La Citta Eterna

Where to start....I've been sitting here for at least a couple minutes just trying to think of how to start the story of this weekend, a four-day adventure in Rome. And I'm coming up blank. There's just no good place to start, so I guess I'll just start at the beginning.

I'm sure many of you know that it has been a life-long dream of mine to travel to Italy - not necessarily Rome even, although that was very high on the list of places I had to go once I finally made it to Italy. So when a couple of my fellow interns suggested an excursion to Rome about a month ago, I immediately jumped at the opportunity. I had purchased a train ticket that was good for ten rides pretty much anywhere in Europe, and I was planning to use that to go somewhere in northern Italy, the only part of Italy to which it was reasonable to take a train. It is not practical to take a train to Rome, so this was the point I decided not to use this ticket and to return it for a refund once I returned to the States. (You can only return the ticket if it has not been used at all)

Ok, enough background. Now to the good stuff! Thursday night I was somewhat busy (with what, I don't really remember since my short-term memory isn't the best), so that resulted in me finally finishing my packing and getting into bed somewhere around 12:30am. Three hours of sleep is enough, right? My alarm went off not-so-bright and early at 3:20am sharp, but I was surprisingly awake. We had had to make a taxi reservation the night before for 4am since our flight was at 6:20 and there were no trams or buses that ran early enough to get us to the airport in time. We arrived at the airport around 4:15am, headed to security...and it wasn't open. What?! We were at the airport so early that security wasn't open?? So we had to wait 15 minutes while they finished cleaning the floors, and I found myself thinking what a miserable job that would be. We waited in the airport until our flight, and then we were off to Rome!

I was a little apprehensive about Friday's activities (not a lot, just a little), because I knew everyone would be dead tired from the early flight and traveling, and Friday was a VERY full day. We arrived at Rome's airport around 7:30 and went to find the train that would take us into the city. We ended up asking the tourist counter, and they told us that there was a shuttle bus that could take us directly to our hostel for slightly cheaper. Eh, why not? We'd get to see more of Rome since we'd actually be driving through the streets, and we'd each save 2 euros. Good deal, right? Well, sort of. It ended up taking longer than the train would have (even including the walking we would have had to do), and this driver was crazy. I think his hands were off the wheel more than they were on it, and Italian drivers are even more aggressive than French and Swiss ones are. So I just closed my eyes and tried to nap a little. The most exciting part of the ride was when we finally got into Rome and were driving right next to the Vatican wall and the enormous line of people waiting to get in the museums. I was immediately glad that we had bought tickets in advance and would be able to skip that line the next day. It was so surreal though! I found myself in disbelief the whole day that I was actually in Rome. It had to be a dream!

We arrived at our hostel, checked in, and immediately went on our way to the Colosseum area to get started on tackling our eventful day. To give you an idea of where we were in Rome, the hostel was about a ten minute walk south of the main train station, and a 15-20 minute walk northwest of the Colosseum. Along the way, we stopped at a small shop for breakfast and water, and ate while we were walking. I think that was one of the most delicious chocolate chip scones I have ever had, and only partly because I was starving. We reached a huge intersection, looked left...and there it was. The Colosseum. Possibly one of the most iconic and impressive structures man had ever built, and it was right down the street. Unbelievable. Fortunately (or unfortunately?) Rome is full of tourists, so we didn't look out of place at all as we immediately pulled out cameras and began snapping pictures. However, that wasn't our first stop for the day.

Me and the Colosseum!

The Colosseum, Palatine Hill, and the Roman Forum are all within a two-minute walk from each other and make up the majority of the "ancient" part of Rome. Conveniently, they sell a combined ticket for all three, and you can get this ticket any any of the three venues. We knew the line at the Colosseum would be the longest by far, so we decided to hit the Roman Forum first and skip the line at the Colosseum later. At the last minute, we also signed up for an English guided tour that was happening in less than 10 minutes for only 5 euros more (the next English tour wasn't until 4:30). It couldn't have been more perfect! I was happy because I didn't know much of the history of the Roman Forum and it all would have simply been piles of rubble to me. Really cool piles of rubble, yes, but I got MUCH more out of the experience by signing up for that tour. Our guide was very knowledgable and told us all about how we were standing in the center of ancient Rome, and that those stumps of pillars to our left had once belonged to an ancient basilica or how only stumps remained because later civilzations had dismantled these enormous buildings and used the stone to build their own structures.

Remnants of pillars of an ancient basilica

More ruins in the Roman Forum

I've never been much of a history nut, but when it comes to Rome I could not learn enough. We went through the entirety of the Forum (not a big place, but not exactly small either), with our hour-long tour ending nearly at the entrance to Palatine Hill and thus we decided to end our three venue tour with a bang by hitting the Colosseum last.

On top of Palatine Hill were more beautiful ruins of ancient Rome, along with some breathtaking views of the surrounding city. Since we no longer had our tour guide, it all was sort of just piles of rubble, but it was amazing to think that this stone had been there for thousands of years, and was still there! I very highly doubt that anything we build today will be around two thousand years from now, and that's what makes ancient Rome so impressive. We explored the Hill for about an hour, walking around inside the museum there, which had been built on top of some of the ruins. That's right, there were ancient walls running right through the museum! There were also tons of statues and reconstructed vases that were very cool to see.

