets inside the baggage reclaim area. David's bag arrived first, so he left and went to find the others to ask if they'd got tickets. A few minutes later, I received a phone call to say that we could get tickets on the bus. Satisfied that everything was okay, the three of us exited through customs and joined the others outside. A bus was waiting, but the bus driver told us angrily that we couldn't get tickets off him, we had to get them from the machine. However, the machine would only take coins and we only had notes. I was furious, as it turned out that Dave and Amal had simply assumed we could get tickets on the bus and hadn't actually asked anyone. I swore, which didn't impress Amal and we walked back into the terminal. Chris took charge and discovered that we would have to go through passport control into the French portion of the airport before we could get bus tickets. Somewhat disbelieving that we had to go into another country to get tickets to take us to somewhere else in Switzerland, Chris and I walked through passport control, went through to France and, after wandering round for a while, eventually found the ticket desk and bought some bus tickets. We joined the others and I noticed that Amal was in a mood with me as I'd apparently sworn at him. Chris acted as peacemaker, somewhat successfully, and we made up by buying some Knoppers from the chocolate machine. We shared it around - it turned out to be a wafer type chocolate biscuit. It was okay. A bus arrived and we embarked, taking the twenty minute journey to Basle station.

At the station there was a small Christmas market and we discussed the possibility of hunting for some gluewein, but we were all eager to get to Zurich, so Chris bought the tickets and we made our way up the escalator to our platform. At this point I heard David shout, "Oh twat!" and I turned round to see that his suitcase was disappearing down the escalator behind him. David and I cracked up as his case slid to a halt and he retrieved it. Once he'd recovered his case, we walked to the platform and boarded the train. The journey to Zurich was about an hour and we soon arrived at our destination for mission 10. It appeared that we could either take a tram or walk to the hotel, but Chris suggested we could take a nice scenic walk along the river, so we decided to walk. It turned out that his scenic walk was a lot further than the direct walk, so we overruled him and took the direct route instead. The walk took about twenty minutes but, after walking past the Arnold motor bike shop on route, we eventually arrived at the hotel Terminus. We checked in and crammed into the elevator. I took the first room with Dave, whilst Amal and David took the middle room and Chris and Rupert took the room on the end. After a brief recovery period, we left the hotel and headed towards the river. We found a bridge and crossed over it to walk along the far side of the river. We found a traffic cone separated from us by a railing and suggested Chris could put his hands through and do a "Stop telling me what to do!" but we decided against it. The river walk was quite pleasant. We soon found ourselves on a pleasant path. Chris pointed out that it was a disused railway line. As there were no train tracks and no sign that it had ever been a railway line, David pointed out that it wasn't actually disused, it was more buttfucked. This caused some hilarity. To our right a small island appeared in the middle of the river. We walked along side it, across another bridge as the river forked and arrived at a large statue which Amal and David decided to recreate. We walked into a park which had a bandstand in the middle of it. As we arrived at the bandstand, we noticed there was a storeroom underneath it and Chris pointed out that three traffic cones were stacked up inside it. I was all for going in and doing a recreation, but we decided it was too risky. This assessment was proved correct as two policemen entered the park a couple of minutes later. We continued our walk through the park and arrived at the Swiss National museum. Behind it, in the courtyard, we discovered an ice rink and suggested that we have a rendition of Moules on Ice later on during the break. We walked around the side of the museum, pausing to chuck a couple of snowballs at each other. We crossed over the main road and found ourselves back in the main station once again. Chris went and bought some three day tram tickets for us and once this was done, we wandered through the Christmas market at the main station, pausing at a gluewein stall in the middle to have our first gluewein of the break. There was a massive Christmas tree in the middle of the market, with lots of expensive looking glass ornaments adorning it. There was a pancake stall next door, so David, Chris and I decided to sample the chocolate pancakes with smarties on. They were pretty good. After a while, we left the station via the side entrance and walked down the main street, which was called Bahnhofstrasse. We turned left and crossed over the river, up the hill on the other side and then turned right, to find ourselves in the old town. We soon emerged into another section of the Christmas market and Dave spied a couple of gluewein stalls in front of us. We decided that we should stop and purchase some gluewein at the second stall. It also sold something called Langos, which David was keen to try. We ordered one and were presented with something which looked a bit like a poppadom, covered in paprika. We all sampled it and it turned out to be excellent. As we chilled on a table next to the stall, Chris decided to order another one and some more gluewein for everyone except Rupert, who had passed both times. There were peanuts scattered liberally on the table, which we helped ourselves to. There was a local woman eating a Langos and David couldn't believe that she was greedy enough to have a whole Langos to herself. Across from the gluewein stall was a restaurant which the guidebook recommended for dinner, but after a brief discussion, we decided not to book a table for that evening. We carried on walking down the street and soon found ourselves outside a toy shop called Maison de la Poope. We took a photo of Rupert with Amal and I in front of the shop, before walking on up the hill and turning back towards the river. After walking down a steep hill, we found ourselves at a busy road with the Zurichsee in front of us. We crossed over to it and onto the bridge at which the river joined the lake. The view was impressive and we paused to admire it, before crossing over the bridge and into a square beyond. There was a stall selling Christmas trees which we walked past, and a small cafe in a tent on our right, but we decided to head back into the centre to find a cafe to sit in as we were getting cold. I spied some public toilets so Chris, David and I made our way over there, but retreated quickly when we opened the door to discover a serving wench ready to take money from us. We found ourselves at the end of Bahnhofstrasse, so we walked back towards the station. David commented that there were several banks on this street so there was probably lots of gold stored in vaults beneath our feet. We turned right off the road and found a cafe which we decided to sit in for a while to warm up.

