From 25 June:
I made it to Switzerland! It was such a beautiful morning too. Supposedly, it was raining for the past several days, but it was sunny and about 65 degrees and perfect when we arrived. We have bused around a bit and have met all of our advisers and such. Really, we were here all day, since we got in a 7:30 this morning. It is really pretty here. For dinner, Phil Rubin, our supervisor that organizes the program from George Mason, took us all out to a restaurant in Meyrin (the closest town to CERN in Switzerland). I ate some fancy olives that I even almost liked! The main dish was pizza though! It was definitely some of the best pizza I have eaten to date, but it came whole, so we had to use a fork and knife, and I felt like I should cut it in little bites which took me forever, because I am not used to fancy eating... I couldn't eat it fast enough, so it got cold, but it was still really good! This evening after dinner, I took a walk around the outside this whole facility, about 3.3 miles. It is nice, I walked through the country side where there were lots of grape vines and fields of grain and I also walked along the city a bit. Tomorrow morning, I am going to get up and go for a longish bike ride and go grocery shopping for my food for a while.
Ok, I'm getting pretty tired, so I should probably go to bed, but I will definitely keep you posted!
From 26 June:
The plane ride was pretty long, though we arrived about 25 minutes early. The food wasn't as good as in Russia on the plane, but we did have 1.5 meals (the breakfast had a roll and a little fruit=.5 meals). I lucked out big time too. In the airport, I was called to the front desk and she asked me if I would be willing to switch seats, since a couple wanted to be together and one of them was next to me. I did without trouble, since I didn't think I was close to the others and I was moved back to 39a. Then she moved me again to 38a. There was no one in 38b, so I was able to sleep a little! After the 43 second take off, I watched 2.5 men, the office, new girl, and a little of some other random TV show. We took the tram and bus to CERN and walked around a lot after the airplane ride. I saw the place where the Internet was created and also the insides of 5 or 10 buildings at CERN. It was pretty interesting, but I definitely wouldn't prefer to work in those buildings.
My roommate is also good. He seems pretty chill and we should get along alright. Random fact about him, he can solve a Rubik's cube in under 30 seconds, though the time I timed him it took him 32 seconds. He is the computer science kid and is smart! It seems like his project will go well and that he will actually make progress! My advisor seems quite busy, but willing to help me when I have questions and she is not busy. She is often in meetings since she is in charge of quite a bit, but she still knew that I wasn't super experienced and emphasized the learning aspect of it all.
From 28 June:
Wow, today was a big day! Here are the things I did. I got up at 7:10 and then showered before going to Coop (the grocery store) with Alex S and Zack. it is a quaint little grocer store and doesn't have many things, but they do have some good chocolate... where in Switzerland doesn't have good chocolate?!? I bought some ultra pasteurized milk that can last months out of the fridge and I also got some cheese and apples. It was pretty cold in the morning 50 F, so my tshirt didn't quite cut it! I rode to the Prevessin site of Cern (2.85 miles from the Meyrin site where I am staying) and started working. I first did a bunch of wire testing until 1 and then worked on learning Garfield until 3. After that, some guy came to get me and asked if i could do a project for him. He wants me to make a gif file in Photoshop that shows how some of the different layers of the panel are assembled. I don't really know how to use photoshop at all, but after several hours, I'm getting the hang of it. He wants it by monday, so I'll work more on it all day tomorrow.
Garfield is a simulation program that I have been trying to learn, but it is really hard to learn with no purpose, so I'll spend more time on other things until she gives me a specific project. It is easier to learn a language in the context of something, so you look up specific words rather than trying to memorize and entire dictionary. Here is that website though: http://garfield.web.cern.ch/garfield/ .
After work, the George Mason group headed to downtown Geneva to get our bus passes. It is 50 dollars, but is good for a month as opposed to the 4 dollar hour passes, which you need two of to go down into the city and then again later out of the city. I just got it so that I will have an incentive to go into the city rather than regretting it! Anyway, we walked around down town and looked in the windows of some store (lots of really expensive watch stores). We walked the .5 miles or so over to the lake and it was also beautiful (what do you know...). One cool thing they have is with the public transportation passes we got, we can take a little boat across the lake and back. I'll probably do that when it gets warmer. While we were at the lake, it started to rain quite a bit, so we were pretty wet by the time we got back on the tram to head towards CERN.