However, we all decided that it was time to eat, and headed down the Hill to find the only planned restaurant of the trip, Pizza Forum. Almost every website I had been to had listed this pizzeria as a place we had to eat, so we did. To get there, though, we had to walk around the Colosseum and thus got to take some nice pictures of it and the Arch of Constantine, located directly between the Colosseum and Palatine Hill. We finally made it to the pizzeria and ordered our cheap, woodfire-oven-grilled pizzas. A whole pizza for each of us. (Is your mouth watering yet?) I was fully expecting a long wait for our food, because that's just how they do it in Italy. I had been to an authentic Italian restaurant in Florida once before and so I knew what to expect. I knew there would be at least half an hour for us to sit and chat before our food would come. However, even my patience began to run thin, but thankfully the food came out shortly. And let me tell you, it was delicious! I've never had such good mozzarella cheese. I have also never had such good espresso...I'm not sure how I will be able to go back to the States after this weekend. We spent longer than expected in the restaurant, but came out full and ready to take on the Colosseum.

This post is already long, and I've hardly said anything! Hmm...well anyway, we were able to walk past a long line of people into the Colosseum. We walked through the high-ceilinged hallway around the structure to a staircase that would take us to a balcony overlooking the inside of the Colosseum. I'm still wondering how in the world the Romans were able to build such an impressive building. Below me were the elaborate underground passageways that used to be underneath the arena. At one end, there was a platform covering part of these passageways (I think to show what the arena had looked like all that time ago) and we noticed people walking around on it, but now we think it was just a tour group that was able to go out there, because we weren't able to find the entrance. We walked around for quite a while, poking around the small gift shop and just taking it all in before heading out to Palazza Venezia and the Monument of Vittorio Emmanuele II, a monument to the first king of unified Italy.

The Colosseum from Palatine Hill

Me inside the Colosseum!

We originally planned only to pass through this palazza because we thought we would have to pay to get inside the monument, a huge white building visible from atop any other decently sized building in Rome (more on this later). But it turned out to be free, so of course we had to check it out. We followed the signs to a terrace that overlooked Rome, and in the distance we could see St. Peter's Basilica, not to mention dozens of other domed basilicas. We wandered around the terrace and found ourselves inside a beautiful basilica hall, with some of the most elaborate artwork I have ever seen. Gold tendrils snaked across the ceilings and walls, and every inch that wasn't covered by gold was painted over with various religious depictions. However, the glass chandeliers were what caught my eye the most. There were at least a hundred of them hanging throughout the basilica, and they were beautiful.

Outside the Monument of Vittorio Emanuele II

Inside the basilica

Our next stop was the famous Trevi Fountain, a ten minute or so walk away. The little square it was in was teeming with people, all sitting or standing around the fountain. Apparently one of the traditions when one goes to this fountain is to throw a coin backwards over the shoulder - it mean that you will return to Rome. So, of course, I threw in a coin! And all the coins people throw in are gathered up and used to fund a supermarket that supports the poor of Rome. After throwing our coins in the fountain, we were sucked into a tourist trap (sort of) for dinner. All the restaurants have their waiters outside, flagging people down and trying to make you eat there (well, with so many restaurants all in the same place, who can blame them?). One waiter was making a pretty good case, and it wasn't too expensive so we decided just to eat there. We were all starving anyway. However, our food came out and they weren't the biggest portions I'd ever seen. But everything was very good, and we left content. Another rumor we had heard was that the gelato by the Trevi Fountain was the best in the world, so of course we bought some! (We actually had gelato every day...I am not ashamed one bit). After that, it was on to see the outside of the Pantheon (it had closed by this point) before heading back to the Trevi Fountain to see it lit up.

Trevi Fountain!

Throwing a coin into the fountain

Trevi Fountain lit up at night

The Pantheon was very cool, and again I found myself wondering how it was still standing after all these years. Soon, though, we headed back to the Trevi Fountain for a few minutes, but then began our 40 minute walk back to our hostel to prepare for an early day on Saturday.

Whew, ok so that was Day 1. If you're still with me, I'm impressed. Three more days to go! I'll make them shorter, I promise - Day 1 was by far the most eventful and the day that we saw the most. Ok, Saturday morning we woke up around 7 and everyone was alotted about ten minutes in the bathroom since there were six of us and one of it. It kinda sounds like we were ganging up on it, which we kinda were...that poor bathroom...anyway, we went down for our complementary breakfast at 8 sharp, and were there exactly long enough to eat a croissant and drink a coffee but then we were out the door to get to the Vatican museums. Our tickets were for 10am and we did NOT want to be late! You must be there half an hour before your tickets say or your reservation is cancelled. We got there around 9 and were able to laugh at all the people who would be waiting in line for hours while we walked right past them. Ok, we didn't actually laugh, but I honestly don't understand why everyone doesn't get the tickets beforehand. Why would you wait for five hours when you could wait for five minutes?...Maybe there's some drawback I don't know about, but we got right into the museum. And the best part was we didn't even have to wait until ten to get our "real" tickets!

First glimpse of the Vatican walls

We decided to head straight to the Sistine Chapel at the beginning to beat the crowds that would surely come later in the day. We set a fast pace through the museum and made a mental note to go back through those rooms again since we were going too fast to see any of them. We finally reached the Chapel and I was absolutely in awe. I know what makes the Chapel so famous is that every inch is covered in artwork and that the majority of it was painted by Michelangelo, but to hear about it and see it are two totally different things. How could one person paint so much?! And that wasn't even close to the only thing he did. Honestly, the whole Chapel made me feel a little insignificant because it was so marvelous and beautiful and I couldn't hope to ever do anything like that. We stayed in that room for at least half an hour, while the guards shushed everyone periodically and yelled, "No photos!" But finally we had had our fill of the artwork and moved on to the next part of the museum.

