This is the most awesome idea. Except I suck at it.

Statetris is just what you think it is, Tetris but with states. The Easy mode really is, except when I got done it said “Errrr, you did that in 9:27 minutes. What planet are you from?”

I did it again in 6 minutes and it said “Aw, too bad. You need more practice.”

I didn’t know it was literally looking for a land speed record.

via Geekologie.com

Interrupting my current efforts not to finish blogging about my trip to Europe, I’d like to let you know that my friend Kennedy and I have a new episode up of But Wait, There’s More!, the podcast where we fuck around with test out “As Seen On TV!” products, to see if they’re worth the $19.95.

The new episode tests the Listen Up! Personal Amplification Device, and IMHO was definitely the most fun and interesting test we’ve done so far. See what we found out! And be sure to leave a comment and say hi.

Also, if you’re still feeling visual (and charitable), please do stop by my photo-a-day blog, Winged Insect Alighting On Horizontal Surface, so that it doesn’t die of loneliness. No, I’m not as regular as promised on that blog either, but I still like it. All the entries are fast reads, and I personally think the content doesn’t suck.

(As always, click any pic below for a bigger version. The whole collection of Lausanne pics are here.

I summed up Paris a bit in my one and only other real post, so I’ll move on to the third day, when we took a train and a bus to get to Switzerland. We got up at an unholy 5:30 am to go to the train station. I managed to leave our room without succumbing to the Rolling Ottoman of Doom that had previously endangered our lives. Go Team Me. Some of the kids had been out dancing till 4:00 am. They still made it to the bus on time, and with no vomiting. Go Team Them.

We made it to the train station despite a glaring lack of caffeine. Some of us went on a hunt for some. I stumbled upon a most interesting choice, Coca Cola Light Sango. You know how here in the states we have Diet Coke with Lime and such? This was essentially Diet Coke with blood-orange flavor. It was… good! But alas, someone else in the train station did not get his caffeine in time: the guy pictured at left. He was sleeping in the middle of everything, AND if you got up close, you could see that his sign read “Wake me up at 8:00 am, please.”

Dude. Just…dude.

The train was pleasant (except for some initial, unneccesarily-complicated seating instructions that turned out to be largely ignorable). It got even better once we raided the snack car. There was only one caveat, and that was that we needed to silence our cell phones, please! As prompted by this cute little sticker.

We got off the train and a handful of us snuck off to the station’s general store and found beautiful fresh fruit, life-saving Red Bulls (the French didn’t have any) and friendly Swiss dogs to pet. (The dogs became A Thing. You’ll see as we go on.) We got ourselves to the bus, which took us to our lunch stop in Lausanne. Lausanne is the home of the headquarters to the Olympic games. It’s also phenominally gorgeous. As most of the countries on our trip resided at about the same latitude and longitude as our home in SoCal, my mom and I tended to compare each destination to a place we knew there. Lausanne was a lot like Montecito, the snooty suburb of Santa Barbara. Including the income level, from what we could see.

The little square we stopped off at was off-the-charts gorgeous. (The specific place was apparently called “Ouchy.” It’s pronounced “Oo-shee,” but we all know, deep in our hearts, that it’s Ow-chee. We wished we could have seen the sign for the Ouchy Hospital.) After the big city sights and the forced march pace of the previous few days, it was the first time we felt like we were on vacation. There was some serious floral landscaping going on. And we had lunch at a cute little crepe place, while looking out at the water. Ahhh.

Back on the bus, and more Really Expensive Swiss Town sights. When in Switzerland, it helps to know what kind of section you’re in–we started out in a French-speaking one, moved to a German-speaking one when we hit Lucerne, and drove out of the Italian side when we left. When we stopped at a roadside gas station/snack shop thingy, the guy behind the counter spoke 4 languages besides his native one. They had many delights there, including Happy Sweets and Lindt chocolate with tiramisu filling. (YUM.) They also had the world’s cutest restroom icons, but a peculiar animosity toward wiener dogs, as shown.

Finally, toward dinnertime we arrived in Lucerne, and found one more Swiss town we instantly loved. The town and the hotel were both charming, impeccable and stylish. There was also general merriment as each person discovered the vending machine in the lobby that sold Heineken.

The next day, we headed out into Lucerne itself, and SO much was picture-worthy. Till next time!

Okay, so I’m like all back and stuff.

My first package tour European trip (with a side of high schoolers) was a whole lot of things: fun, exhausting, frustrating, exhilarating, mind-numbing and horizon-expanding. Like most travel, I guess. I’m now going through the thing where I’m nonsensically homesick for Europe, a place I’ve never actually lived. Experience tells me it should fade after a moony few days…and that it also won’t hurt to return in the very very near future.

Traveling with a big tour group changed things QUITE a bit, compared to my previous trips. Basically, every single cliché you’ve ever heard about group tours is true. I’m not judging the people who take them—if they work for you, awesome. They’re just not how I prefer to see a new place. So you can have my seat—there’s no leg room anyway and the reading light’s broken. Meantime I’ll be renting a flat in Paris, eating stuff from the neighborhood markets and planning a weekend trip to Sorrento.

Click the “more…” button below to read details, gripes, praise and some Silly Lists.

(more…)