At a stop probably 6 away from Cern, we stopped at a large grocery store. It was actually closer to a walmart, but it was within a mall and everything wasn't quite as cheap! I bought some more things there and spent even more money, but I think that I will be about finished spending money for several days and later I won't spend as much either since I have a pretty large food stockpile now. After the store, we came back and ate some food and I taught the guys how to play pinochle. It was 11:30 or so by the time we got back, so I should probably wrap this up pretty soon.
The best moment of my day came when I was complemented by the guy I was testing RPC cables with. He said in a slight Arabic accent: "You are the first student I see here work hardly." -Egyptian guy I worked with.
From 29 June:
Yesterday, the 4 boys from the George Mason group ate at Restaurant 1, though only 1 person bought food there. There is a lot of outdoor seating so we just sat at the tables and talked. Gtown Alex asked if we had to kill someone, how would we do it. That got a good conversation about weapons going which eventually lead to realistic laser light sabers and stuff like that. It was a good time.
Then we went to Geneva to go to a Bar that was called "the brewers" except it was in French. We are actually staying in Meyrin, so we had to take the tram about 10 stops or so before we were in the downtown area, by the bar and the lake. They have these big cylinders of beer that you can buy for a whole table and then you just serve yourself however much you want. We got a 3 liter one (out of the capacity of 5 liters) which was probably 4 feet tall. It is maybe 4.5 inches wide but quite tall and since we were already on a tall table, it reached up to the low rafters of the bar. It was fun, both Alexs, Zach, Tina, and I went, but Katelyn didn't go, because she had had knee surgery and still has a leg brace so it is a pain and tiring to walk around much. We talked about music and other random things at the Bar and then went for a walk around the downtown area and over towards the lake.
It is so beautiful and ritzy down there. There are lots of stores with super expensive swiss watches and some clothing stores Tina was telling us about have an entry way and if they don't think you look rich enough to afford the clothes, they dont even let you in the real store. We then walked around the lake and through some parks, but it was dark so we didn't see too much except the lighted signs and their reflections in the water. There were two Rolex buildings down near the lake. After we were on the other side of the lake, we heard some fireworks, so we went over to the lake to watch. It was really pretty and awesome with the mountains and buildings around to echo the booms and the lake to reflect the fireworks. Then a flock of swans/white geese swam out in front of where the firework reflections were and it was so cool. Another really awesome thing is that they have this man made geyser that is probably about as tall as Old Faithful! It must take so much power to run it, but it is really awesome!
After the fireworks, we headed back since the tram closes at around 11 going back to CERN. Aparently from downtown, it costs about $50 to take a taxi!! Everything is so expensive here. At McDonalds, a big mac was 9.90CHF for a small meal and the CHF are worth more than dollars too! We rode back and then MD Alex, Zack and I played cards with this kid, Neil from the UM program that is here (and I didn't get into). He knew how to play pinochle, so we did and it was a close long game, but I lost again... 1590 to 1800! I went to bed at about 3 and didn't wake up until 10:30am. (CH is the French abbreviation for Swiss)
Zack got up at 11:40 or so and we went for a run around the outside of CERN. On our way out, we ran into Alex S so we asked if he wanted to join and he did! We ran around the outside of CERN and then tried to get in through one of the back gates, but it was out not open at that time (only 6:30am-10pm weekdays... ). So, we had to run an extra mile going the rest of the way around. My calves were feeling it pretty good by the time we got back to our hostel. Oh yeah, it was raining the entire time, though not a huge downpour however, so it was just kinda pleasant even if it was cool outside.
After the run, I took a shower and ate some breakfast. I studied GRE vocab and also made a physics GRE study guide by saving all of the summary pages from each chapter of the online textbook. I will study those more tomorrow. It seems like the physics GRE doesn't have terribly hard questions but you just have to know all of the physics equations from undergrad and how to use them, since you are only given the constants on the actual test instead of any equations.
After lazying around our room, the 4 guys went to the store to get some more things for the upcoming week's food. We took the tram 5 or 6 stops into Geneva and then went to the "Coop city" which was basically just a huge grocery store with other things too. We thought it would be fun for dinner to have a fancy wine, cheese, meat, and crackers dinner, so we each picked out a wine (Sangria for me since it has more sugar and other flavors and less wine), a cheese, a meat, and some crackers. We invited Tina and Katelyn to join us and we all went to the Restaurant 1 (which has lots of tables to sit at both inside and outside) to eat our food and play cards. We had a good time over there, but then at 10, they shut off the lights to the outdoor place where we were sitting, so we had to move closer the the TV screens (with light) where they were displaying graphs and such. We ate over there a while and then Phil Rubin came to talk to us for a while, since we had invited him earlier. Then, the TVs shut off so we went back to our dorm to play kemps. It is a card game where you are on a team of two, each trying to get 4 of a kind, where each team makes a secret sign to signify that they have 4 of a kind. Then, their partner sees the sign and says, "kemps." Your team then wins. If the other people catch on and see what your secret sign is, then you loose and they win, but it they miss, "stop kemps" you, then they lose. Anyway, it was fun, and Katelyn had a really good sign that no one got, so we won quite a few rounds. If that was a bad description, try this: http://www.pagat.com/commerce/kemps.html That is all that has happened in the past two days!
