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?...)