The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel

 - creation of man

Judgment Day

I won't bore you by describing every piece of art and every room we went through, but we did spend six hours wandering through the museum. And we didn't even see all of it. I can't believe how big the place is! We stopped for lunch in the cafeteria at one point, where I had gnocchi with pesto, and we ended up back in the Sistine Chapel once more after we revisited the rooms we rushed through. However, the second time we went there made me very sad because the guards were either different or they had stopped caring - everyone was taking pictures with flash, and you could hardly hear yourself think. I was disgusted with how people were blantantly ruining the art (don't you know that flashes ruin paintings?! That's why they just say no photos, period!) and how much noise there was. Now it seemed like a tourist spot, not a sacred chapel. Needless to say, we were only in there long enough to reach the door.

The next stop was St. Peter's Basilica, the thing I was most looking forward to that day. There was a pretty long line for the security check, but it moved surprisingly fast and before long we were walking into the basilica. There are no words that can come close to describing the emotions I felt as I walked in. There are simply no words. It was the biggest, most sacred building I had ever been in, and the artwork cannot be compared to anything else. It was simply amazing, beautiful, incredible...we spent a long while walking around, trying to take everything in but knowing there was no way we would be able to. At the back of the church was the altar area, and in front of that was perhaps the most incredible thing about the basilica. There was a four-posted canopy-looking structure (I'm not sure of the official name for it) standing over a white coffin with crosses on it - the symbol marking the spot directly above what is said to be St. Peter's tomb. Ok, I'm not Catholic, but St. Peter holds meaning for every Christian out there and it was incredible to see this.

Swiss Guard! They're so cool!

In St. Peter's Square

Over the tomb of St. Peter

We had already decided to pay the 5 euros it took to climb to the top of the dome, so once we had had our fill of the inside, we began the long hike up the numerous spiral staircases the got progressively tighter and skinnier as we ascended. At one point we had to go outside to get to the next staircase, and then we were officially inside the dome, conveniently right as Saturday Mass was starting. Soemtime between the time we had left and the time we came out on the inside of the dome, they had cleared all of the tourists out of the basilica (at least as far as I could tell) and the chorus had started singing as the priest walked to the altar. It was quite beautiful. Naturally, we stayed and watched that for a bit, but then it was time to continue to the claustrophobic part of the climb. I'm not claustrophobic myself, but I could definitely see how someone with that phobia would have some serious issues with the last part of the climb. The ceiling began to slant and we hit some really narrow halls and staircases, but finally we came out on the top of the dome. The view was absolutely incredible! St. Peter's Basilica is arguably the tallest structure in all of Rome so we could see EVERYTHING. Even the Monument of Vittorio Emmanule II!! Enjoy the following pictures - it's the only way I can of think of to describe the view.

Looking down on Saturday Mass

View from the top of the dome

St. Peter's Square

Another view from the top of the dome

Whew, almost done with Day 2, I promise. The last thing we did today (besides eat pizza at a delicious restaurant across the river) was walk around the area around Castel Sant'Angelo, a circular shaped castle just down the road from Vatican City. We walked around this structure and walked down by the river, stopping at one place to relax for an hour or so. At one point (I believe it was actually just after we had eaten dinner) we ended up in Piazza Navona without meaning to. It turned out to be a pretty cool experience! A bunch of artists had set up their work around the piazza, and there were some street performers putting on an awesome show. I am still mad at myself for not buying a picture from a spray-paint artist - seriously, though, these pictures looked they had taken him hours to paint with brushes, but in reality it took him about ten minutes using cans of spray paint. Simply amazing. Around 1am we made our way back to the hostel, again about a 40 minute walk away.

Day 3 was much more relaxing. Not less walking, but less jam-packed with things to do. We began by walking to the Capitoline Museums, located right by the Colosseum, Roman Forum, etc. Basically next to all the things we did on Friday. This museum was pretty cool because the Vatican had put some of the documents from the Vatican Archives on display there for a limited time, so I got to see all kinds of old documents from emperors, presidents, etc to the pope. Unfortunately, no pictures were allowed, but I did manage to snap this one before I knew that:

Proceedings of the trial of Galileo - so cool!

We spent about two hours walking around this museum. There were tons of statues and the remnants of the Temple of Jupiter that used to be there (the museum was built around these remnants, just like at Palatine Hill). There was also a terrace that you could go out on by a coffee shop that gave some nice views of Rome. We actually ended up eating paninis at this coffee shop for lunch. We went through the underground tunnel to explore the other half of the museum, but then it was time to move on to the Spanish Steps.

The Spanish Steps are actually pretty cool - it's a giant, elaborate staircase that leads up to a church (that unfortunately I couldn't go inside because my shorts were not past my knee...ah well, apparently I didn't miss too much). We hung out here for a little while, but before long we had to head to Villa Borghese for our 5pm tickets into the museum there, Galleria Borghese. By this point I was on serious art overload, having walked all through the Vatican museums the previous day and through the Capitoline museums that morning. So I was seeing all the art in Galleria Borghese but not seeing it, if you know what I mean...everything was very cool, don't get me wrong, but I had seen a LOT in the past three days. We finished with that museum about half an hour before our alotted time was up and decided to walk through the park on our way to our next site - Castel Sant'Angelo again. On this walk, we ended up on top of a building/overhang with an awesome view of Piazza del Popolo and beyond.