A quick glance at the menu revealed that food was somewhat expensive, so we decided to just get a round of hot chocolates in in an effort to warm up. We chilled out for a while, before deciding it was time to go back to the station and get in some gluewein. As we turned back onto Bahnhofstrasse, we saw a tram go by, driven by a Father Christmas, with a couple of angels on the back. It was full of children. We thought this was a little dodgy but carried on walking. David and I speculated that he was some sorted of really sinister version of the child snatcher from "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" and dubbed him Pedo Claus. We soon arrived at the station and made for a gluewein stall in the heart of the Christmas market. We got a round in and drank our fill before heading over to the tram stop to get a ride back to the hotel. A tram soon arrived and we clambered on board at the back. As the tram set off, David stepped back onto a button on the floor and a gong sound. David and I immediately said, "Well team!" This created much amusement and we pressed the button a couple more times before we arrived at our destination. We soon found ourselves back in the hotel and, after a quick trip through the shower, we all met up and headed back to the tram stop to head out to the restaurant near the Langos stall we'd picked out earlier. We got off the tram at the station and crossed over the river, before heading into the old town. We eventually arrived at the restaurant but discovered it was full. Realising that we'd blundered, we left again. We continued down the street, past several restaurants and eventually noticed a place called "Alt Zuri" off to the right down a side street. We walked in and were guided to the last table in the place - a circular one in the middle. We were told that there would be a small charge for the pianist. David and I felt that this was a shafting but knew that we'd be unlikely to find anywhere else in a hurry so kept quiet. I sat down with Amal to my right and David to his right. Chris was then to David's right, Rupert to his right and Dave completed the circle. The elderly waiter took our order whilst we relaxed to the rather bizarre singing with piano accompaniment of the slightly mental pianist. Everyone except Amal ordered a Swiss mixed meat dish for main course. Amal ordered the local speciality, Raclette, which was apparently some sort of melted cheese dish. Our starters arrived and I tucked into my soup. We discussed plans for the following day and decided that we would head up the Uetliberg to check out a walk known as the Planetenweg. Our main courses soon turned up and the waiter informed us that he didn't have five sausages of the same size so he'd given Chris a bigger one. David and I were disgusted that Chris had got it and Chris made some comment that he'd be happy to share. However, he started eating it and it soon became obvious that he wasn't going to share it. At this point a rather grim smell wafted across our table, which signalled the arrival of Amal's Raclette. A plate was placed before him and it was covered in nothing but melted cheese. Amal began to tuck in, offering David and I a taste. I tried a bit but soon discovered it was disgusting. Chris finished his big sausage off and appeared unrepenting that he'd not shared it. Dave commented that he would have done the same thing.

Once we'd finished our main courses, we glanced at the dessert menu and were delighted to discover that the Colonel was on the menu. We couldn't believe it. Dave and Chris ordered one, whilst Rupert went for the alternative orange sorbet, I ordered chocolate mousse and Amal and Dave went for the creme brulee. The desserts arrived, but Alt Zuri had not provided the Colonel with the expected slice of lime - clearly they didn't know how to prepare a true Colonel. David started laughing as he discovered that his creme brulee was, in fact, instant whip. He explained this to the others but it turned out that I was the only one who knew what instant whip was so I was the only one who got the joke. We soon finished off our desserts so we paid up and left, heading back through the old town towards the station. Chris and Dave decided that they were both exhausted, so they headed back to the hotel. Amal, Rupert, David and I were keen for another drink, so we wandered into a bar in the old town called Havana bar, sat in a table in the corner and chilled with a round of drinks. After about 45 minutes we decided to head back to the hotel, so we left and walked to the tram stop, catching a tram back to the hotel. Back at the hotel, I said goodnight to the others before going back to my room. Dave was already asleep so I punched the sack myself to get ready for day two.

Friday, 16th December

I woke up to the sound of knocking at my door. I stumbled over to the door and opened it, to be greeted by Amal. He told me that he'd had very little sleep as David had been snoring. He then asked me to swap rooms with him the following night. I thought this was a bit out of order for three reasons - firstly, he'd agreed to share with David at the start of the break and it was unfair and a bit hurtful to David to ask to swap. Secondly, if he couldn't sleep, why should I fare any better? Therefore he was selfish asking me to swap. And thirdly, he was putting me in an impossible position - I was sharing with Dave for the break as I'd never shared with him before. But I clearly wasn't going to say I wasn't willing to swap as that wasn't fair on David either. I mumbled something and hoped that it would be forgotton in the evening.

