Like Clockwork…

I’m sitting here in Gasthoff St. Antonius, in Egg Switzerland… it’s 5 ayem… and I’m momentarily awake. My flight yesterday… no… That was when I landed. My flight from Portland on the 1st went without a hitch. 11 hours in the air later I’m schlepping my gear through Amsterdam’s air terminal security. Sadly the Marion berry jam I bought at the terminal in Portland to give as a “prezzie” to my host here, did not survive the run through the scanner. I was briefly held up in Amsterdam owing to a computer crash with the airport system there. The one hour flight to Zurich seemed to take forever. I’m not very good at sleeping while flying. So I was more than a bit hammered when I met, Alan Wakefield AKA, Swissracer my friend from the Slot Forum in Zurich.

I’ve encountered this time and again but I’m always amazed when you meet someone in person that you’ve only talked to on line for the first time how it’s like picking up a conversation with an old friend you just spoke to yesterday. Alan and his wife Sally and their kids made me feel right at home. We stopped at an antique tractor show in Egg and then had barbecue at Alan’s place before I had to hit the hay…



The weather in Zurich was and still is rainy cloudy just like it was when I left the states. On the other hand, it’s beautiful here. What I can see of the mountains is striking. There’s recent snow there… sort of unusual, Alan tells me for this time of year. It’s a huge contrast to go from Oregon where a really old house is 150 to perhaps 200 years old to here where a 200 year old house is considered “that new place they just put up.”