#18 Boston and the Hypnotizing Dermatologist - October 8, 2004
Salut mes amis,
I am back in the lovely city of Boston, enjoying the Red Sox- Anaheim Angels on MLB.com on my computer and finishing up my weekly write-up to all of you. Last time I wrote, I was about to head from the beautiful, but pricy city of Geneva to my less expensive hometown of Neuenburg, Germany. I took the train, and in between naps caused by extreme sleep deprivation (jet lag, the conference, you know....) I enjoyed a wonderful ride along Switzerland's amazing landscape.
As soon as I hit home turf, the hectic commenced, starting with a Raclette dinner at our friend Birgit'shome. For those of you who don't know, Raclette along with Fondue is one of the hallmark dishes of the Swiss cuisine. In both of them you melt cheese, but it isdone differently, and with Raclette, you can add a whole bunch of stuff. (http://www.jill.net/recipes/recipes/raclette.html)
It was women's night and we lived it up big time. Entertainment was provided in part by the three parrots who reside in the living room of Birgit's home. As a resultof this feast, I had to start off Saturday with a 4 K jogging run, in order to workoff the pound of cheese that still seemed to reside in my stomach (along with someother unhealthy stuff). Lunch at my aunt and uncle's house featured another favorite "Kalbspastete" where you fill a ragout of veal into puff pastry rounds,very tasty, a staple of every German menu.
And then it happened, I got the cheapest and best haircut ever! Not only did I payonly 16 Euros, the hair dresser comes to your house as well! I was so stunned bythe whole experience that I gave her a 6 Euro tip! I already made an appointment for my visit around Christmas time.
Saturday was also my brother's birthday, and the rest of the day was packed with activities to celebrate, people came in and out of the house all day. After stuffing ourselves with cake in the afternoon, and deciding to better not walk it off, but rather loll around on the couch and pretty much do nothing, we continued immediately with dinner, which featured "Schaeufele" (a pork ham) and potato salad.
We drank the "Neuer Suesser", also called "Federweisser", the new "sweet wine", which is cloudy, and slightly fermented. Very sweet, however you can easily get sloshed by drinking a few glasses too many. It is tradition during this time of the year in Germany to go to "Straussenwirtschaften", make-shift restaurants, that are put up in someone's garage or barn, where you can drink the new wine and eat "Zwiebelkuchen", a type of onion quiche. Needless to say it was a lively evening, which ended with the hard core group staying up late and watching the Red Sox- Baltimore Orioles game at 1 AM.
Sunday as a result was a bit slow, and was spent with family activities and a nice evening with my friends Gitta, Gisela, Romy and Sylvia.
I returned to Boston on Monday, after a three-hour train ride back to Geneva, (with screaming children the whole way, and a car full of Swiss Soldiers on their way to wherever they go (I thought the country was neutral? At least I felt safe just in case if some terrorists decide to blow up a Swiss train.) - all of them with their rifles casually slung across their shoulders. This was followed by a flight from Geneva to Frankfurt and then on to Beantown.
I don't know how I find these people, but I always meet the strangest people at Frankfurt Airport. This time it was a former helicopter pilot -don't know what he does now but he just returned from Lithuania - who (along with a group of other losers) made a new hobby out of taken the airlines' offers to give you a night in a hotel when you get booted off one of their overbooked flights. They were as giddy as children on Christmas morning. I made the mistake though to get into a discussion with him about politics, and taking into account that he considered himself to the right of Attila the Hun, this might have not been the wisest of choices.
The flight to Boston did not go any better. The whole back section of the plane was taken over by a bus load of very unruly Russians, who apparently stocked up on drinking supplies in the Moscow Airport Duty Free Store. Needless to say that did not make the flight attendants too happy, some of them lost their cool and screamed at the crowd "to just sit down, for crying out loud". A couple of them were particularly ornery, with the ringleader being a guy who kind of looked like Nicolas Cage with really bad teeth and his drinking buddy, who in his alcohol-induced erraticness, flung vodka onto one of the passengers heads. Eventually the spastic guy passed out back in the Delirium tremens section of the plane - to the point, that the flight attendants were considering having an ambulance come and meet us at Logan airport. The whole flight had the feel of a crowded railway station to it, no one sat down despite the fact that the seat belt signs were on pretty much the whole time. The crew was pretty relieved when we landed in Boston - that is for sure.