After going through the shower, we wandered up to breakfast in the attic. There was a small array of pastries and cereal, along with coffee, hot chocolate and a strange looking drink called Ovomaltine. I selected a hot chocolate and a bowl of cereal and sat down. We had a fairly rapid breakfast, before returning to our rooms to get ready for our excursion. Once we were ready, we headed out to the tram stop and got a tram to the main station. On route, Rupert said that he'd like to go and buy some gloves and he'd seen a glove shop the day before, so he was keen to go and check it out. Chris said he'd go with him, so they stayed on the tram whilst the rest of us got off at the main station and made for a gluhwein stall. We secured some train tickets up the Uetliberg before heading into the underpass to check out some shops. We spied a rather nice looking chocolate shop with some slabs of broken chocolate in the window. We quite fancied a pink one which was called Himbeer-brombeer. Amal sized it up and went inside. He was about to buy some when an old woman pushed in front of him. David and I couldn't believe her rudeness and gestured at her from outside the shop. Amal eventually secured some Himbeer-brombeer and another slab of chocolate called Cornflakes Milch. Happy with our purchases, we walked back upstairs to the nearby gluhwein stall. As we waited to buy some gluhwein, David pointed out that the Himbeer-brombeer was basically made up of Himbeer and Brombeer. At this point, the gluhwein seller said, "No, there is no Himbeer or Brombeer in this gluhwein. It is just wine!" David told him we were talking about something else and the rest of us started laughing. David handed around the gluhwein and we began to drink. We ate the Cornflakes Milch, which was excellent, but decided we'd better save some Himbeer-brombeer for the others (it wasn't quite as good). As we drank our gluhwein, a vagrant came up to Dave and said, "You have to pay for gluhwein?" Dave replied, "Yes, that's how we got some gluhwein." The mentalist then continued, "I want to drink." Dave said, "Well, you can go and do the same." He then said, "Okay," and walked off. David, Amal and I all cracked up, unable to believe this hilarious encounter with a mentalist. We also found it amusing that, out of all of us, he'd decided to talk to Dave.

Eventually Chris and Rupert joined us, complete with a new set of gloves for Rupert. We got in another round of gluhwein and made our way over to the platform to catch the train up the Uetliberg. The train climbed up the hill and as we got higher we noticed that the ground began to be covered in snow. We soon arrived at our destination and got off the train in several inches of snow. I quickly popped into the station for a toilet stop and then we all wrapped ourselves up to begin our stroll along the Planetenweg. The ground was very slippy and we scrambled up a steep slope to the Sun, which was the beginning of the planetary trail. The Sun had a diameter of around two feet. As the solar system was at a scale of 1:1 billion, we realised that this would make Mercury and Pluto absolutely miniscule, whilst the walk to Pluto would be several miles. We continued up the slope and soon arrived at Mercury. It was a tiny ball-bearing embedded into a plaque. Unimpressed, we walked further up the slope and quickly wandered past Venus and Earth. A few hundred yards up the slope we arrived at Mars. We realised that our walk to Jupiter would be a lot longer, so we continued down a small slope, past a hotel on the left and up the other side of the hill. The walk was pleasant and the views of the snow-capped hills were impressive. After a while, we found Jupiter, which was about 20cm across. We continued walking, speculating about Saturn and it's rings. Another half an hour or so later, we arrived at Saturn and were disappointed to see that its rings were just modelled by a single metal disc around the metal sphere. We paused for photos with the Little Lucky Leprechaun. Next to Saturn was a plaque describing the planetary trail and highlighting the distance between the planets. We noticed that there were three Plutos, corresponding to the planet when it is closest to the Sun, furthest away and somewhere in the middle. We thought this was amusing and Rupert said that it reminded him of a Monty Python sketch. David, Dave and I then launched into the Last Supper sketch from Monty Python, pointing out that the person funding the planetary trail had wanted 9 planets with one Pluto. The designer then said, "One?", at which point the other guy said, "Yes, what the devil persuaded you to put 3 in?" We finished the application to much hilarity. Once we'd done, Dave credited Rupert with application of the break. David and I thought this was a bit strange, considering Rupert hadn't actually done the application.

