Project Progress and a Hike in the Alps

Hello all! It is time for a new weekly blog post. Today was a pretty great week for me here.

For the research, it started off a little shakey, because Shobhit, Felipe and I thought that we knew what we were supposed to do, but when Shobhit actually started making the plots, they weren't what we wanted them to be nor needed them to be, in order to obtain useful results. We met with Archana Sharma in the afternoon to discuss it. She told Felipe and I to use Garfield++ to make some plots of drift velocity, longitudinal and transverse diffusion, and Lorentz angles for various electric and magnetic fields each in our own gas mixtures. She told me to use Argon:Isobutane 95:5 (which is the percentage of the total gas mixture for each gas).

After the meeting, it seemed rather pointless for me to make these plots, because I'm sure someone else had done it before, but Felipe and I did it anyway, since we wanted to do something and that was all we knew how to do at the moment. We used an example Garfield++ file (which is the Garfield simulation software I was talking about before, but it is written in the programming language C++) and then adjusted the gas mixtures, electric fields ranges over which the simulation would run, the magnetic fields, and the angle between them. The different angle effects the motion of the electrons which were simulated, because a charge moving through a magnetic field experiences a magnetic force proportional to its speed and the sine of the angle between the motion and magnetic field. So, the electric field force will be somewhat counteracted by the magnetic field, causing the electrons not to drift exactly along the electric field, but rather at some angle to the electric field (and also the plates which have the applied voltage). This is called the Lorentz angle.

The program itself simulates the drift of many electrons in order to calculate an average drift velocity, which depends on the forces applied and the medium, in this case Argon:Isobutane 95:5. It has to track the motion of each electron through space for the entire distance and therefore requires many many calculations and a lot of time. For several of the simulations I ran, I had to leave my computer on and running the simulations all through the night. One of the simulations required about 36 hours (though I divided it up by letting each terminal send a specific part of the job to the server). In order to record all of the data that appeared in the terminal and was then pushed off the top of the window by new incoming results, I wrote a .txt file with all of the information that I could then go through later to sift out the useful results. After inputting this information into Excel, I created several useful graphs in the 3 days of work. It finally feels like I have done something useful!

Aside from the simulations and analysis, I also went to the beach on Friday during the day (while it was still hot and sunny). Don't worry, I stilly made up for the skipped work by working until 8:30 pm or so after I got back. I just thought that since I wasn't really working with anyone that I might as well make use of the beautiful sunny day!

On Saturday, Zack and both Alexs and I went for a long hike in the Alps. In short, it was awesome, and here are some pictures to document our journey! First, we woke up really early and left here at 6:25 am to catch the tram to the Airport. We had set up a rental car from Hertz and we picked it up at 7am. There was a little trouble, since aparently you have to have credit card in order to rent it (a debit card doesn't work). So, the person who had organized everything with the car couldn't actually rent it, so Zack ended up renting it and driving. We had tried to use the GPS and print off maps, but there were so many clear road signs that we were ablt to make it to the hiking place about an hour away with no trouble.

 Here is my first picture from the road. It was interesting to ride in France, but not too much different from the US. Definitely more traffic circles though.

We had looked up the directions to hike Mont Buet, which is near to Mont Blanc and has a good view of it, and we eventually found a route that we liked and that we thought would work. On our way to the trailhead, we passed a hiking area, but I was fairly sure that the trailhead we wanted was further, but since we didn't have a GPS, I wasn't sure at all. We only had a map with the large towns labelled along with the road. We drove a little ways further, but then didn't see what I thought we should, so we decided to go back to the trail we saw. Here are some pictures of the beginning of the trail. It started out with about 1.5 miles of switch backs. Then, there was another 1.5 miles of flatter straight trails up to the lake pictured 3 pictures below.

 We knew that we were heading to Lac Blanc, which was a lake, so we though this one might be it, until we read the sign. We then headed up the ladders and up a steep trail until we reached the actual lake of final destination, Lac Blanc.

Next to the lake is a hotel/ restaurant that people can stay in when they go on big hikes. These types of huts are scattered throughout the Alps as resting places for people going on longer hikes.

