So we are back off to Switzerland next month! Zaubi’s paper did not get into the conference, so we were a bit sad, but it wasn’t unexpected, really, given how hard that conference is to get into. But to make a longer story short, they decided that he could go to the conference anyway, to attend both the conference just as a listener and also to submit the same paper to the workshops which take place the day after the conference is finished. Thus, we are heading off to Switzerland for the last week and a half of June and first week of July.
Indeed, we are departing Brisbane on my 30th birthday. Which is probably a good thing: there’s nothing like 28 hours of travel to take your mind off a depressing birthday milestone! Besides, this means I can turn 30 at 30,000 feet 
But there won’t be cake 
Unfortunately, since Zaubi has to book his tickets through his work and I obviously buy mine online, they didn’t manage to get us on all the same places. 3 of the 4 legs are the same, but one of them, the first leg, which I fly Singapore airlines from Brisbane to Singapore, he is wait listed for, and they got him as backup a Qantas flight to Singapore which arrives only an hour before the flight from Singapore to Zurich departs. So if there are any delays, things could go badly. I’m just hoping that the waitlist will pay off and he’ll end up on my plane.
I also hope that no one will throw up next to me for 9 hours straight like they did when we flew to Rome via Taipei last year.
My ticket was frickin’ expensive. We’re going to be living off cheese sandwiches and cold water for this trip.
On the bright side, since Zaubi won’t have to present, it will be less stressful. And we don’t have to drive madly through 4 countries like we did last time: we’ll just stay in Switzerland. It should be nice and relaxing. And beautiful! June!