Looking up the Spanish Steps

Inside Villa Borghese

Looking down at Piazza del Popolo

Eventually, though, we made it to Castel Sant'Angelo. We had discovered the night before that the castle would be open at night until 1am for three months during this summer, and more of the castle would be open to the public during the night hours (including part of the secret passage from the papal chambers to the castle!). There was also a pretty cool jazz concert that was happening that night (wow, this was just an awesome time to go Rome!) so we watched that for an hour before exploring the castle. In addition to seeing that secret passage, we could also check out the dungeons and what was apparently a late pope's bathroom (how nice...the funny part of that was we originally thought it was his tomb. Oops!). So it was actually a good thing we hadn't had time on Saturday to explore the castle! The night exploration was way cooler - we ended up on top of the castle at one point and got to look over Rome as it was lit up at night, quite a beautiful sight. We finished our exploration around 12:30am, and made that same 40 minute walk back to the hostel (by this time, we didn't need a map anymore!).

View from Castel Sant'Angelo at night

Castel Sant'Angelo

Monday began with an exploration of the basilica that was literally visible from our hostel - it completely filled the view at the end of the street and was apparently one of the major basilicas of Rome that lots of tourists went to. It was called "Santa Maria Maggiore." Like the other basilicas we had seen, it had unimaginably beautfiul artwork and also had a similar construction as St. Peter's - it had the same four-posted canopy-looking thing (still don't know the official name of it...) and the same stairway that led to a hallway going somewhere beneath the basilica. It wasn't as big as St. Peter's, but then again nothing is as big as St. Peter's. Santa Maria Maggiore was probably in the running for the second largest basilica in Rome though. We then continued on down the street, intending just to wander but in the general direction of the Pantheon. That's when we came across a market set up in the middle of the street, selling anything you could think of for cheaper than almost anywhere else I've seen in Europe. Headphones, phone chargers, shoes, clothes, toiletries, fruit...you name it, it was probably being sold on this street. I bought some plums for breakfast and we continued on.

The next "stop" in our sort of-random wandering was the Quirinial Palace, the presidential palace of Rome. I thought I had noticed more police than usual in the area! There were guards at every entrance to the palace and several tourists snapping pictures. We stayed for a few minutes but then continued on to the Pantheon

The Pantheon is a circular building that was originally built as a temple to the ancient gods of Rome, but was taken over by the Catholic Church around the 7th century AD and since has been used as a church dedicated to St. Mary. It also happens to be topped by the largest dome in Europe, possibly in the world...and we have no idea how they built it. We would not be able to build a dome like that so large, and if we did, it wouldn't stand for two thousand years. Once again, as had happened a couple times a day for the whole trip, my mind was blown. We were able to enter for free, a nice surprise since I had thought we would have to pay. The top of the dome was open to the elements, and since it had rained that morning the middle of the floor was roped off and quite puddle-like (though it was drying). Every five minutes, an announcement would come on in four or five different languages telling everyone to "Please be quiet. Thank you." 

Me and the Pantheon

Inside the Pantheon

We spent a decent amount of time checking out the Pantheon, but then two of our group decided to take a trip to Frascati, Italy, a short train ride away. The rest of us spent the afternoon stopping inside souvenir stores and just generally wandering around for about 4 hours. We ended up passing through a beautiful little garden with a fountain before walking through a small square with a church on one side. We found a shop to buy our last gelato from before making our way to the train station, where we met the two that had gone to Frascati. We boarded the 6:22 train bound for the airport and said our last goodbyes to Rome.

I can't believe what a fantastic trip this was! I also can't believe how smoothly it went - it was like clockwork (well...except the very end when our plane left 40 minutes late...but I think that was because it had rained again while we waited in the airport). I always know how good my trip was by how many pictures I took...so enjoy my 1000 pictures of beautiful Roma, Italia! Ok ok, not really...I've weeded them down so you don't have to look through all of them. If you stuck with me throughout this entire novel, I am impressed. Check back sometime next week for updates from my final big adventure this weekend!

Life as a physicist

Apologies for totally neglecting this blog for the last week...my computer decided to explode on Sunday. And by explode I mean just totally stop working. Windows 7 no longer boots on my computer, and the second operating system I installed for all of my work stuff doesn't work either. Ahh yes, how I love computers...sometimes I wonder why I'm going into a field that primarily uses computers, but then I remember that it's about the physics, not the computers. Most of my problems seem to stem from my complete frustration with everything about Windows - I'm not the most tech-savvy person out there, and Windows is just too finnicky for me apparently. Perhaps the Mac I'll be getting in a few short weeks will serve me better. I have a feeling those are more incompetant-user friendly (not that I'm incompetant, but you know what I mean).

So the bulk of the last three days has been trying to figure out what to do with my computer, with a little bit of work squeezed in here and there. It's actually been quite a busy three days. I met with a guy named Ali today, who did some diagnosis of my poor sick laptop, and it was pronounced dead. Sort of. I can't boot anything up because apparently something is wrong with my harddrive, but I'm really not quite sure how that happened. But there's a chance we might be able to get my files from it (hence the "sort of" dead diagnosis) - we will try doing that tomorrow. Fingers crossed! For now though, I am able to use a spare laptop from one of my REU coordinators that exists specifically for the purpose of in case one of our laptops dies. How convenient! So at least I have a laptop to use.

