The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men…, or, Lessons in Self-Reliance
I should be in Milan, Italy, right now. But I am not. I am sitting at home in Geneva. And I’m pretty disappointed.
Tomorrow (Thursday) is a national Swiss holiday (a nice make-up for the lack of Labor Day here), so several weeks ago the other interns and I requested Friday off as well to plan a mini-trip. We were originally going to London… then we waited too long until flights got expensive. We then planned on heading to Marseilles in France, which changed to driving along the coast to Nice and some other places when Farhad volunteered his brother’s car. I guess we waited too long for this too because it was “discovered” this week that the drive time was over five hours and the expenses would be prohibitive for some people.
So we decided to go to Milan. A reasonable distance (about 3 hours) and enough things to do for a 3 or 4 day weekend. We decided that we’d spend 2 nights in hostels to minimize costs as much as possible. I assumed this meant we would leave Thursday morning, sight-see, spend the night Thursday and Friday, and have most of Saturday to do more touristing before returning that evening. Yesterday, I was told we were leaving from work today, spending tonight and tomorrow night and returning late Friday (only giving us two days there). Didn’t seem too well-thought to me, but whatever; I’m one of five people.
Then today, workload forced one person to bail. We had planned on leaving right after work (around 6:30). We left after 8:00 because Farhad was finishing stuff up.
And after being on the road for a bit over an hour, he decided he was too tired and couldn’t continue. It being his brother’s car and a manual transmission (which the girls don’t drive and I haven’t done in probably 8 years) and night, we had to turn back.
Now, I am all for safety, but this is a case of poor planning in the extreme.
I have faced many instances where the adage "If you want something done right, do it yourself” has come into play this week (including, but not limited to, projects at work, trying to sign up for French classes, and even planning a movie night), but this is the straw that broke the camel’s back. Not only are we not going to Milan, but we may still have to pay for a hostel there. I missed running with the Hash tonight and wasted about 5 hours of my life. It’s absolutely ridiculous and I am frustrated.
So in an attempt to make some of sort of lemonade from the whole situation I will still take my day off Friday and travel to Lausanne where I will go to 4 museums I want to see and an animation/illustration festival going on there. I will not rely on anyone else to plan the trip and I will do what I want. I love other people, but sometimes you have to fend for yourself. As Kevin McCallister (Macauley Culkin) so elegantly put it in Home Alone, “A whole cheese pizza, just for me!”
Tomorrow (Thursday) is a national Swiss holiday (a nice make-up for the lack of Labor Day here), so several weeks ago the other interns and I requested Friday off as well to plan a mini-trip. We were originally going to London… then we waited too long until flights got expensive. We then planned on heading to Marseilles in France, which changed to driving along the coast to Nice and some other places when Farhad volunteered his brother’s car. I guess we waited too long for this too because it was “discovered” this week that the drive time was over five hours and the expenses would be prohibitive for some people.
So we decided to go to Milan. A reasonable distance (about 3 hours) and enough things to do for a 3 or 4 day weekend. We decided that we’d spend 2 nights in hostels to minimize costs as much as possible. I assumed this meant we would leave Thursday morning, sight-see, spend the night Thursday and Friday, and have most of Saturday to do more touristing before returning that evening. Yesterday, I was told we were leaving from work today, spending tonight and tomorrow night and returning late Friday (only giving us two days there). Didn’t seem too well-thought to me, but whatever; I’m one of five people.
Then today, workload forced one person to bail. We had planned on leaving right after work (around 6:30). We left after 8:00 because Farhad was finishing stuff up.
And after being on the road for a bit over an hour, he decided he was too tired and couldn’t continue. It being his brother’s car and a manual transmission (which the girls don’t drive and I haven’t done in probably 8 years) and night, we had to turn back.
Now, I am all for safety, but this is a case of poor planning in the extreme.
I have faced many instances where the adage "If you want something done right, do it yourself” has come into play this week (including, but not limited to, projects at work, trying to sign up for French classes, and even planning a movie night), but this is the straw that broke the camel’s back. Not only are we not going to Milan, but we may still have to pay for a hostel there. I missed running with the Hash tonight and wasted about 5 hours of my life. It’s absolutely ridiculous and I am frustrated.
So in an attempt to make some of sort of lemonade from the whole situation I will still take my day off Friday and travel to Lausanne where I will go to 4 museums I want to see and an animation/illustration festival going on there. I will not rely on anyone else to plan the trip and I will do what I want. I love other people, but sometimes you have to fend for yourself. As Kevin McCallister (Macauley Culkin) so elegantly put it in Home Alone, “A whole cheese pizza, just for me!”
posted by Aaron at 11:09 PM
1 Comments:
You'll have many more experiences in life where plans don't quite evolve to fruition. Sounds like you're adapting, despite the disappointment.
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