I tried to get artsy with this picture... I realized that I think I want to take some photography classes or at least learn more about it. It would be nice to take better pictures. We arrived at the lake, but we were still hoping that Mont Buet was just above, and accessible, so we started to climb the ridge near Lac Blanc. It was pretty steep in quite a few places and required us to use our hands also. It was really fun.

 Here is a picture with me and a glacier behing me.

 Zack Siegel, Me, Alex Fragapane, and Alex Sherman at the top of one of the hills.

 This perspective in this picture does not do justice to how terrifying this actually was. There was just a little rock ledge down there and after that, it was probably a 150 foot drop off. It was on the side of a cliff practically. Anyway, since you can't see how terrifying this was, I don't think I will submit it for the Chipotle challenge.

 Here is me being like the beginning of lion king with my shirt, but it is too far away that you can't really see me or the shirt well. It was pretty high up though.

 This just gives an idea of the terrain that we were climbing on. Eventually we got to where we couldn't avoid the snow, so we had to cross it, since staying on the rocks would mean crossing an 8 or 10 foot ravine leading to the cliffs mentioned before on the left.

Crossing the snow was pretty scary, since it was quite slick. If you slipped, you could slide all the way down further into the bowl, where it would be less steep, but there were some large rocks that you also might run into after you gained speed.

 Another view of the terrain.

We eventually decied to slide down the snow. It was really fun. Kinda like skiing except you couldn't steer very well and it was mostly just trying not to lose your balance.

 There is me making a snow angel. Again, definitely too far away to see the shirt, but I thought it was still a cool picture.

 They told me to lay there and do a model pose, but I didn't know what to do, which is what I am motioning in this picture. "What do I do"

We thought it would be cool to make an AU for me to sit in for a picture, so we all tried to carve it out. It took some time though, because it was really slippery still and we had to make a special effort to avoid sliding and ruining the letters. 
Here is the best version of the photo of me in the AU. I think this will be one of the top contenders for the Chipotle. Everyone here is invested in making the best picture possible, because I said I would share my chipotle with them if I win.

 I decided to take some more pictures on the way down because the lighting was better, so here are a couple more of the same scenery.

 We saw another one of those wild goat things a lot closer than before. We also saw a giant hare type thing and a really big marmot relative.

 Our car is down on that little D shape more than 1000 feet below. Just for some numbers, the total hike was about 8.5 miles and we gained almost 3700 feet of elevation. The steepest grade was 67% according to google earth, though I'm pretty sure up towards the top when we were bouldering, it was more than that.

 Here, I only have my white shirt on, because Alex S reasoned with me that there was no way that this picture would beat all of my other AU ones, so there wasn't really a point of putting it on.

 After the hike, we were all quite hungry so we went to a Microbrewery in Chamonix France. They had a good deal for a hamburger and pint of beer for only 10 Euros. The Hamburger was so big and juicy and good. I had a stout, which kinda tasted like coffee, but was really cold, so it was bearable. We also got some onion rings and waffle fries for 6.5 and 5 Euros respectively. It was so much of a better deal than Geneva!

After all this, we were exhausted and didn't want to to much, so we just watched Taken 2 in one of the lounges. I have pretty bad sun burn, so am sore from that, and some other peoples muscles are sore, so we could tell that it must have been a good hike!

A New Project!

Hello all,


This week wasn't particularly exciting, but it was a good week nonetheless! Here are some of the excerpts from my emails to Amy! It is probably too detailed for the average reader, so you can definitely feel free to skim it! To aid in your skimming I have Bolded the first several words of the paragraphs that I thinkare more interesting.

From the 16th of July:

I woke up at 7 since the birds were singing me some wonderful songs early in the morning and we had our window open.... Anyway, I couldn't go back to sleep and didn't really want to so I just did my workout for the day! I did 30 inverted pull ups, where you lay under the desk face up and use the edge as a pull up bar keeping your heels on the ground. I also did some lunges, Russian twists and triceps using my back pack as a weight and suspending it over my back.