I realized the other day that I have not once talked about what I am doing for my work. I guess I am here to travel AND work, right? So here goes. Be warned, I don't even understand some of this stuff, so I will try to explain it as best as I can.

I am working with data from the Tile Calorimeter of the ATLAS detector here at CERN. When two protons collide in the accelerator, there is a whole bunch of stuff that comes out. There are millions of these collisions every SECOND, so you can imagine the immense amount of data that gets produced. The detectors that are placed around the accelerator are able to measure and record everything about all of this "stuff" that comes out of a collision (when, where, etc), but there is WAY too much to store. However, a lot of these collisions aren't very interesting at all, so there is a type of weeding system that happens, reducing the number of collisions, or "events", recorded down to a couple hundred per second. Much more manageable.

Each detector at CERN (and around the world for that matter) is made of multiple components, each designed for a very specific purpose. I work with data collected from the ATLAS detector, and specifically from the component known as the Tile Calorimeter (or TileCal for short). This component is responsible for stopping and measuring all the particles made up of what are called "quarks" - i.e. protons, neutrons, mesons, baryons...(Note: electrons are NOT made up of quarks, so they are actually measured and stopped by the electromagnetic calorimeter, which is located inside TileCal). The data I work with specifically is the corrupted data that is taken with TileCal. Data can be corrupted for known reasons (part of the detector wasn't working correctly at the time, known errors and uncertainties, etc.) or for unknown reasons. My job this summer is to examine different variables that are known about the data and try to figure out at least some of the unknown reasons the data is corrupted. It's definitely much different than any other physics research I've done - I'm not actually analyzing anything, I'm working with the detector itself.

I hope you enjoyed that brief physics lesson, and hopefully you understood at least a little of it! That has been my life as a physicist for the last month and a half. Now to the fun stuff.

On Saturday, I went to the Geneva Lake Parade, but unfortunately I forgot my camera so there are no pictures of it to share...I'm actually sort of mad I forgot it because this was quite an event, let me tell you. I've never seen a parade like this in my life. Curious yet?

The Geneva Lake Parade is the day of the year when all the clubs of Geneva get together floats and drive them down the streets. VERY slowly I might add. The whole train might move 20 feet down the street and then stay put, blasting their dance music for the next five minutes, move 20 feet, sit still for 5 minutes...definitely the slowest parade I've ever seen. I got to the parade around 4pm with my group, which was when it started, and it took about an hour and a half for all ~20 floats to pass us. We walked to the front of the parade, passed it, and decided to chill under a tree for a while. I went with a few other to see the Jet d'Eau up close - there's a pier that goes right out to it. So I got to run through the mist of the Jet. This was actually another reason I was mad I forgot my camera that day, because seeing it up close and personal was pretty awesome. My depth perception got really messed up, and even though I knew the water was shooting well over 400ft in the air, it looked like only 50ft. We headed back to the rest of the group after not too long, and headed to find dinner. I ended up eating at a kebob place (basically shaved meat with some lettuce, tomato, and a white sauce on a delicious roll).

After dinner, we decided to find the after-party of the parade. After walking along Lake Geneva for about half an hour, we finally found it. All of those 20 or so floats had parked in the street and there were crowds of people dancing in front of each one. It was insanely crowded and we kept losing people, so most of the time I was there was spent trying to find our comrades. I decided shortly that I was done for the night and wanted to head back to CERN, and a couple others joined me. That wasn't really my thing anyway. I enjoy hanging out with much smaller groups of people. But it was definitely an interesting experience. Just not one I'd really want to have again.

Sunday was spent relaxing and watching movies, up until about 9pm, when my computer exploded as explained above. But besides for that small situation, this weekend was relatively enjoyable! Just the break I needed before two big weekends of travel! Keep checking back for updates!

Barcelona!

Well, I'm sure you are all eagerly awaiting an update from my eventful weekend! Well, maybe not, but I'm going to tell you all about it anyway.

Friday began with the (now) usual Summer Student Lectures at CERN. These consist of three hours of lectures every morning (usually three different subjects) followed by a Q&A session at the end. So far they've been pretty interesting - over the course of the next month we'll be learning about the Standard Model of physics, accelerator physics, statistics, astrophysics, cosmology, and many many more cool subjects. But unfortunately I had to leave early to catch my flight to beautiful Barcelona, Spain!

I was very excited to get another stamp in my passport, proof I had visited more than three countries in my life. However, when we got there, we were able to simply exit the airport - no customs or anything. We found this a bit strange, but came to the conclusion that maybe it was because the airline we had used only flew to certain places around Europe so maybe it was different...I honestly have no idea. What if someone had gotten a visa for another European country but had malicious intentions against Spain? They would be able to simply fly into the country on this airline? That's a little disconcerting. In any case, I was a little disappointed I wouldn't get a stamp. We boarded the train and began our hour-long journey to our hostel, using the fantastic Metro system of Barcelona. We ended up taking the Metro almost everywhere during the course of the weekend, and walking wherever the Metro didn't go. The good news was there weren't many places it didn't go. We took turns buying ten-stamp tickets over the course of the three days we were there.

After getting all settled in at the hostel, we took a walk to explore around. The first thing I noticed was how many fruit/food markets there were everywhere. There was at least one, sometimes two, on every block! It was definitely my kind of place - fresh fruit for much cheaper than in Geneva, and it was good too! Our next stop was to see La Sagrada Familia lit up at night, but we didn't hang around too long. (More about this impressive cathedral later)

Eventually we decided to take the Metro closer to downtown to find somewhere to eat. We came above ground right at Las Ramblas, the biggest tourist trap street in Barcelona. There are performers, vendors, restaurants, people walking around advertising their stores...pretty much anything you could think of. At this point it was around 10:30 or so at night and the street was still full of people. All the shops were still open too - very different from Switzerland and France where everything is closed after 8pm. I sort of miss being able to go to the store after 8pm...when I get back to America, I might just go to the store at 11pm simply because I can.

