I'm so spoiled

February 15, 2008 - Friday

Wednesday afternoon found me at Opa's, as usual. The mail brought a letter from the SAW AG, a company who delivers concrete components to Opa's building sites. Evidently SAW is also the co-sponsor of Tom Lüthi, the Swiss kid who's doing really well in the 250 ccm class of the Moto Grande Prix. And the letter was an invitiation to Opa or Dad, as top customers, to attend the MotoGP weekend in Estoril, Portugal. Opa said he didn't have time - and asked if I wanted to go. It looks like like Florian and I will spend April 11-14 in Estoril. On Friday, the 11th, the plane leaves Zürich early. That same day, we'll visit the race track, the boxes, and watch the qualifying. On Saturday there'll be a tour of Lisbon. On Sunday we'll watch all three GP races from an exclusive VIP lounge. On Monday we leave Portugal on the first plane out. Wow! All expenses paid, a weekend trip down to Portugal to the MotoGP. Yesterday then, Thursday, most of the family and Kris took off to a short ski vacation by Laax in Graubünden. Dad drove them down and came back late that night. I had to stop by home over lunch to feed the horses and run the dogs before continuing on to Opa's. I got to leave Opa's half an hour early, rush home, take care of the critters, and then I headed off again, to see Babs. We hadn't seen each other since meeting at SihlCity the day before I left for my nine-week vacation in the States. Her birthday was this month, and I'd had her present on my floor for too long already. So we finally made it a point to see each other again. She'd been to my place twice, and now it was my turn. She lives by Baden. I stopped once to make sure I was remembering the directions right, and then found her place with no problem, since it's above a store than sells kites and whirligig constructions. I drove past it and entered a side street to turn around. As I was drawing a slow circle in the parking lot of a small store, a guy on a bike (as in, pedal bike) drove by me and gave me a weird look. I figured he was thinking, "Eh, another Zuricher who doesn't know what she's doing." (Baden is in Aargau, the Texas of Switzerland.) I returned to the road. The biker was standing there too, waiting for an opening in the traffic. He backed up a bit to be level with me and asked, "Excuse me, but is this a woman on a Buell?" I grinned and said yes. "One doesn't see that often," he remarked, and wished me a good evening and safe driving, which I returned. And just the day before Florian had talked about how he could tell a woman's driving style from a man's without seeing hair or face (I guess he's right there), and that Buell was a girl's bike because he's seeing "so many" women on Buells. The latter won't apply, I think. I love my Beastie.