Where it all begins...

WARNING: Physics nerd coming through. If you have any aversion to extreme nerdiness, I advise you to navigate away from this page now.

This week has been dubbed "CMS Week" at CERN, which means that it's all things CMS, with a delicious BBQ thrown in. (By the way, CMS, or Compact Muon Solenoid, is one of four major experiments located along the ring of the LHC) My collaboration, ATLAS, had their week a couple weeks ago, "ALICE Week" was last week, you get the idea. But since I'm not a part of CMS, I couldn't get a ticket to the BBQ myself, and so someone else in CMS had to purchase my ticket for me.

There were two shuttle buses, one at 6:15 and one at 6:30, that took you 5.5 miles across the ring of the LHC (literally the extreme other side of it), so you can imagine it was even farther since there is no road that cuts directly across the LHC. After a 40 minute ride and a few wrong turns, we noticed some CERN-looking buildings. When we arrived, there was someone speaking at a microphone, but it was nearly impossible to understand him because we were inside the equivalent of a gigantic warehouse with noise all around. So we moved on, got in a couple collaboration photos, and went to the site of the main attraction.

I'm not sure how much you know about the detectors of the LHC, but here are some numbers for you. The ATLAS detector is 45m (148 ft) long by 25m (92 ft) high and weighs as much as the Eiffel Tower (7,000 tons). It is a behemoth of a machine. The CMS detector is more compact (hence the "C" in CMS...) at 21m (70 ft) long and is cylindrical with a 15m (50 ft) diameter. It weighs 12,500 tons. To a physics nerd, it would be incredible to be able to see such amazing products of humankind. They are the most advanced machines man has ever made (ok, I may be slightly biased here...this is where the nerdiness comes in). We can't usually go down the 300 feet of elevator shaft and through a maze of tunnels to the detectors because when the LHC is powered up and running, the amount of radiation coming from the beam would be enough to kill you in a very short period of time. But if the LHC is off and it's been a few days or so, the radiation levels have died down enough for humans to safely be near the detector.

Have you guessed what the main attraction was yet? I'll just tell you. I GOT TO SEE THE CMS DETECTOR!! Nerd alert, nerd alert, nerd alert. But really, I got to go down those 300 feet and through that maze of tunnels, hard hat and all, and see one of the most amazing machines of the decade. I can't describe how awesome it was. To see where it all begins, with two hydrogen atoms (essentially) colliding in fantastic fashion...it was beyond words. Well worth the 20 francs I paid for that ticket, and I'm not even counting the food. I would have paid 50 (NERD - how many of you would have paid anything to see a big mass of electronics?). Life = complete. Done. I'm not sure if I will ever get to see anything like that again.

Breathe in...breathe out...nerd rant complete.

                                      

"The hills are aliiiive, with the sound of muuuusiiiic"

Unfortunately, I was not actually serenaded by Julie Andrews this weekend....although that would have been a sight to behold, wouldn't it?

If you haven't guessed yet, my latest excursion was to the site of one of the scenes in the famous musical, The Sound of Music (what a fantastic musical...). We didn't only get to see the Matterhorn (although that was definitely the main attraction), we saw the beautiful village of Zermatt, waterfalls coming from melted snow streams, and the glaciers from the summit of Gornergrat. Let me start from the beginning:

On Friday, I ended up taking a half day off work with a couple others to explore downtown Geneva while all the shops were still open. I was hoping to find some cool souvenirs for friends and family back home, but didn't exactly feel like spending 1000 francs on a Swiss watch for each person...sorry everyone. So we mostly just wandered, taking in the sights and eating raspberry sorbet on the edge of the lake, watching the Jet d'Eau turn to mist in the wind. At around 5:20, we met the rest of our fellow travelers at the train station to begin our four hour trek to Zermatt, Switzerland. The ride was the most beautiful ride of my life. On my right was Lake Geneva with Mt. Blanc towering over the rest of the mountains (an impressive feat considering it is about 100 miles away), and on my left were endless vineyards covering the mountainsides. The view continued this way for the entire 40 mile length of Lake Geneva, broken by the occasional castle sticking out into the lake or sitting atop a hillside, and then the vineyards continued for at least another 40 miles past the lake. It was surreal. I found myself wondering just how many bottles of wine these vineyards produced, and then I realized I was seeing only a fraction of a fraction of all the vineyards in Europe. Mind officially blown.