One of our goals for the trip was to eat tapas somewhere. If you don't know, tapas are little snack-sized dishes that you can find for 1+ euros if you look hard enough. I had a kabob, a few desserts, and something else that I can't remember...another must-do in Spain was drink sangria, so we made sure this tapas place had sangria before we sat down. Everything was delicious, but the waiter was particularly rude to us, especially around closing time. By the way, closing time was 2am (!!!). Or so it appeared. We think he was just kicking us out because we were tourists/American - I looked back after we left and no one else was being forced to leave. But whatever, we brushed it off and decided that rude people were not worth our time. We wandered until around 3am, and we were probably some of the first to get off the streets. Everything in Barcelona is shifted by at least 3 hours - stores don't open until 10:30-11am and people fill the streets until who-knows-when. All I know is that people were still up and moving at 3am. Very odd, especially after becoming accustomed to Geneva culture. But it was my kind of place! Those hours are my ideal day!

Saturday began with a visit to the Barcelona soccer stadium, where we spent an hour poking around the gift shop. One of our group members has a friend from Barcelona, so we met up with him and he took us to a non-touristy restaurant for lunch. We had more tapas, and I could have eaten the potato dish all day. They were just potato pieces with a garlicky sauce (I think) but they were SO good! The whole meal cost about 6 euros per person (it's kind of depressing that that is extremely cheap for a meal...another thing I miss about America - dollar menus!). Then it was back to La Sagrada Familia for a tour of the inside of this magnificent feat of human engineering.

Here are some facts about La Sagrada Familia: it is a minor basilica of the Roman Catholic church that was designed by Antonio Gaudi and has been under construction for the last 130 years. And (according to models placed in locations around the basilica) it's only half done. However, its anticipated completion date is 2026 - I might have to make a point to go back to Barcelona if they really do finish it within my lifetime. It is a monster of a building, taking up an entire city block (I have not been able to find the square footage of this behemoth). Being the slightly paranoid person I am, I vaguely wondered how the thing would stay upright when it had hollowed-out Metro tunnels running directly beneath it. I just found out that this is a real concern. Well then. I really hope there's not some sort of disaster. I would love to see it when it's completed. Since its construction depends entirely on private donations, we will just have to wait and see if it really is completed by 2026. It is impossible to describe how breathtakingly, beautifully intricate and detailed this basilica was, so please, enjoy these pictures and see it for yourself.

The darker brown is what has been completed.

A close-up of the intricate carvings that cover the front

I know pictures hardly capture anything, but I had to try...it blew any cathedral I had ever seen out of the water and possibly to the moon. I really hope I get a chance to go back.

After La Sagrada Familia, we found dinner at a restaurant that was reasonably close to the basilica and wasn't out of our price range. The portions were a bit small, but everything was delicious and well worth the cost. And the waiter was nice to us! At least it wasn't everyone in Barcelona that hated tourists, just that one rude waiter...We decided to take the Metro to the beach, and we found an outdoor bar that turned out to be extremely expensive, so we just walked away. I took my first steps into the Mediterranean Sea, and was pleasantly surprised at how warm it was. It's warmer than the Great Lakes are at this time of year. We spent a fair amount of time at the beach, just enjoying the long-awaited (for me, at least) feeling of sand between our toes. As a Michigander, I'm used to beaches at least a few times a year, and I'd been deprived of the peace and enjoyment beaches give me. It was very nice to see endless water again. We began the long walk back to the Metro, and once we arrived back at our hostel, a few of our group got ready to experience the nightlife of Barcelona (I didn't really have an interest in that, so I stayed at the hostel and relaxed).

Sunday began with a trip to Park Guell, a pleasant ten-minute or so walk from our hostel. This park reminded me of a mix between a desert and Florida and was exactly what my original expectations of Spain were. There were cacti alongside palm trees, with green grass and beautiful flowers throughout the park. We climbed to the highest point in the park and looked out across the massive sprawl that is Barcelona:

It was quite beautiful. We walked on to see the viaducts (or aquaducts, as they are more commonly called), and the main entrance. We were sucked into a tourist trap that advertised paella for only 8 euros - we didn't think it would get cheaper than that! But unfortunately, it wasn't very good paella...oh well, live and learn.

Our next stop was the Barcenoleta beach, the dirtiest and most crowed of all Barcelona beaches, although we picked a spot that wasn't too dirty. It was most definitely crowded though! We spent two hours taking shifts watching all the bags and swimming in the waves before heading to the Barcelona Olympic stadium and the Montjuic Castle. Both were very cool and well worth the out-of-the-way trip it took to get there. We walked around both for a few hours, and the view the castle offered from the top of its own mountain/hill thing was better than that of Park Guell. We were closer to the sea now, so there was more water visible, but we still had the same beautiful view of the city. Since my camera doesn't have a panorama setting, I've begun simply taking a short movie of the view. It's better than trying to figure out the view from several successive pictures. Look for all my "panoramas" on my picture page!