Anyway, after that, I studied vocabulary and read some more of the Bible. I'm in Isiah now. I found a dramatized reading, so I listen to it and read along at the same time. It helps me to keep reading rather than getting lost in my own thoughts. Here is the link if anyone is interested: http://www.biblegateway.com/resources/audio/

Then, I went to class for the first lectures but then went to the library to start studying E and M for next semester. They have the same book we will use except one edition older. After this, I ate a sandwich and some crackers and such and then worked on some Garfield stuff. I met at 4:30 with Marcello to talk about my next project which will involve some modeling with Garfield, so I will feel like I am doing something of consequence.

I had to bike over to Prevessin for that, but it was a nice temperature outside finally, so that was good. After getting back, I took some more parts of the practice GRE tests and then Zack and I went to Coop to get some groceries. I found a 6 pack of canned corn for only 3.80, which was awesome! I also bought some more mozzarella cheese balls and had a tomato mozzarella sandwich. It was really good. I had it on one of those square buns that are rounded on the top and have hard crust and a special name that I can't quite remember. (Later I remembered it is called Caibatta.) I also put some spices on it and put it in the oven.

After dinner, Zack and I went on a nice little bike ride on the internal CERN loop. We went on a circle road above where one of the pre accelerators is. I found this trash bin that had a ton of metal scraps in it. I got a cool one with numbers all down it and was thinking to bring some more back as souveniers, a piece of machinery from CERN!

After this we started to make bread pudding with a dried up baguette. Zack and I made it for the most part. The recipe called for ground cinnamon and Zack got some sticks so we could grind them.... I ended up doing that on one of the smallest graters and it turned our pretty good, just painstaking. The bread was super hard too! I had to cut it with my super sharp Victornox steak knife thing in order to break it up a bit. While we were waiting for the bread pudding to cook, both Alexes, Zack, Katelyn and I played cards. It was surprisingly good in the end! We used sugar that didn't seem quite normal though so it didn't seem quite as sweet as I was used to.


From the 17th of July:

Today was a good day! I got up at 7:30 and went for a run at 7:40 with Zack around the 2.5 mie loop. Then, I ate an energy bar for breakfast and headed to the classes. I listened to the first one which was on detector physics. The Italian lady from Purdue University gave her final talk and it was pretty good:) Then, I went to the library to read more EM stuff for next semester. This will also hopefully help me on the GRE, because I won't have had EM before it, nor Classical Mechanics, nor particle physics... I'm really not sure how well I will do on the test, but it is only a piece of the admission process. I bet when I'm actually going to school, I will be able to survive even if I am a little less prepared than other students, after all, that is what it was like coming into under grad from Whitehall...

I had a salami and swiss cheese sandwich for lunch along with a can of apricots and some crackers. I worked on my computer in my room for a while and then went to Prevessin to meet with the sub advisor. Shobhit and Felipe and I will be working together on the new Garfield project. Today, we just heard what we would eventually be trying to do, and then Shobhit helped Felipe and I install Garfield onto our profiles at CERN. I was definitely the furthest behind since I hadn't used Terminal (the little black window that pops up on your computer that the computer savy use to control their computers) much at all. Anyway, I booted into Linux and eventually made my way through the Terminal and installed the things I need. We set up a meeting time for tomorrow, which will be good. I'm glad I can work with them, because other wise I would be even more lost.

After that, I rode home from Prevessin and sat in my room working on the GRE English questions on around pages 50-70. I didn't do that well, but I am planning to read all of the ones that I got wrong again and then their explanations.

Alex Sherman and Alex Fragapane both came knocking at my door at about 5:30. Alex F wanted to go for a bike ride and Alex S wanted to go walk around Geneva more. I chose to go for a bike ride and it was good. We went around the north of CERN and then to the South East. We rode through the tiny towns where we hiked the first time with Rubin. It was a nice little ride and easy enough that my legs shouldn't be too sore for tomorrow. They have just recovered from the last Hike....

We stopped by the little Coop on the way home and got some fixings for little Pizza things. The type of bread was caibatta again. We got a larger piece of it, about 5 by 9 inches and we cut it in half and put his tomato pasta sauce on it. Then I put on some of my salami and fresh mozzarella cut in thin slices on it and topped it with little pieces of tomato and some green herb mix that has green onions and garlic and stuff. We played cribbage while waiting for it to cook and then continued while we ate it. It was so delicious!

