Limbo - Day 1

Yesterday, I moved into Markus's flat near Limmatplatz in Zurich. It's strange staying somewhere new in your home city.  Although I've passed through Limmatplatz several times over the six years that I've lived in Zurich, I feel like I've moved to a completely different place.

Even the smallest things surprise. My first task this morning was to buy milk and orange juice from Migros. When I entered Migros, I thought I would be stepping straight into the supermarket, but I saw no supermarket, just the Migros cafe and a host of other shops. Once I'd reoriented my thoughts, I realised that the supermarket was downstairs. I peeped down the escalator (which wasn't working) and to my astonishment, the shop's metal grid was still three-quarters of the way down blocking the entrance. I'm not sure whether it was it being closed that surprised me or the realisation that I had actually got up that early.

I passed the time by going to the café across the road (imaginatively named Caffetteria am Limmatplatz), read part of a newspaper, and enjoyed the sensation that at last I had a day where I could relax and that at least challenges such as this one at Migros would be relatively small.

Markus had explained to me how to work the television the day before yesterday, but I'm still confused as to exactly what possessed the inventors of television to think it is a good idea to have two sets of remote controls (I'm still not sure how it works - one for the set box and one for the TV? But I'm not sure which one does what).  My own TV also had two sets of controls and even though I knew how to use them, every time I turned on the TV, I would think how completely counterintuitive it was. The reason I'm mentioning this is that coping with technology in any unknown surrounding is a challenge (I don't think it's just me).

I was actually quite pleased with myself last night because I got the required channel fairly quickly, once I'd worked out that the TV kept saying "no signal" because the door to the unit housing the set box was closed and the remote control signal couldn't penetrate the door. I can see why "geeks" like technology as I got a completely inordinate sense of being a genius for having worked this out .

Indeed, with that success I got a bit too cocky and I decided to try to fathom out how to record something. My idea was to record and delete the programmes I wanted to see, so that when I left Markus's home, his TV would be just the same as when he'd handed its care over to me.

Unfortunately, as soon as I went into the "record" menu, the TV got stuck on Channel 4. I switched the TV off, the set box off, the TV and the set box off. I pressed random buttons on the two remote controls like a demented monkey trying to break a code that would release food, but each time all I got was Channel 4. After 20 minutes, I somehow got it working again, but I fear that maybe I've now got it constantly recording Channel 4.  If you're reading Markus, and you get home to all your programmes having been deleted due to me having unwittingly recorded Channel 4 for the entire duration of my stay, I'm sorry!!