We arrived in Zermatt around 9:30 pm, and it was about the point that everyone turned to each other asking where our hostel was that we all realized no one knew where it was. Smart, right? Yeah, I thought physicists were supposed to be smart too...but luckily someone had the phone number, so we called and they gave us directions. Along the way was our first sighting of the impressive Matterhorn. Actually, impressive just doesn't cover it. There are no words to describe this beast. I had seen pictures of it and I had seen "The Sound of Music," but nothing prepared me for the real deal. I can't even begin to imagine how a mountain could be carved in such a fantastic shape.

The first sighting

Yes, I realize that this is just another picture of the Matterhorn, and pictures can't capture the true beauty of it, but I can try to describe it. Actually, I'm pretty sure that at least a third of the pictures I took on this trip contained the Matterhorn just because of its sheer beauty.

The hostel had been nice enough to hold dinner for us (especially since the cost of breakfast and dinner was included in the cost of the hostel), and we scarfed it down like there was no tomorrow. Literally. There was not a scrap of food left on that table. We all retired early in anticipation of an early start and a busy day on Saturday.

Saturday began at precisely 6:45am, when pretty much everyone's alarms went off within 30 seconds of each other. What a wake up call. We groggily rolled out of bed and went to breakfast, slowly waking up with each bite. At least, that's how I felt. I'm not actually sure about the others. We set out around 8:30 and spent half an hour trying to find the trail head. We eventually found it, and almost immediately we split into groups of the more and less experienced hikers. The more experienced hikers just went on ahead, and said maybe they'd meet us at the Swarzee lake on the map, but probably they'd just continue on to the Hornlihutte. The rest of us were undecided on whether we would hike that whole trail. Hornilhutte also happens to be base camp for those intending to climb the entirety of the Matterhorn, a feat I'm not sure I could ever pull off.

There is not too much to say about the hike up the mountain, except that the views are unmatched by any that I've ever seen. There were bare, rocky mountains with a very low tree line, and there were mountains with villages that looked like they could have been in the clouds. The most beautiful, however, were the mountains that stuck out higher than all the others, covered in a perpetual snowy blanket. That is, until we crested one of the many "hills" we had to climb and there was the Matterhorn in all its glory:

Partially covered in clouds, I was not sure I had seen a more beautiful sight. The hike in the Jura paled in comparison. Our group spent a full ten minutes just taking pictures of the beast, taking turns posing in front of it. The views only got better as we ascended higher.

You know when you Google search the Matterhorn and you see some pictures of it towering over a beautiful lake with a clear blue sky? Well, for how well known the Swarzee lake is, we figured for sure that had to be the lake in the pictures. We finally arrived at the Swarzee hotel and restaurant, where there was a small pond and a deep valley. Definitely no large, beautiful lake. We actually had to ask some random guy we passed on the trail where the Swarzee Lake was. At which point he pointed to that tiny pond. Swarzee Lake? The beautiful lake of the pictures? Wrong. So we continued on after a brief stop for lunch. A short time later, we came across one of the members of the "more experienced" group just chillin' in the shade of a hut once used for the cable car lines. He told us to go up ahead to the trail to the Hornilhutte - apparently it was a must-see. Let me tell you, it definitely was a must-see but definitely NOT a must-do. I thought that the scary-looking metal staircase we encountered was bad, but it was nothing compared to what came after. An even scarier looking metal grating walkway continued on a ways away, turning to half a metal grating walkway after a short time because every other grate was missing. That's right, you could step over open air, look down and see only the mountain far beneath your feet. Terrifying.

Oh but it got worse. I wasn't brave enough to go, but a short distance up ahead, the walkway continued like this without a railing. Now there's open air to the left AND beneath you. That's about the point we all decided to turn back and give props to the two members of our group who were able to continue on. We continued our hike along the "Glacier Trail," which was a rocky mountainside marked only by stripes of paint on the rocks. We were always searching for the next marker of the trail. It wasn't long before we had to begin crossing snow. Luckily, someone had been there before us so we stepped in the fresh footprints. There was only one mishap, with one of our members attempting to walk on the unbroken snow and sinking in to his thigh. I guess that's why you never travel alone, because two of our members had to dig him out. But all was good and we continued on. We began to see the light at the end of the tunnel about about two hours, when we noticed cable car lines running up the mountain. The goal was in sight! However, the light was swiftly turned off when we encountered an impassable frozen lake surrounded by snow that disappeared over the edge of the mountain. We might have tried to cross the narrower parts had our trusted footprints continued and had we not heard the swift river of water running under the melting snow. Reluctantly, we decided to retrace over two hours of hiking and meet the cable cars at the Swarzee stop.