There were two mishaps while we were making it. When Alex used my super sharp victornox knife to cut the tomato, about the 3rd time through, he sliced open his finger. It wasn't as deep as the kid at the party a couple of weeks ago, but it still bled a lot. Then when we were getting the pizzas out of the oven, he burnt the back of his hand a little. He wanted to eat it out of the glass dish we cooked it in, but I convinced him that that might not be a good idea.

From the 18th of July:

This morning, I woke up at 5:22 and then got ready to go hike the Jura again. It was just Zack and Alex S and I, but it was good because we could go pretty quickly. We ended up doing the entire trip in 4:35 as opposed to the 5:10 last time and the 7:20 the first time. It was a little chilly at first since we left so early, but it felt good. We even saw the mysterious animals that Phil Rubin had been telling us about. They looked just like some variety of goat. They were brown and had little curved horns. We saw them 6 times, though I think 2 were the same since we went down the same way we came up. We even saw a mother and her kid. It would have been cool to get a better picture of them, but they were a long way off.

After our hike, we showered, ate some more food, and then went to the 3rd lecture which was about nuclear physics. It seemed pretty basic, covering different isotopes and decay processes like I had learned in Modern Physics, but it was still nice to at least understand it a bit as opposed to it going completely over my head as some other lectures had done.

After lunch, I biked over to Prevessin and started working with Shobhit and Felipe on some of the simulation stuff. First, we went through the construction of the geometry that is used for the GEM detector and then we ran various tests to try to reproduce the results that were on some slides our supervisor had given us. It was pretty interesting and I felt like I might actually do something useful while I am here. Anyway, after trying to get my computer to do the simulations unsuccesfully, I watched them and gave a little input and then rode my bike home in the midst of a rain/thunder storm. I got pretty wet, but it wasn't that bad since I could change out of the wet clothes right away. The thunder here sounds soo cool since there are mountains on either side of the valley and it echos all around. The mountains seem closer than they are to Whitehall, so it seems to echo more impressively.

I just got back from Karaoke a little bit ago and it was pretty fun! Definitely CERN style. Ok, so we got there and it turns out that it was a huge conference type room. There were rows of tables going across and in the front there are some computers facing the audience and then a large projection screen all the way in the front. There were microphones in front of each place and in order to speak, you push the button on your mic. Only 4 mics can be on at once, and when yours is on, the tip of it glows red. If you push it and aren't one of the 4 speaking, it is green until you are almost next, in which case it flashes green. It was so cool though, because they would just find youtube videos of the karaoke songs and then everyone could see and sing. It was pretty chill for the most part, because you could just sit there and sing or not, or whatever. People had lots of alcohol, which made it a bit more interesting later, and things got especially interesting when the security guard showed up. I'm still not quite sure what the problem was except we were being super loud! (100+ kids singing karaoke and 4 of whom were hooked into the speaker system) They were having some sort of event outside the Council Chamber, and they could undoubtedly hear us too. He talked to the student who was running it and then left and came back in 10 or so minutes to tell us to stop. Dang! Oh well, it was a good excuse to leave. They told us to clean up our mess and then leave. I didn't have a mess, since I didn't bring anything, but some other people and I stayed to wipe down the tables where there were little spills and to put the mics and headphones how they were originally. It was a pretty fun evening.

Here is the basic layout of the room, except there are no mics in this picture and also there are older chairs.




From the 19th of June:

Today was a pretty great day! This morning, I went to lectures and did some more EM reading during the third lecture. I then headed over to Prevessin to do my research for the day. I realized that I could probably use my PUTTY terminal thing (that I used while doing my research on AU's high performance computing cluster) to log onto CERNs servers to use the programs that I needed. I was able to do that and by the end of the day I was able to edit the code and control the simulation to a small degree. That felt pretty rewarding even though the other kids had done that by the end of the first day.