We continued our walk on to Uranus. It took some time, but eventually we got there to discover a spike above a plaque, with no planet. Someone had pinched Uranus! We couldn't believe it! In order to rectify this, David and I got some snow, rolled it into a ball and put it on top of the spike to symbolise Uranus. We then took a couple of photos. Once we'd done this, David and I proceeded to do a Blackadder application. I started by saying that we needed to find something that looked exactly like the planet Uranus. David said, "Know you of such an object?" I said, "No, but we could make one..." David then continued, "No we couldn't, Michael. Well, I suppose you have to learn sometime. When you get lots of interstellar dust collecting together..." I then interrupted and said, "No, all we need to do is collect together lots of snow, roll it into a ball and put it on the spike. Everyone else will think it's the planet Uranus, but we'll know that it's actually a lump of snow." David then completed the application by saying, "Only we will know...?" David and I agreed that this application was probably better than the one which had bagged Rupert application of the break a few minutes earlier. We walked on and arrived at a large open field. To our left and far below us lay Zurich, but fog had descended and we couldn't make much of the city out. As we made our way around the edge, it started to hail and the wind started to blow. Soon we found ourselves in near blizzard conditions. David, with neither a hat nor a scarf, was suffering huge lacerations to his face. Amal and I grouped ourselves together and then grabbed onto Chris, who was in front of us. We charged through the hail in a pack. David then said, "That's a great idea!" and piled on the back. We found ourselves in a rolling maul, which served to offer some protection. When one of us was suffering too much from face lacerations, we removed ourselves from the front of the rolling maul and placed ourselves at the back. Eventually, we made it across the field, walked through a short forest region and arrived in another field. We paused at a plaque to study the route. David and I noticed the planet markings on the trail through the middle of the field and suggested we follow that route. However, Dave and Chris noticed that the OS map was indicating we should walk around the side of the field. Neptune and the first Pluto were quite nearby and we were keen not to miss them. Eventually, against David and my better judgement, we took the path up the hill around the edge of the field. David and I speculated that Neptune and the first Pluto were somewhere in the middle of the field and, as we arrived at the far side without passing them, we began to wonder whether we should have gone with our instinct and taken the other route. We ended up walking through some trees and soon arrived at a very steep downward trail leading to a ravine with steep drops on both sides. The path was very slippy and everyone struggled down it. I had shoes on with very little grip and decided that there was no way I could get down the path without falling over and perhaps plunging down into the ravine. I walked to the left into the trees and edged down around a tree, eventually making it down the slope. Once we were reunited, we all walked across the ravine and arrived at a huge TV tower. At this point, everyone was desperate for the toilet - the near freezing conditions had brought this on. We all took a brief pot stop and continued walking. Dave was convinced that we were very near to a cable car which went down the mountain to a station. He proved to be right, as we soon arrived at a building on our left which appeared to house a cable car. It was absolutely deserted. We had a brief discussion about what to do. No one seemed keen to continue the trek to find Neptune and the three Plutos (David and I were by now convinced that we'd missed Neptune and the first Pluto anyway). So we walked into the building. We were unsure how the cable car operated but Chris suggested that we get in it and see what happened. We walked through the turnstile, opened the door to the cable car and got in. We were all absolutely freezing and Amal and I had very wet feet. We sat in the cable car and waited but nothing happened. David and I speculated that it was like "Where Eagles Dare" and maybe there would be someone on top of the cable car trying to kill us. We also discussed the possibility of Jaws being on top of the cable car. We sat there for 15 minutes and had to share out the remainder of the Himbeer-Brombeer as that was the only food we had. Eventually, the cable car started up and made its way down the mountain. By this time we were all freezing and it was getting very foggy outside. As the cable car made its way down, we tried to gauge the point at which we could survive if the cable car became detached from the cable.

At the bottom, we got off to discover that there were people operating it at the bottom. We were relieved, as we were slightly freaked out when it suddenly started to move at the top of the mountain. We left the station and walked down a hill towards the train station. We walked across the track, via a bridge, ignoring heckling from some locals behind us. After descending a set of stairs, we found ourselves in the station. A glance at the timetable told us that we had about half an hour to wait for our train back to Zurich, so we went into the cafe and purchased hot chocolates all round. Once we'd acquired these, we walked to the platform and waited. I sized up the chocolate machine with David and we purchased a chocolate bar called Knoppers. We shared it round. It was a wafer-type chocolate and tasted okay. After what felt like ages, the train arrived and we made our way back to Zurich station. About half an hour later, we disembarked the train and made for a gluhwein stall downstairs near the shop where we purchased the Himbeer-Brombeer earlier in the day. The gluhwein girl also sold roasted chestnuts in a big pot and Dave took advantage of this to attempt to dry his gloves on top of the pot. We got in a round of gluhwein and drank them, before wandering upstairs to the main Christmas market area to get some lunch. Our destination was the gluhwein and sausage seller next to the massive Christmas tree. We purchased some sausages and another round of gluhwein. Chris decided to have a savoury pancake, whilst David and I got pancakes with chocolate sauce and smarties for dessert. Amal decided to sample the raclette from another stall next to the Christmas tree. The cheese was on a spit at the back and the woman scraped some off before placing it on a plastic plate. Amal let David, Chris and I try some. It tasted pretty disgusting. As we were having lunch, I received a text message from my Mum informing me that Steve Davis was leading Stephen Hendry 4-0 in the semi-finals. I couldn't believe it. I informed David and we were both very happy. Once we'd eaten our fill we walked around the Christmas market for a while. I ended up walking with David and as we wandered down an aisle, David got barged into and nearly knocked over by a man. The man didn't so much as acknowledge what had happened, let alone apologise. David was very annoyed and turned to me, saying, "I've a good mind to go and barge him back." He then said, "In fact, I think I'm going to." He walked off and followed the man, before veering into him and barging him. The man staggered and nearly fell over. David swerved away and disappeared into the Christmas market again before the man could see what had happened. I was nearly doubled over laughing and David soon rejoined me, laughing heartily himself. We met up with the others and decided to head back to the hotel to get ready for the evening meal. We caught a tram and went back to the hotel. David and I were eager to find out what was going on in the snooker. We arrived back at the hotel and discovered that the snooker was on the television. Steve Davis was 5-1 up by this stage and I watched the last two frames of the session, which Steve won, to go 7-1 up. I was really pleased - surely Steve could wrap it up in the evening session and get to the final?