But there was another surprise in store for us. When we finally arrived at Swarzee, the cable cars had stopped running for the day. At this point, I swear we were the only ones left on the mountain. It was an eerily peaceful quiet. We (even more reluctantly) began the two hike back to Zermatt, stopping once for water and a break. We returned for dinner after 12 hours on the trails and crashed hard for the night.

On Sunday, we walked around the village of Zermatt, eventually deciding to take the train up to the top of Gornergrat, 3100m high (10,168 feet). The view was similar to the views the day before, with much more snow and some real, not-melted glaciers. We spent two hours on the summit before heading down for lunch at a burger pub (yeah yeah yeah, American food in Switzerland, how lame...). We caught the 4:13 train back to Geneva after a long, fulfilling weekend.

As I sit at my desk...

So my supervisor has been in the control room for ATLAS for the last few days, meaning she has been very hard to get a hold of. It also means that work has been VERY slow for the last few days, hence why I've been slacking a little on the whole blogging front...my apologies.

The biggest thing that I've done this last week is install a whole new operating system on my laptop, which actually happened just this morning. For those who don't know, Windows is nearly impossible to do any kind of research with, which is why half of physicists own Mac computers and the other half do what is known as "dual-booting," i.e. install another operating system alongside Windows. The most popular choice for dual-booting is known as Ubuntu, a version of Linux. Linux is what all physics research I have ever done has used because it is very intuitive and easy to work with (unlike Windows). It is very very very hard to install the Mac operating system on a Windows computer (the people at Apple did that on purpose), but I believe there have been a couple people who have done it successfully. But again, Linux is the operating system of choice for many researchers.

Now to recap the week...on Monday, most of my REU group and I took a walking trip to St. Genis, about a half-hour walk, just to explore and check out a really cheap kabob place we had been told about. 5 Euros is REALLY cheap for a meal here, and I've found myself being a little stingy with my food expenses. I will usually pick the cheapest thing in the cafeteria and I bring my lunch every day instead of buying. But it is all to save up for my traveling expenses. Traveling around Europe is more expensive than I thought, and I thought it was expensive to begin with! But anyway, we found the kabob place, and it was very very good. I definitely want to go back there at some point.

Tuesday was the day we decided on our travel plans for this weekend (which starts today actually). You all will get to read all about my trip to Zermatt on Monday :) Wednesday was extremely slow for work. I think my supervisor was even busier in the control room than she was on Tuesday, so I really didn't have much to work on. I was relieved when 5:30 came around and I could leave to go for a run with a fellow intern. We took a 4 mile loop (well, we think it was 4 miles...) into France and St. Genis, and ran along the river that goes through town. It was a very pleasant and beautiful run. I am so used to having water everywhere, being from Michigan, and it was nice to be reminded that there are bodies of water here too.

Yesterday, I got to see my supervisor at Michigan State, who will be staying at CERN for the next month. It was nice to catch up with him. After work, a group of us went to the train station to get tickets for this weekend, only to find out that they were no longer taking people for the kind of pass they wanted. It's known as the Eurail pass, and is a great option for anyone looking to travel in Europe. I purchased one prior to coming here, but recently decided not to use it because I will be going more places that are farther away and don't make sense to take a train to. But if you are traveling primarily by train, it is an excellent option! We decided just to head back to CERN and try again the next day. We ate dinner with our usual group, which has now somehow expanded to at least 25 people. We take up six whole tables! Half of us are the U of M REU group, but half are Europeans or people from other countries that we've managed to meet and make friends with. It's turning out to be a pretty fun group!

Well, I have to go prepare for an amazing weekend. Keep checking back for a blog update after the weekend!

People Jumping off Cliffs

Well...I'm sorry to say that the vast majority of this post has nothing to do with people jumping off cliffs...but hold on to your socks because there is still that small minority!

