The weekend - first concert and Canadiana BBQ

On Saturday night was my first concert with the Scottish Ceilidh band. We were playing at this posh international school outside of Geneve for a retirement party. The band is pretty big and has a nice variety of instruments. This is also the first time I've played with a pick-up for my fiddle.

After the posing we took a silly picture but you can see I'm engrossed in conversation.

So here's the entire band playing, the leader is Nikita and he is standing up playing the accordion. It was a nice laid back band to play in and nice to finally play with an ensemble that can pick up on cues. Too bad I wasn't so good at picking up on the cue that only the accordion was playing the start of the tune and not the entire band...

We sat for the entire performance, which isn't my favorite when playing the fiddle. There wasn't much dancing at the beginning but once the alcohol was flowing the crowd was more enthusiastic. There was a break in the middle for catered snacks and true to form the band parked themselves at the food table...

And then the next day it was off to Geneve for Frank's goodbye BBQ, well, he was leaving and they were having a BBQ but it wasn't all big and official like.

Anyway, here I am at Frank's place before we walked to France (the long way through the bushes I might add). I am demonstrating to Frank the reactions of Canadian women to his acquired fresh attitudes towards girls.

It was a beautiful day, nice and warm and sunny. Frank is always good at mugging for the camera, I make an attempt.

The hat helps.

And then we walked to France for the BBQ. It was such a beautiful day for a walk!

The BBQ was a Canadian reunion!!! We talked about finding Kraft peanut butter, our favorite lines from Bon cop Bad cop and when someone opened a slice of that fake cheddar cheese to put on their burger (imported, along with relish) someone else identified it by the sound.

After the BBQ Frank and I walked back from France again, passing by this milk machine. It dispenses raw milk, 24/7 and apparently it moos whenever you buy a bottle.

We made it to the CERN campus by the time it was nice and dark and I got a personal tour of the ATLAS control room. We sat outside the control room at the visitors desk where they have some useless emergency buttons you can push that make lights flash and piss off everyone on shift inside.

I have to say, the control room is one of the few times where science actually looks kinda like it does in the movies. There were screens! And control desks with lots of computer monitors! And people working shift 24/7!

I caught the train back to Lausanne (which I keep calling Vancouver and confusing everyone around me) and this time I cycled home because I had just bought Frank's bike.