Once I'd finished watching the snooker, I went through the shower, before Dave and I met the others to catch a tram to go for dinner. We got a tram which crossed over the river and headed down into the old town. We got off and walked up hill to the square with the Langos stall. The restaurant we'd tried and failed to get into the previous evening looked busy, so we wandered along the street for a while, trying and failing to find somewhere to eat. Eventually we decided to go for a drink in a trendy wine bar called Barrique. I suggested that everyone else should get a drink whilst Chris and I attempted to find somewhere to eat. Chris and I then walked back towards the Langos stall area, spying a restaurant called Franzikaner. I commented that this sounded a bit like Frank Skinner. We went in an Chris launched into a negotiation in German with a waitress. She told us that they were very busy, but they could have a table for us at half eight, which we could have for a while, but would have to vacate later in the evening. We said this was fine and joined the others for a lengthy chilling session in Barrique. We told the others and proceeded to get a round of drinks in. After a while, I remembered something and turned to Chris. I told him that half eight in German actually means half past seven. Chris agreed and we realised we had very nearly blundered. It was almost half past seven, so we quickly drank our beverages and left the bar to go to restaurant Frank Skinner. We were directed to a table which had a large pillar in the middle of it. I slid into the booth seat, with Amal on my left. David sat opposite me, with Dave to his left and Rupert to his right. Chris sat at the head of the table the other side of the pillar. I ordered soup and a meat dish, whilst David ordered sausage and mash. The food was good and we spent a pleasant evening talking about our experiences on the Uetliberg. Some time through the meal, I had another text message telling me that Steve was now 8-4 up in the snooker. I was a little worried - he only needed one to win now, but Stephen Hendry was making a comeback. Once we'd finished our meal, we paid up and wandered around the corner to a beer hall for a drink. We sat there and chilled, but David and I were unable to relax as we knew that the snooker was still going on. I'd had no text message and the longer that remained the case the more likely it was that Hendry was making a comeback. Eventually we decided we could wait no longer and headed off to catch a tram back to the hotel. Our tram made it's way around the station and, as it turned onto the street which our hotel was on, it stopped and all the lights went out. We couldn't believe it. We got off the tram and walked. As we did, I told David that I suspected that our Mum would have texted him, rather than me, with the result. I was basing this on the fact that she'd sent me the first and second session interval scores, whilst she'd texted him the end of first session score. I wondered, therefore, whether she was alternating who she sent text messages to. David's phone was in the hotel, so this increased our eagerness to get back to the rooms. At this point, our philosophy changed - we now didn't want to get a text message on my phone. By this time, it was likely that, if it was still going on, it was likely to be 8-8, so we were banking on the fact that it was over and our Mum had texted the result to David. After what seemed like ages, we arrived back at the hotel and went straight to David's room. He turned on his phone and, after an agonising wait, a text message arrived. Steve had won 9-6. David and I let out a cheer and the tension was released. We decided to get ready for bed. At this point, Amal informed me that he intended to go through with his plan of sleeping in my room. I wasn't happy, but there was very little I could do about it. I got ready for bed in my own room before going to David's room and punching the sack.