Alright, I'm done with the cheesiness...for now...no guarantees that it won't ever come back. I took the tram into downtown Geneva today with a group of my new friends, planning to spend a few hours walking around and exploring the city a bit. Kevin and I were the only two who had never been downtown before (everyone else had arrived a day before us and gone downtown) and there is one sight everyone MUST see when they go to Geneva: Jet d'Eau. This is Geneva's most iconic landmark and is located in Lake Geneva. It shoots 132 gallons a second 460 feet into the air and is apparently visible from airplanes flying overhead. If that isn't a feat of human engineering, I don't know what is. Needless to say, it is extremely impressive:

After praising the jet for a while (aka taking tons of pictures), we continued walking along the water line for a while, but then veered off to go through a nice park that was in the middle of the city. I've noticed that Geneva has several grassy areas just for people to sit and relax and enjoy the weather, which is a cool effect in the midst of a city. The park we walked through was quite a bit bigger than these grassy areas, and I compared it most to Millennium Park in Chicago: a nice area where families can come and have picnics and the kids can play on the various jungle gym toys or kick a soccer ball around in the large open area in the middle. Or you could even take a stroll around or within the park on the beautiful paved sidewalks. It is probably a very nice way to get away from the hustle and bustle of city life without actually leaving the city. I think everywhere should have something like this.

We continued walking (our destination was the United Nations building of Switzerland), when we heard some dance music coming from somewhere to the side of us. Naturally we turned to see what it was, and to our surprise, there were boys from probably 10 to 25 taking turns breakdancing on the sidewalk. They had quite a crowd of onlookers, and some even had chairs set up to watch. And these guys were actually pretty good! We watched in awe for a few minutes, but then we started getting weird looks from members of the group, so we hurriedly moved on.

Before long, we saw dozens of fountains spewing water into the air and soaking children laughing and running through the fountains - we had reached the UN building. It was actually very cool. Immediately in front of us were rows and rows of these fountains, after which were rows and rows of national flags, separated by a road. Behind all of it was the UN building, an impressive and gigantic thing. Unfortunately we couldn't go inside (I'm not sure if we could even if it weren't a Sunday and it were open...). We spent some there, but before long, we had decided to head back to the water line. We took the bus because it had been quite a trek to get there in the first place.

When we arrived back at the lake, we decided to cross the river because apparently there was some huge cathedral that was a must-see. Well, we found it, and I can tell you that it is MOST DEFINITELY a must-see. You also MUST pay the 4 francs it takes to go to the top of the north and south towers because it will be way more than worth it:

St. Pierre Cathedral is (I think) the tallest place in Geneva, so you can see for miles in all directions. You can see everything: the sprawl of the city, the beautiful lake, the Jet d'Eau, the surrounding mountains, the people jumping off cliffs (<- Hey there's the small minority! Actually, they were parasailers, but "people jumping off cliffs" is much more interesting, don't you think?). It is a sight to behold and impossible to pass up. Everything about the cathedral was absolutely gorgeous: the exterior, the carvings inside, the organ sitting raised above the back of the cathedral, and especially the view from the top. I was sad to leave it.

We made one last pit stop for ice cream at a cute little restaurant with outdoor seating before making our way back to the tram station. But there was one more surprise for us (actually, two). One, we noticed power ballads playing from some speakers, and turned to see a guy performing ice skating moves on roller blades. The best part was that he had set up rows of plastic cups and was weaving in and out of them with intricate footsteps and rarely knocking any of them over. Naturally, we just stared for a couple minutes. Two, we happened to glance behind us, and within the spray from the Jet d'Eau was a beautiful rainbow:

What a way to end a fantastic trip to Geneva...I couldn't have asked for anything better.

Hiking in the Jura

How to I even begin to describe today?...Fantastic, wonderful, breathtaking, or amazing just don't even come close to the beauty I got to see today.


We met in the CERN restaurant at 7:10am to catch the 7:26 bus to Thoiry, France. Of course, that meant I got to wake up bright and early at 6am, which was funny because some of my friends back in the US hadn't even gone to sleep yet. Most of the group was from the U of M REU program, but there were a couple that weren't, and there was yet one more person we were meeting up with once we arrived in Thoiry. Anyway, we had to catch this bus because the next bus wouldn't come for another hour. (Side note: The bus system in Europe is very strange. No one collects your bus pass when you get on the bus - in fact, you can buy it on the bus if you want. So really, you can get a free bus ride if you choose simply not to pay for a pass. The catch is that buses are randomly stopped by the Swiss or French police and anyone caught without a pass is fined upwards of $300. Although apparently you never get stopped...I'm not sure if I trust that.)


