It's always exciting when a large parcel from Swarovski arrives but sadly I'm crazy busy trying to get all my work done and head off to travel teaching so I have to pretty much ignore it - the horror!

I'm heading to Germany this afternoon and am really looking forward to it. I last visited over 3 years ago and the trip was great for many reasons and I'm looking forward to reconnecting with all the friends I made.

Annoyingly my mild fear of flying has turned into pure terror and a physiological fear so as soon as I begin to take off on a flight I'm gripping the arm rests and working out how I can get home by land or sea and vow to never fly again. Not much good when my work and love of travel means I have to fly to places. But fortunately this is a short flight and goes well and before I know it I'm in Basel Switzerland.

Basel airport is a very strange one and seems to exist in 3 countries (Switzerland, France and Germany) all at once. My lift to Germany is caught up in snow in the Black Forest and not knowing the craziness of the airport I had taken the exit to the Switzerland part and soon realise my error - there are no chairs to sit in and wait in Switzerland.

Fortunately I can see the French and Germany side, about 5ft away from me, and some chairs where I can wait but to get there you have to walk in the other direction, get a lift up, walk back in the opposite direction and get a lift down (all to travel less than 2 metres). But I do this and find a seat and also get to see that the French/ German part of Basel needs an armed soldier but the Switzerland side doesn't. But I'm less concerned about this than I am which side has seats.

Soon my lift is here and we drive through France to get to Germany (so 4 countries now, including England, in less than 90 minutes) and head to Freiburg where I'll be teaching the first of my classes - and I can't wait!