Anyway, once we had taken in our fill of all the beautiful views, we headed back to the Barcenoleta beach area to find some dinner and to watch the sunset. However, we forgot that we had been well above the rest of the city, so once we had gotten back to sea level the sun had already set behind the mountains that surround Barcelona. So much for that idea! We found a restaurant that offered a first course, second course, drink, and dessert all for 15.90 euros, a great deal anywhere in Europe! (Of course, all you guys in the States could just go to Applebee's and get the 2 for $20 meal...it would probably be more food at the same price. My sense of expense has been totally shot here!) We enjoyed a European-style meal, meaning they made us wait for some time before bringing out the next course, which was fine by me. By the time we finished, it was approaching midnight and since we had to get up not-so-bright and early at 4:30am sharp to catch our flight back to Geneva we decided to skip our planned walk on the beach and head straight back to the hostel.

All in all, this was a fantastic trip. The only thing I regret about it is not planning it out more, because that resulted in a lot of waiting around and excessive traveling. I think we could have optimized our time there much better and seen much more of the city. But this was just my first trip outside of Switzerland, so I've learned something that I will definitely use for my next trip - plan, plan, plan!! Looking back, we actually saw a lot more than it seemed like, so it all works out in the end. Stay tuned for pictures and panorama videos - coming soon!

Discovery!

Well, I'm sure most of you have seen the latest news to come out of CERN - a discovery has been made! We're not sure if the discovery is actually the Higgs boson, the last missing piece of the Standard Model, or if it's something new (I hope it's something new...that would be so much more exciting!). I was very happy to see that the top story on Google news was the results stated in the July 4th seminar, the kick-off to the International Conference for High Energy Physics (ICHEP) in Melbourne. But let me start from the beginning...

My day started at 2am, when I got up to get in the queue for the main auditorium at CERN, where the real deal would be happening (as in, if I actually got a seat in the auditorium, I'd be watching the real thing, not a webcast!). I knew there would already be people there, because some grad students actually got there at 11:30pm to camp out. But I did not expect there to be 70 or so people there already. Most of them were summer students (I doubt the older physicists would want to get up at 2 to get in line). The catch was that half of the auditorium was already reserved for the important people, leaving only 150 or so seats for those of us in line. Good thing I got there early!

I attempted to sleep, to no avail, so I watched a movie on my laptop, played cards, did whatever it took to keep myself occupied for 5 hours. Security had actually worried that people would attempt to sleep in the auditorium, so it was locked from Tuesday night until 7:30am Wednesday. The seminar itself started at 9am. So, there we all were, wrapped under blankets, listening to music, playing cards...It was very strange when it started getting light outside - I felt like I had been pulling an all-nighter, even though I had gotten around 2.5 hours of sleep. There had been a wave of people that arrived around 4-5am, and by 6:30am, the line snaked up and down the hallway, down the stairs, and a considerable distance past the stairs (I just read in an article that they estimate that 1,000 people were waiting in this line by the end of it). I was really glad I got there at 2! If I had stuck to my original plan, getting there around 5, I would not have gotten a seat in the auditorium.

Around 7:00am, everyone suddenly stood up and surged toward the auditorium, which I really didn't understand since there was still half an hour to go. But FINALLY, at long last, they opened the doors! We had a bit of a scare when security halted the line about five people ahead of us, but thankfully they were just waiting for the people already in to find seats. The line started moving again, I made eye contact with the security guard as he counted me, went up a flight of stairs...then I was in! I could hardly believe it! It was surreal to be sitting in the place where they would be announcing the biggest results in decades of High Energy Physics research. I found myself asking, "Is this actually happening?!" Unfortunately, there was still an hour and a half to wait...but it flew by. Peter Higgs himself was one of the last people to enter the auditorium, and he got a standing ovation from the whole crowd.

The first speaker was the spokesperson for the CMS experiment here at CERN (CMS is one of the two general experiments that look for answers to existing physics and also look for new stuff outside our current theory of the universe. The other is the experiment I work on, ATLAS). There was a lot of introductory stuff, blah blah blah, but as soon as the spokesperson said something to the extent of "And now for the results," the entire auditorium sat up a little straighter, alert now and paying attention. The anticipation in the air was overwhelming.

Here's a little background on the basic statistics used in physics analysis: data is taken using the gigantic detectors, which is then compared to theoretical simulations. Fluctuations occur when the data doesn't quite match up with those simulations, but usually these fluctuations go away with more data. Fluctuations are measured by how far they deviate from the expected prediction, using a "sigma" system. 1 sigma is equivalent to a 1 in 3 chance that the fluctuation happened by chance, 2 sigma means a 1 in 22 chance, 3 sigma means a 1 in 370 chance (also the threshold for claiming "evidence" of something), 4 sigma means a 1 in 15,787 chance, and 5 sigma means a 1 in 1.7 million chance. 5 sigma is the threshold for claiming a "discovery." Now that you know some of the basic terms, let me continue.

While all the physicists were tuned in, Dr. Tonelli went on to describe the results of a break-neck paced analysis that had taken place over the course of only two weeks, a feat almost unheard of. And this was where we had our first 5 sigma result! The auditorium broke out in cheers and applause. More results, more talking...and this was the final CMS result:

Exciting right?! Next it was ATLAS's turn. More blah blah, and again, everyone perked up when Fabiola got to the results section. And guess what? More 5 sigma results!! A new particle had finally been discovered!