We spent 15-20 minutes on the bus from CERN to Thoiry, where we met up with the final member of our party. It was another 1km trek through winding mountain roads to get to the trail head. We began to climb, and at first it wasn't too bad. We passed by quaint French homes, and to our left was a farm field. We passed a French vineyard with rows upon rows of grape plants:

Soon enough, however, there were no more buildings to pass and we were officially hiking the mountain. And I was starting to die a little bit. We were climbing at what I estimated to be a 45 degree incline, which is most definitely not a trivial climb. Oh, sure, I'd be able to handle a couple hundred yards or so of such a steep climb, but this climb just went on and on. I finally realized in the midst of my huffing and puffing and focusing on anything other than the burning in my legs that we were climbing straight up the mountain. No zig-zag patterns that are all too familiar in the US and make the climb longer but much less grueling. Straight up. Which meant that it likely was going to be straight up for most of our 3-4 hour trek up the mountain. Do your legs hurt just thinking about it?

There were a couple people in our group who were very experienced climbers, and they made what I was struggling so hard with look like a walk in the park. We eventually split into three groups: the very experienced and physically fit, the pretty physically fit, and the somewhat physically fit (me). I like to think of myself as being healthy and in decent shape, but this climb was something entirely different than just going for a four mile run. I was literally focusing on putting one foot in front of the other. We finally reached a road and an observing point, where the view was an incredible painting of the valley containing Geneva:

I couldn't believe how high up we were already! We were already almost half the altitude we intended to end up at. We continued our 45 degree climb, with our next stopping point at about 400m higher than our current altitude. But by that point, the burning in my legs had been replaced by the beginnings of that numbing sensation you get when your muscles are hyped up on adrenaline. I had also found myself a walking stick, which lightened the work for my legs tremendously. I did not have any sense of time while we were climbing so I can't tell you how long it took us to reach our next stopping point. I could tell that the trees were getting thinner and shorter and that the air was getting thinner. That's about when we encountered this:

Yes, that is exactly what you think it is. A cow, staring at us from the middle of the path, at least 1000m above sea level. Little did I know that would not be the last we saw of the elusive mountain cow...


We stopped for a short while to have a snack and drink some water, but then we continued our climb. I'll fast forward to the more interesting parts...We finally got above the treeline and to a crossroads, and what did we see? Why, exactly what you would expect on top of a mountain! Herds of cows! Wait what?...I don't understand these Europeans. Anyway, this is the point we decided to summit three peaks today instead of two. There was another path that detoured but looped around again to where we wanted to go. It was only 10am (!!) by that point, so we decided to go for it. Turns out that added summit was a very difficult thing to get to. Well, I guess not really, until the very end, when I swear we were climbing a 60 degree hill. How obnoxious. I was grabbing on to a cable that conveniently ran up where we were going, which turned out to be an electric fence used for keeping the cows confined. Luckily I wasn't the one to get shocked though.


The view from the summit made that last torturous stretch more than worth it. On one side was the valley Geneva is in, and on the other side was a beautiful little valley. We decided this would be a perfect place for lunch so we popped a squat and ate some grub while we took in the view. Too soon, we were on the move again, but quickly had to backtrack when a sheer cliff blocked our path. We found a trail that went around the backside of the peak, so we were able to continue towards our next destination, Le Reculet. We went up and down a few times and saw a very distinct peak coming up and thought for sure that had to be our final destination, Crêt de la Neige. We continued along the ridge and finally made it to the summit of that peak. We were quite proud of ourselves for climbing the tallest mountain in the Jura. We relaxed and ate some more food, and I was enjoying the view before our descent when one of our party said, "Uh, hey guys...this isn't Crêt de la Neige...this is Le Reculet..." We weren't done hiking yet. Of course we had to go to the highest peak - that was the whole point of the trip. It was not a big deal, but we were laughing that we didn't realize we were on the complete wrong peak. On the plus side, the view was incredible!

And look, we even found CERN from the top!

We continued along the ridge for about 15 more minutes when the landscape began to change. Where Le Reculet had been all grass and low vegetation (and definitely no trees or boulders), Crêt de la Neige was covered in trees and rocky trails. There were even some trails of rocks that looked almost like rivers. And it was a very sudden change. I felt like we were in a different mountain range than Le Reculet. There was even a canyon! We continued on...then all of a sudden the summit was there. It was not nearly as impressive as Le Reculet, but apparently it's taller. We were officially 1720m above sea level (1270m above the surrounding valleys)! We hung out there for a little while, took some group pictures, left our marks (mine was throwing an extremely bruised banana into the trees). Then we started our descent.


