Brasil - go/no go, bikes and smokes

So the past week was one of those crazy times. Tuesday at 5:30 all of a sudden I was planning a trip to Brazil on the weekend for two weeks of work to be followed immediately by the Australia and Philippine trips. However the next day when we were working out the details, it became apparent that the timing from all sides was a bit premature, so we'll do it some other time.

However I found that I can apply for a second passport. You might ask why would I need two... Well we Americans are required in pretty much all countries to get a work visa. Manny countries will want my physical passport to insert the visa. That can be a problem given I have turn arounds on trips of often only a week. However with a second passport I can send off for, say a visa for the Congo, whilst I am in Australia. Convenient huh.

But to get a second passport I had to apply for in person. The closest place is the Consulate in Zurich. So Friday I went up there to hand in the paper work, only to realize that the photos I have are the wrong size... apparently the US is the only country that uses a crazy odd size for passports... stupid US. Everywhere else uses the same size but not us...

So after I got the new photos, I had a couple of hours to kill until my weekend plans kicked in. You see Zug is pretty boring, but Zurich is an easy jump off point to see places, so I had a decent priced ticket to go back to Amsterdam. So I took part of the afternoon and went to the Schweizerisches Landesmuseum. It is the National Museum - Swiss history from the earliest times to present day and is housed in a cool 19th century Neo-Gothic castle, right next to the train station. (quick fact Zurich - 383,000 people - Switzerland's largest city but not the capital).

It had cool exhibits on all sorts of

things - Swiss reformation,

prehistoric artifacts, medieval religious art, methods of Swiss warfare from 800 to 1800, Swiss watchmaking, Roman artifacts, Swiss currency and even the history of the Swiss Army Knife!

Eventually I got the train out to the airport for my flight to Amsterdam. I caught up with my friends from Greensboro (Barry, Elly and their son Vince) and a friends from Australia (originally US) Melissa that I hadn't seen since Sydney. We went out, saw some of Amsterdam and had nice weather to walk around. Rather quickly Sunday came around and it was time to go. One thing about Amsterdam, bikes. Everyone rides bikes. Bikes are everywhere and Amsterdam boasts one of the largest bike riding populations.

Anyway, eventually it was back home to Zug to start another work week. One word about Switzerland, smoke. It seems like everyone smokes here. Apparently, despite the general healthiness of the Swiss (conspicuous consumption of cheese and chocolate aside), approximately 30% smoke. Some bars are still smoking friendly as well as most open air places (outdoor/semi-enclosed shopping centers like where I live included). Oh well, just when I was getting used to smoke free places (US, UK, Australia).