There was cheering and applause for a long while - the infamous Higgs boson MIGHT have been discovered!! I say might because there are hints that this may not be exactly what we were looking for. This is not a failure in the eyes of physics. Instead, it only opens new doors and makes us question whether our theory is actually correct. In my opinion, yeah, it would be awesome to find the Higgs, but it would be infinitely more exciting if we're wrong about something. We would have to rethink the Standard Model and come up with something new that explains what we are seeing. But regardless, as of this morning, a new boson has been discovered, the heaviest yet measured. Whether or not it was what we were looking for remains to be seen.

Beer with the bears in Bern

Yay alliterations! And yes, all parts of the title are true - I had beer with the bears in Bern. Confused? So was I.

The day started at 6:30am, when I woke up to meet the rest of the group at 7am to make our 7:45 train. I was running off of less than five hours of sleep, so naturally I got coffee at the train station. After which point I realized I had a two hour train ride to Bern that I could have been sleeping on but no longer would be able to...oops, my bad. But hey, I got to see some awesome scenery. Switzerland is probably the most beautiful place I've been so far in my life.

We got off the train and tried to orient ourselves in the city. We were now in the German part of Switzerland (just when I had gotten used to French speakers...I am loving how cultural it is here and how short a distance you need to go to reach somewhere so culturally different!), so we were trying to read the signs. We were obviously unsuccessful because we immediately went off in the wrong direction. It was fortunate that we figured this out only after 20 minutes of walking. But it turned out ok, because we ended up wandering through a university's campus that looked out over the city. B-e-a-utiful!

Our original plan had been to follow a walking, self-guided tour type thing that Kevin had found, and we followed it for a few of the stops, pausing to take pictures of all the fountains that were right in the middle of the street. Definitely strange. Also, the buses don't exactly stop for people standing in the streets, which I almost found out the hard way while admiring one of the fountains. Luckily one of my friends had my back. We continued along the tour, weaving through markets set up along various streets and in large open squares. I had never been to a farmer's market or anything of the sort in the States, but I imagine it was something like the portion we passed through in a large square. The thing was that we went down one street filled with carts selling everything from cheese to pastries to flowers, turned the corner to find an enormous square filled with seemingly endless carts of more food, and crossed the street to the large square in front of the Parliament building to find that also filled with carts of food. I had never seen anything like it in my life. The area was teeming with people buying produce, meat, and cheese. And of course bread. You can't forget the bread.

We wandered to the Parliament building and noticed that there were free tours happening that day (I'm not sure if there were free tours only that day or every weekend or every day). We discovered that there was a tour at 11:30 that we could join. There was one caveat - it was going to be in German. But we got pamphlets that explained everything (in much less detail of course) that we were going to see in English. So we decided to do it. Let me tell you, that building was beautiful. Unfortunately, there are no records or pictures of this experience because we weren't allowed to bring anything in with us, but take me on my word. It was impressive. We saw the Domed Hall and both Chamber rooms, and they all were beautifully decorated with stained glass, statues, ornate carvings, or intricate murals. It was well worth our time, even though we couldn't understand what our guide was saying. But luckily, she explained some things in English, knowing we English-speakers were present.

We continued down the cobbled streets, and passed some cafe called the "Einstein Haus." We knew Einstein's house was located in Bern and thought this cafe was a funny play on that. But then we noticed a sign saying something like "Closed due to water damage." Something rung a bell in our heads...someone had told us that tours of Einstein's house weren't going on because it was closed due to water damage...Wait a second. This WAS Einstein's house! We checked the address number...yup, 49. We were standing in front of (and almost completely passed by) Albert Einstein's old house! I'm sure the people peacefully eating lunch were thrilled when our group of eight physicists started fervidly taking pictures of everything around the house: the number, all the signs, the house itself...yeah, they were definitely staring at us. Did we care? Not one bit. I mean, it was EINSTEIN'S HOUSE!!

We continued on, heading towards Bern's most popular attraction, the bear pit. At one point, we crossed the river the makes a peninsula out of the city of Bern, and I couldn't believe what a striking blue-green color it was. I had never seen a river that color before! And it was FAST. I don't know how fast rivers usually go, but take the speed of a typical one and multiply it by two or three. There were people in rafts and tubes floating not-so-leisurely down it (because how can it be leisurely going that fast?!), along with people simply swimming down it. We noticed people lining the river a little way up and decided to go there to relax for a bit.

It turned out that where the people were lining was where the bear pit was. We started down the stairs that led to the river bank and noticed two bears playfully fighting down below. Fenced off of course (thankfully the bears don't roam the town...that would be quite unnerving). We stopped to take some pictures before sticking our feet in the achingly cold river water. Yup, my numb feet could confirm that it was most definitely a river of snowmelt. We tried to figure out how to get a raft to float down the river to no avail. So instead we headed back to the restaurant that overlooked the bear pit. We had been told previously that the restaurant was also a microbrewery, so of course we had to check it out. Let me tell you, beer with the bears in Bern was pretty good. 

Afterward we climbed 100m or so to a beautiful rose garden that overlooked all of Bern. It was probably the best view of the city you could get. In the near distance, we noticed a castle-looking structure and decided that would be our next stop. To our eventual dismay, it turned out to be the history museum of Bern, which also happened to house the Einstein museum...well darn. Being physicists, we were extremely disappointed that it had already closed for the day. 


Our last stop was a late dinner in one of the squares in front of the Parliament building, which had been completely cleared of all food carts and now had children running through fountains. We wearily made our way back to the train station and crashed hard on the way back to CERN. I even fell asleep on the train. That never happens! What a long, eventful, and fun day!