More Principality Based Fun
Following my very brief post with the picture of the Flying Vibrator ((c) Stuoobs) many people wanted to know what we were doing in Liechtenstein. After this the general follow up question is ‘Where is it?’ Many have heard of the place simply because England have played against them in a couple of qualifiers but that’s as far as the knowledge goes. As ever, I’ll trust Wikipedia with a quick explanation:
The Principality of Liechtenstein is a tiny, doubly landlocked alpine country in Western Europe, bordered by Switzerland to its west and by Austria to its east. It is the last remnant of the Holy Roman Empire. Mountainous, it is a winter sports destination, although it is perhaps best known as a tax haven. Despite this, it is not heavily urbanized. Many cultivated fields and small farms characterize its landscape both in the north (Unterland) and in the south (Oberland). It is the smallest German-speaking country in the world.
The reason we were there was because of Liechtenstein’s job as a tax haven to try and save a few bob from going to that fat, Scottish thief.
Interesting facts:
Liechtenstein is home to about 35,000 people and nearly 80,000 registered companies!
It is one of the world’s largest suppliers of false teeth.
It was only a short trip, we were in Liechtenstein for just over 24 hours and only two hours of that was spent tax-dodging; this left plenty of time to see ALL that Liechtenstein had to offer.
It’s worth mentioning here that when I say ‘we’ I mean me, Stuoobs and Nigel, our IFA.
Liechtenstein doesn’t have an airport (or even a train station!) so we flew into Zurich (my new favourite European airport) and were picked up by some dude organised by the tax-dodgers in a rather smart Mercedes. The driver was called Edy and was an Austrian living in Liechtenstein, Stuoobs called shotgun leaving me and Nigel in the back – this is a decision that Stuoobs came to regret as he was given a one-and-a-half hour lesson on Switzerland & Liechtenstein, most of which was pretty boring save for the fact that near the Swiss-Liechtensten border is the valley in which the 1980s TV/Film sensation Heidi was filmed! Apparently this brings in thousands of tourists from Japan every year, so much so that it even has it’s very own Heidiland! I shit you not!
We crossed the border and Edy took fifteen minutes to drive us around the country. We started with the national football stadium (capacity of just over 6,000) where England have played a couple of times and Wales are due to play soon. Next was parliament – very exciting but the overwhelming highlight was the museum. We didn’t go into the museum and my German is not brilliant but one can only wonder what is in the museum…
We gave ourselves fifteen minutes to check in and have a shower-in-a-can before we hit the town. Needless to say, there wasn’t much on offer; Liechtenstein probably isn’t the bounciest of places at the weekend, let alone a Thursday evening but that being said there were a couple of smart bars and a restaurant that served some great veal and a lot of cheese. We didn’t want a late one as the whole purpose of the trip was the two-hour meeting and that was at 9am the following morning.
Edy was on hand to pick us up, and then to collect us; we had a couple of hours to kill so we again strolled around the town of Vaduz and grabbed some lunch before heading back to the wonderful and highly cultural landmark that is….. Zurich Airport! This time Stu decided to sleep in the front of Edy’s car.
Zurich Airport is excellent and has overtaken Schiphol, Amsterdam as my favourite European Airport; exceptionally efficient. The only downside is the fact they didn’t have any girls on roller blades to help poor English tourists who’s wives have lost their passports. Hong Kong is still the world’s #1, Manchester just doesn’t cut it anymore but I’ve high hopes as their security renovations come into effect – they shit on Heathrow T5. (This is the kind of stuff that keeps my mind occupied these days).
Two top tips from the visit to Liechtenstein:
1. Don’t bother going; it’s dead and uninteresting, unless you’re into ‘Kunst’ of course.
2. If you end up in Switzerland and want to buy chocolate, get Sprüngli chocolates – superb.
Since then it’s been a fairly standard few days. It was Pezza & Zoe’s leaving do on Friday (Pezza joining me in retirement ready for Tignes and Zoe because she’s sprogged up). The do was in Liverpool and was really just a work thing so me being the kind, doting husband I offered to pick her up. This afforded me the opportunity to do one of my favourite ever activities: drive to Liverpool at 2am and watch women fight.
Stuoobs decided to keep me company and offered to drive, this caused havoc as Pezza had offered most of Liverpool a lift home. Still, ‘where there’s a will’ and all that.
Today we’ve been for another snowboarding session. This time Stu & I tried out a couple of boards from Snow & Rock with a view to buying, the difference between these and the crappy hire boards is phenomenal! Tonight also saw Karen & Cazzie try their hand at boarding with a taster session, I’m pleased to report that they came through unscathed and more importantly, actually enjoyed it – it really is full steam ahead to Tignes with our 5 months there kicking off in just 62 days!
Finally, we’re starting to build up a good library of Crap Grammar. Examples to date are:
“Highly Minimal” in a Krakow guide,
A statement on a Double Cheeseburger in Florida “100% Double”.
A new favourite happened on today’s Jeremy Kyle. Jezza asked some silly worthless slag how sure she was that the bloke across the stage was her son’s father. Her reply was, “100%, no, more than 100%”.
Jezza then went along the line and asked her mum and her friend the same question, they both replied, “More than 100%” with a very sincere look on their faces. Great stuff.
Any contributions to my forthcoming ‘Book of Crap Grammar’ will be hugely received, literally.
Cheerio
xxx
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