The morning after the night before, and the rest of the day after the morning

I managed to get barely an hour´s sleep, only to be woken by Kate´s panicked voice: "Trinks, you´ve pressed snooze twice already. Your bus leaves in half an hour. You need to get up!"

I staggered out of bed. I really needed a shower. I also needed to finish packing. Admittedly, I had half-packed the day before, which, at the time, I thought was a supremely cunning plan. Alas, it turned out to be only 50% of a cunning plan.

I stumbled round the room, randomly chucking items in my suitcase. One of these items was my new laptop. Somehow it didn´t occur to me that a) there are computers in the UK, and b) their plugs are different. As well as the laptop and attendant paraphenalia, I blithely packed my camera charger, my phone charger, and my iPod charger. Overall, I must have lugged at least 5kg of incompatible technological equipment across the sea for no good reason.

And this was before I even began on the clothes. I was at a loss without Moral Squeeze to restrain me, and packing, as you may have guessed, has never been my forte.

"Should I take the long black dress or the little black dress?" I asked Kate indecisively. She patiently advised the latter, while I stumbled around some more. "Where is my eyeliner? I simply cannot go to London without my eyeliner," I declared. (Nevermind the fact I rarely use eyeliner, since I am unable to apply it without looking like some kind of racoon, despite having previously worked at a fashion and beauty magazine).

"Trinks, I think you are still drunk. And in the throws of an extended Bridget Jones moment!" said Kate, barely surpressing her laughter. "I don´t want to be Bridget!" I wailed, conveniently forgetting that some years ago I had attended a fancy-dress party (theme: the fictional character you most resemble) as none other than Ms Jones. Call it part of my mispent youth.

Back to the dilemma of the moment. "I don´t want to be Bridget!" I wailed. "I am a strong independent women. Without issues. And with sexy underwear. Not at all like Bridget!" I sounded pathetic, and strangely unconvincing, even to myself. But, despite histrionics, we were in fact (almost) ready to hit the road. I grabbed a bottle of chardonnay and my Silk Cuts and we made a dash the bus stop.

My day didn´t get better. Without Kate around to jolly me out of my hangover, I was stuck in travelling hell. In brief, my itinerary looked like this:

1. Bus from Vaduz to Sargans
2. Train from Sargans to Basel
3. Bus from Basel to EuroAirport*
4. Flight from EuroAirport to London Luton**
5. Bus from Luton to Victoria***
6. Train from Victoria to New Malden
7. Walk from New Malden station to Elm Road
8. Collapse into bed****

* The EuroAirport is cool. One airport, three countries. Believe it, because it´s true! I also ate some very expensive food there, which made me feel slightly more human (although still primarily alien).
** Note to self, and other travellers. It is a much more pleasant experience getting felt up by svelte Swiss security staff than their British counterparts.
*** There is a reason that flights to Luton are cheap. Because it isn´t even in the middle of nowhere. It´s like, far out on the edge of nowhere, when "somewhere" is on the opposing edge.
**** That would have been nice. But I had plans for the evening. Plans that had been booked and prepaid on the Interweb.

Wherefore art thou, Megageth?

Little over a month ago, I finally bought myself a laptop - long overdue, as anyone who knew my prehistoric desktop with its manky keyboard can attest to. I made this purchase in Chur at the Media Markt, which made me feel as if I were an extra in The Simpsons.

Buying a computer in a foreign language isn´t easy. And if you´re a Luddite like me, buying a computer is never easy, even in your mother tongue. Oh, why did I not follow through with my original plan of asking Megageth to help me before I left SA?

Somehow managed to choose a model that didn´t break the bank, although I think it might break my back carrying it around. Creditcard cameras are so 20th century - what I really want is a creditcard computer. But you can´t quite get those yet, at least not within my price range... So am now the proud owner of a shiny new Toshiba Satellite L40-12X.

As the sales assistant quickly discovered, my decision was primarily based upon the fact that the laptop was "cheap". But 20 minutes of negotiation wasn´t enough for him to grasp the contradictions of my personality, even though his English was decent.

When it came to choosing a laptop bag, he had his priorities all wrong. "This one is very cheap!" he beamed, pointing at a particularly nasty speciman. I defiantly chose a Samsonite case, which was far from cheap. Style over substance, baby!

When I got home, I managed to switch on computer; install Windows Vista ("Are you sure you want the English version?" Bill Gates asked me. "Yes!" I clicked, with some irritation); connect to the Internet; download Firefox; download Adobe; download iTunes ("Will you sell your soul to Apple?" Steve Job asked me. "Yes!" I clicked, "Now where is my free MacBook Pro?); and download AVG - all by myself. Sorted, and not such a Luddite after all. I still have to buy a copy of Word though - it sucks not being a student.