It's about time I sneaked away from work for a while. The easiest place to organise was Geneva, since I have relations there. It took only 30 minutes to book a flight with Aer Lingus. In fact, it was a little too easy, as I discovered when I tried to cancel the flight - owing to a small oversight with dates the flight home clashed with a fairly important engagement back home.

It was well worth missing that, however.

The flight over was uneventful if a little turbulent. While approaching the airport the plane was surrounded by a thunder and lightning storm. I'm sure this happens all the time and that the planes are built to cope with it (although I can't imagine how). Very interesting observing lightning from above.

Of course, the world cup is in the knock-out stage by now and the relation was invited out by a gang of Portuguese for dinner/beer/football. It turns out the Portuguese are the biggest immigrant group in Switzerland; bizarre, but fairly evident by the number of flags draped from apartment blocks.

It was a pity they didn't win against France since - again bizarrely - there's less French in Geneva than Portguese, apparently. But the celebrations on the way home were still impressive. What struck me was how there is absolutely no atmosphere or excitement around the World Cup at home, it really makes a difference when the streets spring into life after a victory. I guess that's just another great thing about living in central Europe.