I rode my bike back and then before too long, Alex F asked if I wanted to go ride bikes or hike or something. It was kinda rainy so I thought that we could maybe take the tram into Geneva. We didn't really have anything specific to do, so we just went to Coop instead and got some more pizza fixings. This time, we put a pepper in the sauce (which was also supposed to be spicy). We cut it up in small pieces, and then fried it in oil. After sauteing it for a while, we dumped in the tomato pasta sauce and cooked it some more. Then we had salami, mozzarella, tomatoes, the spicy sauce, on the caibatta. The spicy sauce was quite good and made it taste similar to the smoke and fire pizza from Matchbox! We played Crib again and I got beat so badly, 120 to 72. Not quite a double skunk though. Then right off that bat next game, I got a 21 hand!

Then, this guy named Jose from Madrid sat with us and kinda learned how to play. We then played Kings and Slaves, the card game we played a lot in the airport. We also met this girl Ni(c)k(k)i(y)(ie) (I have no clue how she spelled it) from Greece and she played with us also. She said she was going to get some ice cream from R1 (restaurant 1) and asked if we wanted to join, so we were like, "what the heck, we might as well." We ate our ice cream and talked a bit about nothing important and then played Spain's version of BS. It was a lot better than our version, I thought.

Here is how it is played: All the cards are dealt out. Then someone starts with 2s and will then say "one 2." (for example) The next person can then say BS or can play more twos. They might say "three 2s" This keeps going on until someone doubts the previous person and then they flip over that persons cards. If the person was lying, then they have to pick up the pile, but if the cards were what they said they were, then the doubting person has to pick them up. The person following the one who picked up the cards then starts with a new arbitrary number. Some differences are that it stays on the same number until it is doubted, and only the next person can call BS on the previous person. Also, at any point if you have all 4 of the same number in your hand, then you can lay them down (put them in the discard pile). There seems to be more skill in this version, since one person doesn't end up with all the cards doubting everyone else.

Surprisingly, the weekdays were more exciting than the last 3 days.

MY PROJECT DETAILS

On Friday, I ran some more specific simulations with Felipe and we started to make a plot of the data we had obtained. Here is in general the setup of the experiment we are modeling. There are these two plates that have a voltage applied between them. Then there is another small layer of copper-plastic-copper that has another voltage applied. This layer has small holes for electrons to pass through. The voltages are such that electrons will be accelerated towards the bottom of this detector. The muons (charged particles like heavy electrons) are created in the collision and then aren't absorbed by the other part of the detector and thus make it out to this part that we are modelling. The muons have such high energies that they can ionize (knock an electron off) the gas particles in between the charged plates. The electrons then accelerate and collide into other gas molecules and can in turn ionize them. Therefore by starting from a single electron, you can get multiple electrons out. The purpose of this is so that they can detect the presence of the first electron by the 1000s of electrons that will eventually reach the detector. This is called an electron avalanche. 

What we do in the simulations is to start a given number of electrons in a geometry that is like that of the actual experiment. We then can set the voltages for the various plates and can then determine the average number of electrons that are created from an initial one. There is a large variation in this, since it is all goverend by chance (statistics). Therefore if you let the program run with more electron events, you can get a more accurate picture of what would actually happen. Near the end of Friday, we started to do 4000 electron events, which take about an hour to complete, so we eventually just gave up (since it was about time to go home) and we just ran it on our computers from our rooms in the evening.

On Friday evening, aside from this, I looked up a lot of information about various graduate schools that have both Education masters degrees and Physics masters or PhD degrees.

On Saturday, I first went for a run and then I went into town to buy all of my souveniers for the trip and also some gifts for people at home. I then rode the tram home, ate a sandwich, grabbed my vocab cards, and then went down to the lake to hang out on the beach and study some GRE vocab. I also went to the Jet D'eau for a close up picure.

On Sunday, I did my laundry, which was quite a process since they didn't have any laundry detergent for me, so I had to look around other places and identify laundry detergent in French. I also read the Bible and fasted for something for the morning.

This evening I am going to go to a Special Antimatter event, where they show a movie and then have a question and answer session. It should be interesting and fun, at least something to do. The reason I have been just hanging out for the last 2 days is that all of the other GMU people are gone this weekend to various places.

Here are some pictures from the above description!

Here are some pictures from our 3rd hike. There is the little animal.



