Viva!

Feeling a bit blah being back at work after a spontaneous mini-break to Geneve last week.

After mulling over it over the weekend, I booked my flight on a Monday, fell sick on Tuesday, felt a bit better on Wednesday, felt really, really sick and stressed with work on Thursday, and crawled into work on Friday morning to finish 5 gazillion work assignments whilst coughing / sneezing / spreading my germs to my H1N1-paranoid colleagues (it was just a virus, people). Then, teetering on the cusp of a serious nervous breakdown, I thought to myself, screw this, mentally checked out of work, went home and wrapped myself in a thick blanket to sweat off my fever.

Miraculously, after a short afternoon nap, I felt a bit better and somehow managed to get to the airport that evening, pass immigration and onto the plane.

Geneve was lovely and balmy as I managed to catch the remnants of the European summer. Spent quality time with Spazlee, Marco, Jojo-Mojo and Atilla the doggie, and just chillaxing and definitely not thinking about work.

Living in the unbearable heat that is the Malaysian tropics, you really appreciate simple pleasures like lounging on the grass in the park without suffering from heatstroke, walking around town checking out the stores on the highstreet, bracing walks in the countryside, even taking public transportation with the masses.

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Most excitingly, my darling (but sometimes exasperating) big sister, Spazlee, managed to get us awesome tickets to the Coldplay concert in Berne on Wednesday. A two hour train ride to Berne, a jam packed bus ride full of Coldplay fans to her friend’s apartment, and a 5 minute hop skip jump walk to Stade de Suisse, and we were so ready to rock out to Chris Martin & co.

The band came out holding lit sparklers and kicked off with the instrumental Life in Technicolor. Spazlee and I jumped up with the rest of the crowd and screamed like schoolgirls.

Similar to their Twisted Logic Tour, giant yellow balloons filled with gold foil leaves bounced madly around the crowd during Yellow, the only song the band played from Parachutes.

I was beyond excited when they played Strawberry Swing, my favorite song from Viva La Vida and literally jumped up, yelped, clapped and waved my arms in the air while singing along at the top of my lungs. The Swiss, well at least the German Swiss, as my sister explained, are a relatively stoic people. Sure, they’ll show their appreciation in spades by clapping and whooping, but jumping, shouting and general crazy reckless behavior? Nein.

Chris Martin showed off his super limberness (all those yoga lessons must have paid off) as he hopped, skipped and cartwheeled across the massive stage and the two long ramps extended on both sides.

The most memorable part of concert was after Chris Martin played a pared down version of The Hardest Part on the piano at the end of the left ramp, then ran back on stage to the rest of the band, bursting into the anthemic Viva La Vida, making the crowd go absolutely wild, singing along to chorus of the song i.e. the part that goes woah-ohhhhhh, woah-ohhhhhhhhh (you can hear this moment on their live album LeftRightLeftRightLeft, downloadable for free on their website). Seriously goosebump inducing.

It was around that time when it began to piss down cats and dogs. The standing concertgoers in the middle of the stadium were drenched but unfazed, but made me feel a bit better about getting the posh seated tickets under the covered roof, instead of roughing it out in the mosh pit like a true hardcore fan. Heh.

Unbelievably, the weather did not deter the band from walking into the crowd towards the back of the stadium where they played an acoustic set of Green Eyes, and as a tribute to MJ, a melancholic rendition of Billie Jean, on a small stage for the revelers with the shitty tickets, in the pouring rain nonetheless.

How can you not love that?

Back on stage, they played Lovers in Japan, where Chris Martin pranced across the ramps, into the pouring rain, twirling a small Japanese paper umbrella over his shoulder while a spray of rainbow colored confetti made up of cut out paper butterflies shot into the air, which was really a beautiful sight to behold.

A little over ninety minutes later, the band ended with an encore of The Scientist and a reprise of Life in Technicolor. The rain persisted, and the crowd filed out of stadium still high, woah-ohhhhhhhhhhhh-ing in unison all the way into the streets.

Though it's the second time i've seen them live in concert, watching them in an open air stadium (in the rain!) was a completely mind blowing brilliant experience. As Q Magazine says, they truly are The Greatest Band In The World (and yes, my heart is healed).

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The parentals flew in to Geneve for a few days on Thursday, which meant quality time with the whole family and lots of attention lavished on my little bundle of terror of a nephew Jojo, who, incidentally, is deviously irresistible.

I was a bit sore to have to leave on Saturday morning, and not looking forward to return to my stressful existence back in KL.

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Post mini-break, I’ve decided to not get so worked up about deadlines and workloads anymore, and to stop letting stress drive me into poor health (having fallen ill more times this year than the last 5 years combined). It’s not like my work is saving lives or endagered species or the environment. It's just money – money that is often squandered by the powers that be – thus there’s really no point in worrying myself sick about it.

So there. Now i'm off to Jakarta for work and hope to not be pulled out of a car and beaten by an angry mob.