Add Saturday

content/blog/wk11day6.md

@@ -1,7 +1,89 @@
 ---
-title: "Week 11, Saturday:"
+title: "Week 11, Saturday: Milano to Zurigo"
 date: 2024-10-12T21:55:00+02:00
-draft: true
 ---
 
-{{< image frame="true" width="17em" float="right" src="/img/headline/todo.png" alt="Credit: " >}}
+{{< image frame="true" width="17em" float="right" src="/img/headline/drumandbass.png" alt="Credit: Drum and Bass, YouTube" >}}
+
+Today we complete our visit to beautiful Italy. For the last time (for the time being, at least) we
+grab breakfast in the hotel in Milan. We take a look at weather, driving conditions, the traffic at
+the Gottard tunnel, and debate if we'd like to visit any other sights in the city before heading
+off.
+
+In the breakfast room, it's a bit of a mess. I don't quite understand what brings parents of small
+children not to clean up after themselves. There's bread, fruit and detritis everywhere, and as well
+a few stomping children. I'm so glad that we don't have to deal with that on an ongoing basis
+anymore! Thanks, Quinn: you're a winner :)
+
+Our feet are tired and I think maybe all three of us would love to be at home. I myself would very
+much like to sleep in my own bed for a while; my back is not happy with my choice of hotel bed. It's
+super hard, like a wooden board with a 3cm piece of foam on it. It reminds me a bit of camping in
+the Nordics, where all we had was a little roll-up matt. I'm not sure I would be a happy camper,
+considering how much my back hates me right now.
+
+After breakfast, we grab our belongings upstairs, and I do a quick checkout. Marina has already
+paid, even the city tax and parking, so I make my way downstairs to the garage. I'm quickly met by
+the guy behind the counter, who insists on a very specific way for me to exit the garage. You see,
+it's a somewhat ... narrow passage way in and out, and they are trying to make sure that I don't
+damage our daily driver. Marina takes a picture as I poke the nose out of the garage into the
+gangway up to street level. I can confirm: it was narrow!!
+
+The car ends up on the street without any damage (go, Pim!) and we start our ascent from Milano to
+Zurigo. The drive over the _Autostrada_ towards Chiasso (the border crossing into Switzerland) is
+line-rate. There's a bit of a delay while driving over the border crossing, but once again we aren't
+pulled over and asked any questions, we are free to go.
+
+Then we drive towards the Gottard tunnel, and there's a bit of a delay getting in to it. I have
+heard that the delay _can be_ up to three hours in the Summer, but for us, today, it's only about
+twenty minutes or so. I drive us through the tunnel and find myself a parking spot to switch drivers
+with Marina. Similar to when we went to the Netherlands (where MArina had this), I have a bit more
+of a drive than I bargained for: 3.25hrs before we find a parking spot, which by now is only twenty
+minutes from our supercharger in _Beckenried_.
+
+Here, we provide Tessa with electrons while we supply edibles for ourselves. Quinn munches on a
+Caesar Salad, Marina takes a beef tartar, and I grab hummus with flatbread. Marina may have had some
+buyers' remorse, as she demands halfsies. I am not dissatisfied by this, because I really like
+tartare. We finish our late lunch, while Tessa finishes its electron slurp.
+
+Marina takes the rest of the drive home, and we arrive there at around 16:30 or so. Here, we pretty
+quickly disperse, not too dissimilar to shrapnel. I go to the basement and take a bit of a training
+run in the Flight Simulator. I spend about one hour practicing taxiing, takeoff, and circuits. My
+goal is to reliably and consistently ace the exercises around take-off, circuits, navigation and
+landing. Proudly, I show my awareness of the [[Dunning Kruger
+effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect)], and take a picture of my
+score in taking off at 500ft/min and 75kts in my dinky little Cessna 172S.
+
+By the way, Tim, you will like this: we bought the _Deluxe_ version, and somewhere tucked away in
+that version, is a Cessna 172 Classic. Interestingly, the normal version only has the glass cockpit,
+but the _Deluxe_ version has the old _Skyhawk_. So I also spent half an hour or so importing it and
+making sure that the radio and navigation panel works for it. Score!
+
+For dinner, we decide to eat (dutch) French Fries and _Snacks_, which means: Frikandellen, Kip
+Corns, Bitterballen and Kroketten. All of these things are such a classic guilty pleasure for us in
+Switzerland. I know my dutch friends don't really appreciate it, but it's true: you don't know what
+you have until it's gone! Our supply of frikandellen is severely limited in Switzerland!
+
+After dinner, we watch a few episodes of Black Mirror, and finally, I take the Cessna 172 Skyhawk
+with navigation out for a spin. I found a MSFS Companion App, which displays a bunch of data and
+importantly, the airplane's position on an (OpenS treet Maps) map. Unfortunately, there are no
+airfield overlays (OSM does not do this, on principle), so I have to make due with 'normal' maps.
+Maybe at some point I'll get that fancy Sky Demon that Tim uses, or some other tool. But for now,
+I'm happy with the results. On the screenshot below, you can see which places I flew by hand (West
+of lake Zurich, and around lake Pf&auml;ffikon), and where I played with the autopilot (the nice
+straight lines).
+
+I'm pretty tired from all of that prancing around Milan, so at 22:00 or so I turn in for the night.
+Marina is already in the bathroom getting ready as I rock up. It seems we're both quite tired from
+all that traveling.
+
+## Pictures of the Day
+
+{{< gallery-category >}}
+  {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-12/20241012_103228.jpg" caption="I'm driving the car through a very narrow gangway up from the garage in our hotel. No damage!" >}}
+  {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-12/IMG_2069.JPG" caption="In the flight sim, I'm taking lessons. This one exercise I've scored an outlier-positive 9.9/10, but generally I try to practice such that I have consistent A scores." >}}
+  {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-12/IMG_2070.JPG" caption="In this episode of Black Mirror, a woman loses her loved one, but technology manages to bring him back as a humanoid robot. What could possibly go wrong?" >}}
+  {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-12/IMG_2071.JPG" caption="The flight I flew in the Cessna 172 Skyhawk, playing around with the autopilot, taking off from D&uuml;endorf and landing on the same airfield." >}}
+{{< /gallery-category >}}
+
+{{< gallery-modal >}}
+{{< gallery-script >}}