Saturday, 17th December

I woke up in David's room, before knocking on the adjacent door and asking Amal for my room back. Once I'd gone through the shower, Dave and I went upstairs for breakfast. I had a bowl of sugar puffs and some hot chocolate and joined the others at a circular table near the door. Once we'd eaten our fill, we returned to our rooms, grabbed our belongings for the day and headed out to catch the tram. David, Chris and I were ahead of the others and we saw a tram arrive, so ran to catch it. Amal and Rupert were some way behind, with Dave trailing even further behind. As Amal and Rupert arrived at the tram, the doors closed, but the driver opened them so that they could get on board. Dave clearly had no intention to run and the tram drove off before he could board. David and I found this highly amusing, but we realised that this presented us with a problem. How were we going to manage to meet up with Dave? We got off the tram at Bahnhofstrasse and we wandered over to a nearby chocolate shop which sold slabs of chocolate similar to the Himbeer-Brombeer we'd bought the previous day. Chris bought some Himbeer Brombeer, some Cornflakes-Milsch and a couple of others. We then wandered around Bahnhofstrasse and paused at a small stall selling comedic looking Father Christmasses. We were reminded of the dodgy tram driver we'd seen on the previous day. We therefore bought one and, as we thought we should keep his identity secret, gave him the name of PC Bourne. As we made our purchase, a tram turned up and Dave got off. He seemed unphased that he'd missed the previous tram. We crossed the road and headed towards the river. We turned right and went up a slope to arrive at a rather large square, elevated above the city, which boasted a fantastic view over Zurich. We took in the views for a while, before walking down a steep slope on the other side and soon arrived at a church with a big clock tower. It was quite impressive and we wandered inside to have a bit of a look. After a minimal amount of dicking around, we left again and walked downhill to the river, before turning right and walking alongside the river. We arrived at another church, which we took a detour around to look for cones, before walking through the church courtyard and admiring some interesting paintings on the wall. After a brief while, we grew bored, so left again to walk along the river and past the circus. As we arrived at the bridge overlooking the Zurichsee, it began to snow quite heavily. We decided to head into the old town and go up the church tower there. We crossed the bridge and walked along the other side of the river, arriving at a busy street. David spied a cone lying on the road. We decided that we had to do the "Stop telling me what to do" at this point. However, a man was parking his car next to the cone and seemed to want to do a "Stop telling me what to do" himself. We waited him out and he got bored first, so David moved in, picked up the cone and shouted "Stop telling me what to do!" through it at the top of his voice. Once this was completed, we walked up the hill and arrived at the church. We went inside and paid to go up the church tower. It was very narrow for the first portion, before we arrived at the halfway point and it opened out to reveal a small room with wooden stairs leading upwards. At the top, we entered into a room with four doors that opened on all four sides, leading to different balcony areas which overlooked the town. We took in the views but couldn't stay long as it was getting cold.

We walked down again and headed towards the Christmas market. On route, we walked past an Italian restaurant called Restaurant Dialog. It looked suitable for our final night meal, so Chris went in and booked us a table for later on. After a quick stop in Starbucks to use the toilets, we arrived at the Langos stall. We chilled with Langos and gluewein, enjoying a good chat and relax. After a while, Dave suggested we relocate to another gluewein stall which had bar stools, so we walked down the alleyway opposite, sat down and got a round in. Dave disappeared briefly, before returning to say that he'd found a stall which served Glogg. He got some in, which David and I sampled. After our second gluewein, we walked around this new section of the market for a while, before going to a third gluewein stall for a waffle and yet another gluewein. We chilled for some time, before deciding it was time to return to the hotel and prepare for the stammtisch, so we left and headed back to the station to catch a tram. After a short trip, we arrived at the hotel and returned to our rooms, promising to meet up in Havana bar later on in the evening. Dave promptly fell asleep, as I watched some snooker on the television. I had a shower, at which point Dave was awake again. He told me to wake him again in half an hour and we'd go to the stammtisch. Half an hour later, I tried to wake him, but he wasn't responding to either my voice or my pushing him around. I really wanted to go to the stammtisch, so I wrote out a note telling him that I had gone and pushed it into his hand. Once I'd done this, I left the hotel, walked to the tram and boarded, getting off at the main station. After a short walk, I arrived at Havana bar to discover that I was the first one there. I sat down and ordered a beer. After about fifteen minutes, David and Amal turned up. David wasn't too happy as they'd got off at the wrong stop and had been forced to walk back to the bar. I told the others that I'd had to push a note into Dave's hand, which David found hilarious. We relaxed and chatted for a while and about 30 minutes later, Chris and Rupert arrived. There was still no sign of Dave, which we were a little worried about. Rupert tried to ring him, but eventually Dave arrived, having not received my note. We left about ten minutes later and walked around the corner to Restaurant Dialog. We had a table by the window. I sat in the centre facing the restaurant, with Chris to my right and Dave to my left. Rupert was opposite Dave, with David opposite me and Amal opposite Dave. I ordered soup for starters and a marinara pizza for main course whilst the others ordered similarly. We then began with the first mascot draw. This would be the first draw which used draw tiles. Dave's hat was used to draw the tiles out of. David was already playing Reardon, so the other five of us drew out a tile. I got the Little Lucky Leprechaun, Rupert got Grosser Vass, Chris got Glogg, Dave got Shaft and Amal got Barney. We then had a second draw with four blank tiles. David ended up with Steve whilst Chris got Kurt. As our starters arrived, we did the draw for the order of revealing. I tucked into my soup as the destinations were gradually revealed.

Dave was up first. He explained that he wanted to go back to Spain and revealed:

GRENADA.

David muttered, "veto" under his breath. I had to agree with him.

Steve was up next. His destination had arrived via text message, so I passed my phone to David and he read out Steve's choice of:

LISBON.