Well, since my return I have been extremely busy at work, including an all-day seminar at the new Merck Research Lab in Boston on Tuesday, and lots of catching up. Jet lag of course knocked me out early in the evenings only to wake me up before I go-goat 4 or 5 AM in the morning.
I am sure that by now you are wondering what is up with the "hypnotizing dermatologist" headline - alright, alright, I am getting to it. Yesterday I had an appointment with a dermatologist to get rid of a wart that I have on one of my fingers. The dermatologist seemed normal at first, and treated the wart with some lotion and liquid nitrogen. Then he proceeded to tell me that the healing process can be sped up by using self-hypnosis and that he was going to teach me how to do it. He made me look over my left shoulder, and put my right hand over my heart as if I was going to pledge allegiance. I was then supposed to close my eyes and imagine the face of the Statue of Liberty (at this point I was ready to say "Am I on Candid Camera?"). He told me then I was already hypnotized (yeah right), and that he was going to make me forget my name. I did remember my name, but not too disappoint the man, I pretended to have forgotten it. He told me then to focus on the wart and that it will heal. (Yeah right). At this point, I did not want to say anything to upset the guy (like "you are a total nut job" for example), but he told me that every time I say the word "Blue Rose" I can put myself into a deeper state of hypnosis, and to get out of it, I will have to say, A, B, C, D.
I have since mumbled "Blue Rose" several times just to ascertain that
I will not start doing stupid things such as clucking like a chicken or steal people's wallets. But I seem to be fine.
Alrighty, folks, I am heading home, the Red Sox are leading Anaheim 6:1, and I am looking forward to a long weekend. Monday is Columbus Day, and I just learned today that I do have the day off!!
Have a great week, until next time.
pet:)
I am back in the lovely city of Boston, enjoying the Red Sox- Anaheim Angels on MLB.com on my computer and finishing up my weekly write-up to all of you. Last time I wrote, I was about to head from the beautiful, but pricy city of Geneva to my less expensive hometown of Neuenburg, Germany. I took the train, and in between naps caused by extreme sleep deprivation (jet lag, the conference, you know....) I enjoyed a wonderful ride along Switzerland's amazing landscape.
As soon as I hit home turf, the hectic commenced, starting with a Raclette dinner at our friend Birgit'shome. For those of you who don't know, Raclette along with Fondue is one of the hallmark dishes of the Swiss cuisine. In both of them you melt cheese, but it isdone differently, and with Raclette, you can add a whole bunch of stuff. (http://www.jill.net/recipes/recipes/raclette.html)
It was women's night and we lived it up big time. Entertainment was provided in part by the three parrots who reside in the living room of Birgit's home. As a resultof this feast, I had to start off Saturday with a 4 K jogging run, in order to workoff the pound of cheese that still seemed to reside in my stomach (along with someother unhealthy stuff). Lunch at my aunt and uncle's house featured another favorite "Kalbspastete" where you fill a ragout of veal into puff pastry rounds,very tasty, a staple of every German menu.
And then it happened, I got the cheapest and best haircut ever! Not only did I payonly 16 Euros, the hair dresser comes to your house as well! I was so stunned bythe whole experience that I gave her a 6 Euro tip! I already made an appointment for my visit around Christmas time.
Saturday was also my brother's birthday, and the rest of the day was packed with activities to celebrate, people came in and out of the house all day. After stuffing ourselves with cake in the afternoon, and deciding to better not walk it off, but rather loll around on the couch and pretty much do nothing, we continued immediately with dinner, which featured "Schaeufele" (a pork ham) and potato salad.