I honestly don't know which was worse: the ascent or the descent. I would probably have to say the descent because at least the pain goes away after a while when you are ascending. Your legs just don't feel it anymore. But on the descent, after about 300m vertical altitude my knees started to hurt. And it only got worse and didn't go away for the entire remaining 1000m vertical altitude descent. Again, the Europeans must really hate zigzagging because everything was just straight down the mountain. (As I am writing this post, I am sitting with my legs stretched out in front of me, carefully not bending them too much because bending them is extremely painful...) As expected, it was much faster going down than going up, and we all did a cheer when we finally reached the trail head and were able to walk on solid, comparatively flat terrain. We caught the bus back to CERN, and arrived 20 minutes later.


But the activities weren't over yet. CERN has a music club and today was an expo at which all the CERN bands performed their music. One of the coordinators for my REU program is in a blues band that was performing, and we arrived back just in time to watch his band. These physicists are actually surprisingly talented! I scarfed down my dinner like it was the last meal of my life and then called it a day, heading up to my room for the rest of the night.


All in all, this was a fantastic day. I am so blessed for the opportunity to be able to do any of this, and I would do that hike again in a heartbeat. If you are ever near the Jura mountains, don't pass them by without climbing at least one of them. The view will take your breath away!

Work and Play

Hello my dear readers! Apologies for the delay in this post, I've been learning all sorts of things here at CERN and trying to get my bearings. I've been to five hours of meetings already, which took place over two days, so I've been taking in all kinds of information and my brain is a bit fried at the moment...not to mention something was wrong with the cache in my web browser so I couldn't even log in and post if I wanted. Luckily, I've figured that out!

Now, how to summarize the last few days...I met my supervisors, Irene and Ana, on Monday and they both seem very helpful. I will be working on corrupted data from the Tile Calorimeter, which is one component of the ATLAS detector - I will be trying to figure out how to fix some of the things going wrong with the reconstruction of the proton-proton collsions (also called events), or at least try to make some headway in fixing them. It is very different from the work I did last summer at Fermilab (which was analysis in the search for the Higgs boson, aka the "God Particle") - it is much more technical I think. It is very important to the analyses taking place within ATLAS, but I will not personally be doing any analysis. I think it will be just as interesting as my work last summer though!

The first 2.5 hour meeting took place on Monday afternoon, and as I was suffering from some serious jetlag, I was struggling to stay awake. The subject matter was interesting, but since I didn't really understand any of it yet, it was even harder to stay awake. Luckily, Irene took me aside afterwards to explain some things that were discussed. There was just enough time for me to stop back at my room before I had to meet the U of M  REU group for dinner. We were all treated to a wonderful dinner at a pizzeria in/near downtown Geneva. I had a glass of wine with my tomato/mozzarella/basil thin-crust pizza, with tiramisu for dessert. Needless to say, I probably should have joined the group that walked back to CERN instead of taking the tram...

I must say, I love how the Europeans think about work. It is normal to go in to work around 10am or so, and leave around 5:30 or 6pm. They don't care what hours you work, as long as you get your work done. For a night-owl like me, this is perfect! So on Tuesday morning I rolled out of bed around 9am, getting to work around 10am (by the way, work is less than a football field away from my room...). I finally got my office and let me tell you, it is fantastic. I am in a different building then the aforementioned "work," so from hereon out, "work" is now my office in the new building, which is on the opposite side of the hostel from the old "work." I am in an office with three or four Michigan State graduate students. That's right, even though I am halfway across the world, I still get to work somewhere decked out in all kinds of MSU stuff. Needless to say, I am excited about it! Not to mention the view is incredible:

Around 6:30 that evening, I met up with most of the other interns, and we took a leisurely walk into France for some groceries. Switzerland is pretty expensive, whether you're buying a meal at a restaurant or groceries at the store, but France is considerably cheaper. They also use Euros there, so all those Swiss Francs I had were no good, meaning extra charges to my debit card for conversions. The supermarket we went to is called Carrefour and has pretty much anything you would want. Including Nutella. So I bought some. Why is that stuff so good? 

Wednesday was relatively uneventful, aside for the fact that I finally got a phone. And get this: it is cheaper to call the US from Switzerland than it is to call anywhere else in Europe. It's cheaper than calling the US from the US for that matter. How crazy is that? I guess they have cooler settings for prepaid phones than I thought. 