David was up next and predictably revealed:

REYKJAVIK.

A good choice. I was next and I too revealed:

REYKJAVIK.

The waiter arrived to remove our starters and soon our pizzas arrived. Dave leaned over to the man at the table next to us and asked if he could borrow his chillis. The man said that it was okay, so he helped himself to some. It was then the turn of Rupert. We were worried what he was going to do. He explained that he wanted to go somewhere slightly different and revealed:

GDANSK.

David wasn't too happy, but I felt it could have been much worse. I was then Amal's turn and he revealed:

WARSAW.

Finally it was the turn of Chris. He went for:

TALLINN.

With all the Colonel's men's choices revealed, the discussion turned to the Little Lucky Leprechaun's choice. This wasn't straightforward. After a lengthy discussion, the Little Lucky Leprechaun's choice was revealed as:

HUNGARY.

Reardon's choice had already been declared as:

HELSINKI

so the destination list was complete. As we finished off our pizzas, we did the draw for diplomatic immunity, with a 1 in 2 chance of someone being selected, Chris was eventually revealed as having diplomatic immunity. David wasn't feeling very well at this point, complaining of a headache, so as the waiter came to take our dessert and coffee order, David declined. The draw bag was passed to Rupert for Glogg's round. He selected Kurt and then pulled out the "KISS MY FACE" tile, which meant that Kurt had been helped by Glogg and only two votes would be required for a destination to be vetoed. Chris, of course, was immune from the veto round as he had diplomatic immunity. Paper was then passed round for the veto round. I wrote down my choice, before dropped my piece of paper into a glass and passing it to Chris. He then said, I'll count the votes, before drawing the pieces of paper out one at a time, saying, "None", "None", "Grenada", "None", "Grenada", "None". Grenada was thus vetoed and removed from the draw. Dave was unimpressed, but had a chance to be brought back in either the Shaft or Grosser Vass round. The Shaft round was then prepared, but Dave drew out a blank tile, so nothing was shafted. Rupert then repeated the process for Grosser Vass, pulling out a blank tile, so nothing was made Grosser.

Our desserts arrived and I ate my tiramisu as we prepared for the rehearsal draw. Chris held up his tile and said, "Diplomatic Immunity" whilst Amal drew a blank tile. The glass was then passed to David who eliminated Helsinki on behalf of Reardon. Reardon had self-eliminated and did a Barthez. Chris maintained diplomatic immunity as he eliminated Lisbon and as Amal eliminated David's Reykjavik. At this point, Amal drew out the revoked tile, revolved his head as Chris said, "Diplomatic Immunity" and said, "It's just been revoked." Chris was returned to the draw. Rupert then eliminated my Reykjavik, I eliminated Tallinn and David eliminated Hungary. There were two destinations left, Amal's Warsaw and Rupert's Gdansk. David picked a tile on behalf of Steve as Dave selected the final one. David then revealed Warsaw, so Dave revealed Gdansk as the winner and Rupert celebrated with a Shearer.

As our coffees arrived, it was time for the main draw. Chris said, "Diplomatic Immunity" as Amal drew a blank tile. David then pulled out a tile and eliminated

HUNGARY.

The Little Lucky Leprechaun did a Barthez. Chris retained diplomatic immunity as he eliminated:

WARSAW.

It wouldn't be another victory for Amal. Diplomatic immunity was preserved again as Amal eliminated:

REYKJAVIK.

My choice. I wasn't impressed.

Rupert then received the hat as Chris retained diplomatic immunity for a third time and eliminated:

HELSINKI.

All of a sudden, the draw was going badly wrong and I was beginning to get nervous. Chris held up his tile and said, "Diplomatic Immunity", whilst Amal drew out the "Revoked" tile, revolved his head and said, "It's just been revoked!" Chris was returned to the draw. I received the hat and eliminated:

TALLINN.

Chris' winless streak would continue. David then received the bag and eliminated:

LISBON.

Steve was gone too and David would face up against Rupert in the final two. David picked a tile and passed the hat to Dave to get the final one. David then revealed the runner up as:

REYKJAVIK.

Rupert celebrated with a Shearer as Dave revealed the winner as:

GDANSK.

We all said, "Well, it's Gdansk next time!" David wasn't happy, as he said he'd been able to tell he'd picked his own tile before he'd revealed it. David then pointed out that Rupert had effectively aced Zurich as a break - he'd won both draws and, according to Dave, had also won application of the break.

Once the draw was finished, we decided to pay the bill and leave. David had a really bad headache by this point and wanted to return to the hotel, so we wandered back to the main station and caught a tram back to the hotel. Amal then asked again if he could sleep in my room, which I was unimpressed about, so I got my stuff and went next door to David's room and punched the sack to get some well-earned rest.

