08/10/25 Switzerland Struggles With Scanning

-

I found the flaw in Switzerland's reputation for fabulous efficiency.

Switzerland struggles to operate photocopier/scanning machines.

Town Library?  "Too hard for us, go to the University Library".

The university precinct had rubbish boxes designed specifically for pizza boxes.

University Library?  The stupid machine chewed up my precious medical reports which I need to scan.  I recruited the lovely lady at the desk to help me, on the premise that she could a) understand the German that the machine spoke and b) she actually worked at the library so would be familiar with the silly machine.

Nope.

Lovely lady sent me to a Copy shop to attempt scans, except the copy shop had moved.  Not to an address mind you, just a notice in the window with a phone number.

Google sent me to another copy shop, thankfully not too far away but I had to hurry before it closed for lunch.

The man in the copy shop completed scanning, not without diffculty managing multiple-page scans but credit to him, he was patient and worked through it. Nineteen francs and many hours of frustration later, I had scans safely on USB ready to be sent off on the endless paperwork treadmill, but we're not talking about that any more are we?

If you think I'm getting grumpy and fed up with spinning my wheels in Lucerne this morning, you'd be right. Particularly when scanners are so uncooperative.  At least I wasn't missing out on a beautiful day, which brought me to the next point...

Swiss weather prediction suffered from the same alarming disconnect as was experienced throughout the rest of the world.

Then there I was, lolling and relaxing (aka grumbling about Swiss scanners) in my hotel room when the alarm went off and a disembodied voice informed us that the fire alarm was activated (no kidding!), the fire brigade was on their way, and we must evacuate post haste. Righty ho then, but not before I had grabbed my precious USB because after this morning's frustrations not even the fires of hell could separate me from my scanned medical documents.

Down the stairs we went, me carrying Steve and Roger taking extra care, cheered on by the cleaning ladies who have become quite invested in Roger's progress. The stairwell was awash with the smell of burnt steak, leading me to believe that the fire alarm was the result of some careless cooking in the ground level cafe.

Fickle sunshine. Dont be fooled by the blue sky.

The sun had popped out to pretend complicity with the weather forecast, but it wasn't fooling anyone. We wandered down to the train station where I navigated multiple levels of Swiss beauracracy to hire a bike for tomorrow, and then home we went via Coop for dinner specials.


The hotel was still standing so I still had somewhere to sleep for the night, which was a plus.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Boat-related Excitement on Wallaroo Waters

-
Image
 Morning coffee at The Shores Eatery is never dull.  Last time we were there we were privy to the saga of the men in wet suits working to remove some unidentified but obviously well-buried item from the sand at the bottom of the swimming enclosure.  This time around we sat outside with the brunch crowd, minding our own business and commenting on how every weekend brings more people to Wallaroo as the summer gets under way.  Prawn trawlers and crab boats littered the far horizon of the bay, the pre-Christmas prawn season having started a couple of days ago. My resident Man With Binoculars keeps a close eye on the working movements of the prawn trawlers. As we sipped our coffee (in my case, tea) it became clear that one of the trawlers was motoring purposefully toward the jetty.  The brunch crowd perked up and, as one, shuffled their chairs around for a better view, because the prawn trawlers usually headed over toward the marina which was nowhere near the jetty. ...
Read more

How Not To Be A Serious Cyclist

-
Image
All these years I've been riding a bicycle and trying to preserve the illusion that I am a Very Serious Cyclist, tracking my kilometers, always aiming to beat my PB (personal best, but Serious Cyclists use acronyms) and racing to be KOM (King of the Mountain, because acronyms).  Well, that illusion has been shattered now. Today I lost my Serious Cyclist credentials for good. Today I went cycling carrying a full sized thermos, two insulated coffee mugs, and the required accoutrements including chilled milk. Sadly I forgot a spoon, which meant that although disqualified as a Serious Cyclist I did not quite qualify as a Mad Picnicking Cyclist either. I blame Myponie Road for my fall in cycling status. I had such a lovely time cycling along there a week ago that I wanted Roger to enjoy it too. I even had an answer when he expressed a certain reluctance to cycle into a fresh southerly breeze. "I'll drive up to the other end and cycle into the wind! Then you can drive home....
Read more

Bumped

-
Image
There I was, minding my own business on my bicycle, stopped at a T intersection and waiting to turn right.  Along came a 4WD and stopped behind me, waiting to turn right and minding his own business but, as it turned out, not taking much notice of what was in front of him.  Along came a gap in the traffic and out he rolled and bump! right into me. Well, that was a nice shot of adrenaline, wasn't it? There I was with the rear wheel of my bicycle jammed under the honking great bull bar of a 4WD and both me and the driver got such a shock that our teeth were chattering.  We unjammed my bicycle and retired to the footpath to swap phone numbers which was quite a challenge given both of us had the shakes. My pannier rack took most of the damage, and my beloved red taillight was quite removed from its moorings. I should have taken a picture when it was stuck to the 4WD.  I didn't think of that at the time.   "I can fix that for you," stuttered the driver.  "I'm a ...
Read more