Final days at CERN

This will most likely be my last or second to last post on this web address.

My last week was pretty good. I didn't to a lot of actual research this week, partially because my working team left and because I was just too excited to go home. I know it is a little out of character, since I essentially gave up several days early, but I didn't waste too much time. I was also working on my paper this past week and studying for the GRE. Aside from the studying and report writing, I also have endulged in a lot of ice cream eating.

Recently, I discovered that I am addicted to ice cream! It was fairly subtle at first, since I would just have a chocolate caramel magnum ice cream bar once every other day or so, but then, I started to eat about one per day and sometimes even 2! On the days when I felt particularly bad about myself for eating so much ice cream, I would have a berry ice cream bar instead of the rich chocolate and caramel one. This weekend, I discovered Movenpick, a swiss ice cream place. They are expensive, but I kept justifying it by saying that I would only be in Switzerland for a week more. I had the triple scoop 3 times in the last 5 days! It is so delicious though. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%B6venpick_Ice_Cream The best kinds are Creme Brulee, Swiss Chocolate, which has fine delicious chocolate shavings in the rich chocolate ice cream, Cappuccino, and Rum Raisin. Amaretto Almond and Espresso were probably better than any ben and Jerry's I've had, but were definitely not as good as the other flavors. One day, after eating some ice cream, I had a fondue dinner with the rest of the GMU clan and ate some gellato after dinner!

Needless to say, I will have to go through withdrawals when I come back to Montana. I am also proud to announce that I have been clean from ice cream for 26 hours!

Ok, now I will go back to my everyday life. This past weekend, was the big Fete de Geneve festival, and they have a super awesome firework display. The area down by the lake has been filled with carnival type booths and food booths for several weeks, but this weekend was the main weekend! Zack and Alex S and I went down to a flea market on Saturday afternoon to look around. There were quite a few books and other things you would find in a flea market, but nothing I needed aside from a super sweet dessert fork that has an extra thick side tine that is sharp on the edge for cutting things. That is usually how I eat my food anyway, so I thought it would be perfect to have a fork that was made specifically for it. It is like a spork, except more useful (for me)!

After the flea market, Zack and I went to hang out in the shade and read/talk for a while, while waiting for the fireworks at 10. We ended up going to the fireworks at about 7 and found a nice spot on the bridge to watch from. (the fireworks are shot from the middle of lake Geneva) The firework launch pads were set up in a "V" shape and we got a seat that was pointed to by the V. There was also a huge speaker system in the middle of the lake to play music while the fireworks were going.

We sat there and eventually the bridge got quite packed. Zacks friend met us there about an hour before they started and we talked about planes and stuff. I learned of the super huge plane that has a 97.5 meter wing spand.

Then, at 10, the fireworks finally started. The first part of the show was dedicated to Portuguese music and had different music genres with different fireworks assiciated with each. A Portuguese pyrotechnic created this part of the show. The second half had the theme of conquerers or something like that, and it had a really awesome sound track intermixed with some vocal audio describing some wars or conflicts that they were portraying. Basically, the fireworks were really awesome especially since they had them shooting from lots of different places. The music also made it so much better. It was by far the best fireworks I have seen, though I haven't seen more than the ones in Butte in recent memory.

Taken from an email:

"After my editing one afternoon, I headed to the beach so get a little sun, since I haven't been outside much in the last 3 days. I had a nice walk down there and then decided that since this is my last time in Switzerland for quite a while, I might as well spend a little more than I usually would to have a little better time. So.... I wandered all around the "Georgetown" of Geneva where all the Louis Vitton and Rolex and all those super expensive stores are. The purpose of my wandering was to simply find an ATM, but it took me probably 40 minutes, or it seemed like that long anyway. I finally found a bank and then I headed to the Movenpick that we went to the last time. This time I got rum raisin and swiss chocolate and creme brulee! The first two I knew were good, but creme brulee was also really good! I wandered around eatime my ice cream and then went to a tram stop that was near the Ice cream place. There were some young street performers there riding unicycles while picking up the girl and balancing and flips and stuff. It was pretty cool. It looked like it took a lot of practice, but they still weren't perfect. I gave them a little money for all their effort though.

While I was sitting on the bench, some Mormon missionary girls talked to me. One was from Germany and one from France. I felt bad for them trying to mission to the secular masses of Switzerland, so I agreed to meet them tomorrow to talk more. I also want to ask what it is like for them here in Europe. I am desperate to find things to do to use up the time while I am waiting to come home."

Then, the following day:

"Today, I went into town to talk to those Mormon girls I met yesterday. They were interesting to talk to. It seems to me that they don't do much questioning about religion. They seemed rather matter of fact about everything. They also seem to emphasize that theirs is the one true church. One girl was 24 and from Germany. She was at Provo for 2 months before she did her mission. The other one is a French girl and she went to Spain for her training. She learned the French one, since they are stationed here, so she didn't know how to say some of the religious things they say in their talks in English, but they tried their best. Before the meeting during the day, I read up a lot about our church's history and when we split and some of the differences so I would be prepared to talk to them. I knew more about the initial history of their church than they did it seemed. Anyway, that was an interesting way to spend an hour. After the meeting is when I got the ice cream!"

From above, it may have sounded like they were hard to talk to, but it was actually quite interesting and fun. Just when it came to hearing what they had to say, they were quite convinced that they were right.

OK, I'm sorry this post was quite out of order, but it will have to do. Tomorrow I am leaving Switzerland at 11:45am. I get home finally at 9:24 pm after having lost 8 hours during my travel. My plan is to get a lot of sleep tonight so I can be awake and intelligible when I meet Amy at the airport. I'm so excited. Anyway, I'm going to play cards for a little while before hitting the hay.

I will try to add pictures from the fireworks and my last bit of time here sometime, but I thought I would get the words finished, since I'm not sure how much time I will have in the coming weeks.

Thank you to those who have read my blog. I hope it has kept you sufficiently entertained/informed.