Well I guess I will wrap it up here for now. I always have more to say, but that will have to wait for another post. Until next time, my friends!

Welcome to Europe!

I have safely arrived in Geneva, and let me tell you, it's been a wild past two days (technically...my body's still in Michigan time but it's almost time for me to go to bed here). My first overseas flight went without any hiccups, which was a nice change of pace from my usual travel stories. For those of you who don't know, I seem to have very bad luck when traveling; just ask and I'll tell you. Although...security at Detroit Metro Airport did have to inspect my hair to make sure I wasn't hiding anything in it. Oh how I love thick hair. The most bizarre feeling of the whole trip was probably the fact that it was dark on the plane for about four hours and then I had to get ready for a new day. When I should have been sleeping. Yikes. But surprisingly, the eight hour flight didn't seem so bad - in fact it flew by (haha, get it? It FLEW by because I was FLYING? Oh, nevermind...).

The first thing I noticed as we were driving to CERN was how much smaller everything is here: small cars, small roads, small traffic circles, and even small curbs. Yes, even the roadside curbs are tiny. The mountains aren't tiny though; in fact, they are quite large. I wish I would have arrived here yesterday because some of the interns who arrived before I did took a hiking trip this morning to the base of some mountains around Geneva, which I would have loved to do. Everything on site is so tightly packed together. It is much different from Fermilab, where there are open fields everywhere you look. At CERN, everything is right next to everything else. I can walk to the cafeteria in less than five minutes from my room.

Anyway, once we arrived on site, we found out that we couldn't check into our rooms until 2pm (and it was currently about 9am), so we went exploring. Well, it was more of a guided tour-type-thing, but I can pretend, right? I saw the building I will be working in, and we also toured the library. I have never seen so many physics books in one place before. Shelf after shelf of anything remotely physics-related that you would ever want to read about. I'll definitely have to go back there sometime soon. After our walking tour, we went to France (!!!!) to check out the supermarket there, which is apparently much cheaper than the ones in downtown Geneva. I can't believe how close everything is here - I was in France in five minutes of driving!

We took a more extensive walking tour later in the day, but that was really the extent of the day's activities. The other interns are pretty cool and I think we'll all get along pretty well. I'm looking forward to taking trips to see more of this beautiful continent! Well, I am exhausted, so until next time! Au revoir! (Look at me, speaking French and everything! Oh who am I kidding?...)

Waiting, waiting, waiting...

So it is less than 24 hours before I embark on the greatest adventure of my life thus far, and I am getting more excited by the minute. I'm a little nervous about the flight across the great Atlantic Ocean (particularly because it will be happening at night when there is nothing to see but black...) but hopefully I'll be able to catch some z's on the way over. Half of everything I own is packed into less than 80 measly pounds of luggage, and it amazes me that I'll be able to live for nine weeks out of essentially two suitcases...wouldn't it be wonderful if everything was so compact and simple?

The hardest thing this last week has been saying my goodbyes to my friends, family members, and boyfriend, but I have to remember that it's just a see you later. I mean, really, it's only nine weeks - it'll FLY by! I'm starting to get really excited about all of the things I will see over the course of the next two months, including the Swiss Alps and the Matterhorn, Paris, Italy, the beaches of Spain, Germany...I am equally excited about meeting all of my fellow interns in the U of M REU program and those from other countries. I hate being an ignorant American who doesn't really know all that much about other cultures (mostly due to the fact that my exposure to any country besides the US has been Canada). I am looking forward to meeting all the people I can and learning about where they are from.

There's nothing I can to now except bide my time and wait. I must say, I am relieved in a way to be leaving tomorrow because I have been sitting on my butt for the better part of five weeks (besides for a wonderful trip to Disney World for one of those weeks). I'm not sure how much more laziness I could handle.

It's hard to believe that the next time I write, it will be from my room in the hostel at CERN...so until then, my friends.

The Beginning...Sort of

Alright, so here begins my first blog post ever...I'm off to CERN, the world's largest physics laboratory! Of course, not for six days still but until then I will just be twiddling my thumbs waiting to land in beautiful Geneva, Switzerland. I will be staying in a hostel on site, which is especially nice because it's right next to everything I will need. I could not be more excited for this incredible opportunity - I've never been to Europe before! I will do my best to update this blog a couple times a week with all my adventures and such. I'm sure I will post again on my travel date and when I finally get settled in Geneva. I guess I better start learning some French...