Sunday, 18th December

I woke up early and, after popping next door to the room I was theoretically sharing with Dave, we all went upstairs for a final breakfast. We selected a circular table in the corner. Chris helped himself to an Ovomaltine and discovered that it was disgusting. Once we'd checked out and left our bags safely in a toilet by reception, we decided to take a tram and go to visit the museum of rare skin diseases, which I'd discovered by reading the guidebook during breakfast. We took a tram to the main station, before disembarking to cross the river. I spied the tram we needed to take up the hill to the university, where the museum was, so we ran and just made it. Even Dave made it in time, which we were delighted to discover. As the tram made its way uphill to the museum, I read the guidebook in more detail and discovered that the museum was not open on Sundays. We were gutted and got off the tram at the next stop. After a brief discussion, we took a walk downhill, around a corner and arrived at the Natural History Museum. Dave and David weren't keen to go in, but it was really cold and we were pretty stuck for things to do so we went inside. Amal, David and I wandered round together for an hour or so, spending a fair amount of time in the aquarium area and the interesting area downstairs before going to sit in a small seating area near the entrance to wait for the others. I quickly looked at the fossil area, which turned out to be a sizeable boringamead. Eventually everyone was ready to leave, so we left and walked downhill towards the old town and the outdoor portion of the Christmas market. We decided that it was time for some gluhwein and a final Langos. We went to the Langos stool and leaned against our usual table, enjoying our gluhwein and Langos. Slightly unsure what to do next, we decided to go for a drink indoors, as it was pretty cold. We walked past the Havana bar and sat down in a bar on our left, getting a round of drinks in. Conversation was at a bit of a low point as we were all ready to go home. Once we'd chilled for a while, we walked back to the main station, through the Christmas market, down into the underpass and up on the other side of the main road. We crossed over and turned right, taking a detour around some side streets before deciding we'd like to get another coffee. Chris and I stopped briefly to check out a potential coffee place, but it was pretty crowded, so we moved on, crossed over Bahnhofstrasse and eventually arrived back at the cafe we'd found on the first day. We went in and sat down - Amal, David and Chris on a long settee and the rest of us in armchairs. We got a round of coffees in and sat and chatted for a while, before deciding it was time to return to the hotel for the journey home.

Eventually we got back to the hotel and checked out, before piling onto a tram which took us back to the main station. We leapt on the train to Basle and after just over an hour we found ourselves at Basle station. David and I were slightly concerned as to how Steve was performing in the final of the snooker, but as Chris went in to the information centre to enquire about our bus to the airport, I discovered that the match was being shown on Eurosport on a TV at the take away coffee shop opposite the information centre. The guy serving coffee was anxious to get us to buy something, but we were just interested in watching the snooker. The score was 4-3 to Ding Junhui, but Steve had a chance to level before the interval. Unfortunately, he missed a red and Ding cleared up to take a 5-3 lead into the evening session. We left the coffee shop to catch our bus to the airport. Once we'd arrived, we checked in and went through passport control. The airport was not huge and we had a brief browse in the small duty free shop as it was the only thing to do whilst we were waiting for the plane. David and I bought a chocoblock for our Dad (tragically we were unable to find a rockoblock to go with it) whilst Rupert bought some whisky. Once everyone was ready, we went down some stairs and outside, before arriving in another part of the terminal. David and I were concerned as the snooker had restarted, but we didn't know the score. We noticed a group of foreigners cheering on the other side of the room and I said that they looked Chinese. Dave reassured us by saying that they weren't Chinese. After a while we boarded and, two hours later, we arrived back at Luton airport. David then turned his phone on to discover a text message from our parents informing us that Steve was 8-4 down. We were slightly worried, so he phoned our Mum and found out that the score was 9-6. Unfortunately he went on to lose the next frame and therefore Ding won the match 10-6. We were somewhat disappointed. We collected our bags and made our way through customs, before saying goodbye to Amal and Dave and going back to the car.

As we began the drive back, I noticed that a light came on on the dashboard informing me that the car was overheating. I was a little perturbed, though found it strange that there was no other sign of this. I pulled off the M25 and stopped outside a warehouse near Watford. This was the last thing we needed. We had a look under the bonnet but couldn't see any sign of a problem. I made the decision to carry on driving, so we all got back in and made our way back to the M25. Chris volunteered to ring the RAC and he chatted to someone for a while, who advised us to carry on driving but take it slowly. After what seemed like an age, we arrived safely back at David's house. I was exhausted and slightly stressed and we all went inside to punch the sack.

Monday, 19th December

I woke up at around eight-thirty in the morning. David got up and soon went to work, dropping Rupert off at the station on route. Chris stayed with me and we took a trip to the nearby garage to buy some anti-freeze. Once we'd figured out how it worked and put it in the radiator, I drove Chris to the station and bade him farewell. It was sad that that would be the end of my Zurich experience. I then began the drive back to my house. The journey was uneventful, though it bore a strange similarity to the drive back from Heidelberg with car trouble that I'd experienced two years previously. Fortunately I arrived safely back at my house and went inside to chill out. Zurich had been a great break and I was sad to see the back of the Zurich experience. However, I was consoled by the one great thought...

It's Gdansk next time!