From 30 June:
Today was quite the day! We went on a 9.5 mile "hike" (walk about the country side) with Phil this morning. It was me, Tina, Alex S., and Zack. It was really fun and beautiful. We walked along the Switzerland side of the border and on small roads though tons of grape fields and also several vineyards and villages/towns. It was such beautiful scenery and a nice warm day to walk in also. I wore my AU eagles cutoff Tshirt, so I got some nice sunburn on my shoulders and upper arms along with my face... woops. It was really just so pretty. Some of the towns were pretty old too, one of them had a building that said 1814 on the side of it. In each city here, they have a water fountain that say potable water. You can just fill up water bottles or drink out of it with your hands or whatever. It was such good cold water too. The spickets run constantly into tubs, that horses could drink out of, so it is quite a good idea! We saw some horses on our walk and also a large rabbit, I thought it was a hare similar to the ones in MT, and we also saw lots of vultures and hawks. We thought something must have been dead somewhere. On our walk through the winter wheat fields, we were talking about that and other crops. It is interesting that I take it so much for granted having grown up with crops and gardens and animals and woodshops. Everyone else didn't here, so I feel so knowledgeable. Tina had worked on a farm for one summer, where they had animals for people to visit and they would show them how to milk a cow and such, but she still asked for clarification about some things. It was nice to feel ahead of some of the kids at something.
Anyway, Tina expressed some interest in going snowboarding while in Switzerland, so we were thinking that we could go over to Zermatt for some saturday to do that. After getting back from the walk, I ate some food since I was starving, but then I looked up information on the ski prices and ticket prices and how to get there and such and then went to talk to Tina about it. It would have ended up being 250 CHF at the cheapest, so I don't think we'll actually do it, but while looking around for rental cars and such, we found a car that is super cheap and you can rent if for a week. We think we will all pitch in and get that some weekend and drive it to the other side of Lake Geneva and also over to the Alps to go hiking and such. It is only 222 CHF per week as opposed to the 140CHF per day ones that are from normal companies. They are super crappy cars, and have advertising on the sides, but people from our group agree that it would be worth it. Here is the site: http://twingo-rent.ch/ .
After that and some more chilling in my room, Alex S and Zack and I went to look for the way to get to the Jura mountains. On our hike in the morning, Rubin told us the way to get to the town where we would then go to the mountains, but we wanted to find an actual trailhead or something. We biked for about 40 minutes West into France and then came to the trail head. It is kinda biking up the mountain, so they were getting tired of it, but I kept pushing them, so they reluctantly went while jokingly calling me a slave driver and comparing our journey to the trail of tears of CERN. We made a deal that at the next awesome view of the Alps across the valley where CERN and Geneva are, we would turn around. Luckily for all of us, it was wooded for quite a ways. Eventually we found the trail head and started a short quarter mile hike or so up the relatively steep mountains. We went through a fence that had a weird gate thing that I thought was for cows and then, sure enough, as we got to a meadow, with a great view, we saw a herd of cows. The Alps look so amazing! I didn't bring my camera this trip, but we will definitely be back, so I'll capture it some day! It is kinda like Montana's scenery except everything is greener and the Alps are even steeper and more snow covered than the Rockies! (as you may have guessed...)
After the breathtaking views, we eventually made our way back down the hill, took a right at the first T, then a left at the large traffic circle, and finally another right at the last T where we stopped for some dinner. In France, they don't take Swiss Francs so we thought, so we were trying to find a restaurant that accepted credit cards. We ended up stopping at this Turkish Kabob place and it was so much more reasonable than the 21 CHF pizza that we had one night. We each got kabobs for 7 CHF even after they rounded up the euro exchange rate, and we ate them outside. They were so good! They had the lamb cooked like they do for kabobs on that big upright spinner with flames that cooks it, and spicy sauce and lettuce all inside a nice toasted wrap... It was so good and relatively reasonably priced for having so much good meat in it. It really hit the spot after walking and biking about 10 miles of each during the day. I will hopefully add some pictures tonight!
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