That is (from the left) me, Alex Sherman, Zack Siegel. Alex asked this man in french to take our picture. He had a nice camera and seemed to know what he was doing.



This is the Jet D'eau from the bridge.



A random fountain in a park. It was such a nice day on Saturday!



I stood in the shadow of the Jet D'eau on the pier right next to it.



Here is a live statue. He was really good. I felt a little guilty taking his picture and not paying him, but I had seen at least one person put money in the container.



This is a view from the window of my room. Today, it really wanted it's picture taken, so I obliged.




That's all for now, but I hope it was maneagable.

Trips to the "Beach," the Lake Parade, and Jura Hike v2. (with pictures)

I'm sorry for not having posted anything this week so far, but it was about the same as the previous week except we had a couple different lectures, so you didn't miss much except what I will describe here. 

It rained some this week during the evenings while being sunny during the days for the most time. It reminds me of Montana in the summer when we would get the thunder storms in the afternoons from the mountains for several days in a row. Most of the week was really nice and as a result, I really wanted to go to the beach again. I tried to plan it for Wednesday, but it turned out that by the time we were going to leave, it was cloudy and had started raining. 

The next day, we planned it and actually made it happen, but by the time we got to the beach, it was 6:52 pm, so the sun was just going behind some trees that are right next to the beach. These first tow pictures are of the boat ride across the lake towards the beach. Our tpg transportation passes cover the boat rides too. It really doesn't save much time unless you catch it just right, but it is more of a novelty thing. 

On the way across the lake, I put my hand in the water and noticed that it wasn't as cold at all as the mountain lakes in Montana, which surprised me a little since it is fairly close to the Alps. I guess it gets its energy somewhere else though. Anyway, I was also wearing my Montana Folk Festival shirt, and as I got off, a woman came up to me and asked if I was from Montana. It turns out that she was from Colorado but has lived here for several years... small world. 

Here are some pictures of the beach. There is grass area where lots of people sun bathe, the coarse sand towards the water, and then in the water, there is nice "beachy" sand that feels good on your feet!

Alex Sherman, Zack and I went down first and were there for half an hour or so waiting for Tina. Another group of CERN people came down and then just as we were leaving, Tina arrived. Zack and Tina stayed with the other group, but Alex and I decided to walk around Geneva instead. We headed along the lake for a ways and then up the hill towards the old town (which we never actually made it to).

This is getting closer to the old town part. The streets got quite narrow, as you can see, and there were lots of fancy restaurants and sophisticated music venues.

We ended up at this really cool park where they have giant Checker and Chess sets for anyone to play. It was so cool and a good idea I thought. There were all sorts of people there and of many skill levels. I am terrible and lost to Alex fairly handily, but there were also these old men smoking and doing scenarios with few pieces left on the board. They were sitting in lawn chairs and looking thoughtfully at the board. Most people were speaking French too, which made everything seem fancier for some reason, but the pieces were actually just big and hollow and made of plastic.

This is a lecture given by a professor Ben Allanach from Cambridge. It is in the same main hall where they announced the discovery of the Higgs Boson (I just said it again, because I can't remember if I specified this already). He just used the chalkboard unlike most of the lectures. He is lecturing on quantum field theory and was giving some background information.

On one of our trips to the grocery store, we saw these labels on the different types of Coke. We thought it was funny that they specified who should be drinking each kind.

On Friday, there was a "party" for the CERN summer students. Each person got a type of fundamental particle (a specific type of quartk or lepton) or one of the corresponding antiparticles on a slip of paper when you went in. As an incentive to socialize and meet people, you got a free drink if you found your antiparticle. I stayed there for a total of maybe 15 minutes and then Alex Sherman and I went to Restaurant 1 to play cards. I showed him how to play Cribbage. I beat him the first game, but then lost the next. I did beat him in 2 handed Pinochle though!

After this, he went back to his room, and I went back to the party for a bit. I wandered around inside for a while (it was really humid and warm (like the 100+ people that were in there)). I eventually found Katelyn and talked to her and the group she was standing with for a while. I got tired of the warmth and went outside. There I met this guy, whose name and country of origin now escape me, but I tried to explain American Football to him, since when he watched the Super Bowl, it didn't make sense. I then went to bed pretty late.