We drank the "Neuer Suesser", also called "Federweisser", the new "sweet wine", which is cloudy, and slightly fermented. Very sweet, however you can easily get sloshed by drinking a few glasses too many. It is tradition during this time of the year in Germany to go to "Straussenwirtschaften", make-shift restaurants, that are put up in someone's garage or barn, where you can drink the new wine and eat "Zwiebelkuchen", a type of onion quiche. Needless to say it was a lively evening, which ended with the hard core group staying up late and watching the Red Sox- Baltimore Orioles game at 1 AM.
Sunday as a result was a bit slow, and was spent with family activities and a nice evening with my friends Gitta, Gisela, Romy and Sylvia.
I returned to Boston on Monday, after a three-hour train ride back to Geneva, (with screaming children the whole way, and a car full of Swiss Soldiers on their way to wherever they go (I thought the country was neutral? At least I felt safe just in case if some terrorists decide to blow up a Swiss train.) - all of them with their rifles casually slung across their shoulders. This was followed by a flight from Geneva to Frankfurt and then on to Beantown.
I don't know how I find these people, but I always meet the strangest people at Frankfurt Airport. This time it was a former helicopter pilot -don't know what he does now but he just returned from Lithuania - who (along with a group of other losers) made a new hobby out of taken the airlines' offers to give you a night in a hotel when you get booted off one of their overbooked flights. They were as giddy as children on Christmas morning. I made the mistake though to get into a discussion with him about politics, and taking into account that he considered himself to the right of Attila the Hun, this might have not been the wisest of choices.
The flight to Boston did not go any better. The whole back section of the plane was taken over by a bus load of very unruly Russians, who apparently stocked up on drinking supplies in the Moscow Airport Duty Free Store. Needless to say that did not make the flight attendants too happy, some of them lost their cool and screamed at the crowd "to just sit down, for crying out loud". A couple of them were particularly ornery, with the ringleader being a guy who kind of looked like Nicolas Cage with really bad teeth and his drinking buddy, who in his alcohol-induced erraticness, flung vodka onto one of the passengers heads. Eventually the spastic guy passed out back in the Delirium tremens section of the plane - to the point, that the flight attendants were considering having an ambulance come and meet us at Logan airport. The whole flight had the feel of a crowded railway station to it, no one sat down despite the fact that the seat belt signs were on pretty much the whole time. The crew was pretty relieved when we landed in Boston - that is for sure.
Well, since my return I have been extremely busy at work, including an all-day seminar at the new Merck Research Lab in Boston on Tuesday, and lots of catching up. Jet lag of course knocked me out early in the evenings only to wake me up before I go-goat 4 or 5 AM in the morning.
I am sure that by now you are wondering what is up with the "hypnotizing dermatologist" headline - alright, alright, I am getting to it. Yesterday I had an appointment with a dermatologist to get rid of a wart that I have on one of my fingers. The dermatologist seemed normal at first, and treated the wart with some lotion and liquid nitrogen. Then he proceeded to tell me that the healing process can be sped up by using self-hypnosis and that he was going to teach me how to do it. He made me look over my left shoulder, and put my right hand over my heart as if I was going to pledge allegiance. I was then supposed to close my eyes and imagine the face of the Statue of Liberty (at this point I was ready to say "Am I on Candid Camera?"). He told me then I was already hypnotized (yeah right), and that he was going to make me forget my name. I did remember my name, but not too disappoint the man, I pretended to have forgotten it. He told me then to focus on the wart and that it will heal. (Yeah right). At this point, I did not want to say anything to upset the guy (like "you are a total nut job" for example), but he told me that every time I say the word "Blue Rose" I can put myself into a deeper state of hypnosis, and to get out of it, I will have to say, A, B, C, D.
I have since mumbled "Blue Rose" several times just to ascertain that
I will not start doing stupid things such as clucking like a chicken or steal people's wallets. But I seem to be fine.
Alrighty, folks, I am heading home, the Red Sox are leading Anaheim 6:1, and I am looking forward to a long weekend. Monday is Columbus Day, and I just learned today that I do have the day off!!
Have a great week, until next time.
pet:)
posted by My Boston at
2:48 PM
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