On Saturday, I got up at 7 and got ready for the big hike to Le Reculet again. This time, just Alex Sherman and I went. Although we couldn't see the Alps in the morning, this was our view of the Jura, so we knew that we would at least get some good views. We parked our bikes at the top of the houses and then hiked up. It only took us 2.5 hours from the time we left CERN to get to the top. If you follow the tree line going from the left of the picture, it eventually runs into some rocky part and then jumps up (near the top) after the rocks. We hiked in the grassy area just to the left of the rocky part and then up along the ridge to the top point.

Here are some more pictures with my AU shirt for the Chipotle contest and also for the scenery in the back.

Near this spot on the trail, we are walking along a steep slope down to the left and next to a cliff on the right. There were some cows on the trail, and there was a lady by herself that wasn't passing the cows. They didn't look mean, but they did have horns and I suppose they could have been dangerous, but they ended up not being mean. I just walked slowly towards them and they moved away. The lady said some things in French including "merci," and she followed us past them. I was glad that I had grown up by cows and felt just a tiny bit like a hero. Alex may have done the same thing, but I'll take the credit anyway :P

After we arrived home in only 5:10 since leaving CERN, we showered and rested. (My calves were quite sore (and they still are a day later)) Starting at 4 pm was what they call the lake parade in Geneva. It is basically a large drunken festival where they have floats that just play various types of loud music. Everyone walks along the street with the floats and drinks and dances and whatever else they feel like doing. The parade starts to the west of the lake and then goes across a bridge and ends up near the beach that I mentioned earlier. We arrived at about 7pm after most of the parade had gone by, and saw the crazy mess that everyone had left in the street. Then, a little ways behind the last float, there were the street cleaners. First there were the leaf blowers that got things out of the gutters. Then, they had the street sweepers. Once everything was pretty well cleaned, there was a big truck that sprayed the streets down. Just like that, 30 or 40 minutes after the parade had passed by, where there was more confetti, cigarettes, and beer bottles than you could imagine, the road was clean!

A little about the people now... There were so many types of people. There were families (not sure what the little kids were doing there). There were people smoking pot, more people smoking cigarettes, lots lots of alochol. It wasn't all that crazy though. There were lots of costumes of various degrees. Some people just had on mouse ears or funny hats, and lots of people also had face paint and such. There were also many shirtless men and even one shirtless woman... Needless to say, the lake parade was quite the scene. We didn't stay for too long. We thought you would definitely need to be quite intoxicated in order to have a great time down there.

The last group of photos is from this afternoon. Alex Fragapane and I went down to the confluence of the Rhone and Arve rivers. It was really cool. One was super silty (my guess is like the stuff in the lakes at Glacier Park) and the other one that is fed from Lake Geneva is pristine. We walked through Geneva and along Rhone river to the train tracks where we could go above both rivers.

Afterwards, we went to the same beach that we had gone to the last two days and sat in the sun for a while. I studied my vocabulary flash cards for the GRE, so the time wasn't completely wasted. It was nice to be out in the sun. Before walking back to the Tram station, I jumped in for a quick swim. It was still the perfect temperature. I think Geneva would be a perfect place for a vacation, there is a nice (though so tiny compared to the ocean) beach and you are also next to the Alps and Jura mountains. When it is rainy though, I don't imagine it is quite as fun.

Lastly, this is a picture of the Jet d'eau. Here are some facts about it from wikipedia:
It uses two 500 kWatt pumps to shoot 139 gallons of water per second 140 meters in the air. This fountain is visible from the top of the Jura mountains and almost everywhere else around.

Originally, it was a pressure release for some water system and it could shoot about 30 meters in the air. Since it gained popularity as a land mark, they eventually made it a permanent fixture and kthey eep it going most days unless it is too windy.

That is all for now. More to come Next week!

For Carla, since she asked, Amy and I are planning to have our wedding on Saturday the 31st of May! It will be in Butte, hopefully at a church uptown near Walkerville. The reception will most likely be at the Anselmo mine headframe and in one of the buildings near it. Let me know any more questions if you have them.