The End of a Beginning

Well, here begins my last post of this incredible adventure. I can't believe it's over! What an amazing experience I've had and what an incredible opportunity this has been!

I just wanted to summarize the last two weeks, because a surprising amount happened...the weekend of August 4th-5th I got to hang out in Geneva, which was a nice break from all the traveling I did the two weekends before that. Saturday was a pretty lazy day - I woke up around noon, having stayed up pretty late on Friday night. I decided with a couple others in my REU group to head down to downtown Geneva for the Fete de Geneve, a festival that went from July 19 - August 12. We had heard that there were supposed to be fireworks at night, and so decided to check it out. The Geneva Festival is the biggest festival of the year (obviously, since it takes up almost a month of the year...), and there were things to do EVERYWHERE. There were food vendors, carnival rides (including those stupid spinning teacups), carnival games...you name it. All of it took up at least three miles along the shore of the lake, basically spanning the entirety of downtown Geneva. Lights and carnival rides decorating the shoreline - it was quite a sight to see. We wandered around for a while, and then the fireworks began. And not only in Geneva, oh no. Fireworks appeared around the entire lake above the trees and buildings, all around. It was so beautiful! Shortly after, however, we returned to CERN in preparation for a sort-of early day.

Fireworks with the Jet d'Eau lit up

On the first Sunday of every month, there are several museums in Geneva that are free. So, naturally, I had to go. How could I pass up free stuff in Geneva, the most expensive city in Europe?! The first stop was the Art History Museum. There were many artifacts from ancient Rome and Europe, along with some from ancient Greece. I saw many paintings that were all beautiful, but unfortunately the wing that had all of the musical instruments was closed that day for some reason. Ah well, it was time to head to the Natural History Museum anyway. But, unfortunately (again), the most interesting wing was closed. So we were able to check out the fish, reptiles, amphibians, and invertebrates, but were unable to see Lucy (the most preserved human being ever found) and the minerals. So overall, it was a disappointment, but I'm not sure if every "free day" is like that. Hopefully that was just a fluke thing...Next on our list was the Botanical Gardens - we mainly wanted to see all the poisonous plants. The Botanical Gardens were very beautiful, and I wish I had gotten there earlier - I would have liked to go there in the evenings to relax or something because it was incredibly peaceful there. I always enjoy visiting parks, and this visit was no different. We made a lap around the Gardens, but then headed back to CERN to relax for the evening.

The first half of the week was pretty uneventful, besides for trying to gather together a final presentation (I could not believe that it was the FINAL presentation that I was preparing) and doing other random work. OH I almost forgot - on Tuesday (at least, I think it was Tuesday...I'm actually writing this a week after the fact) I got to take a tour of ISOLDE, which is the nuclear physics research experiment at CERN. They have several different experiments there, with only one able to run at a time, but it was cool to see all the things they are still researching in nuclear physics. The tour lasted about an hour and 15 minutes, but then it was back to work.

Thursday was the day of reckoning, Judgment Day...ok, not really, but I had been nervous about this presentation all week. The first presentation in the group started at 2, I went at 3:40, the last one ended at 5:30...yup, that's right, 3.5 hours of presentations. I was going crazy by the end of it. Don't get me wrong, everyone's projects were really cool and each person presented their work really well, but I have issues sitting still for that long with no breaks. I was pretty happy when we were able to get up and walk around. We took a group picture in front of the bubble chamber (a previous generation of particle detectors) before heading to a restaurant literally on the shoreline of Lake Geneva for a last group dinner. I don't even want to know how much the meal cost, but it was a very expensive restaurant and there were at least 25 of us there...your guess is as good as mine. Our appetizer consisted of white fish on top of some delicious type of cracker, pike rolled up in...something (not quite sure what haha), bread and butter, and cured beef. The main course was fried perch with French fries, and the dessert was our choice. I had a lemon merengue thing on a thin cookie, but I should have gotten the chocolate mousse that a couple others got - my lemon merengue was delicious but the mousse could not be beat. The whole meal was absolutely delicious and was a perfect way to finish off the program. To top it all off, we got to watch the lake grow dark as the sun set behind us - Mont Blanc was a gorgeous shade of orange at one point, and I couldn't look away from it. It was about that point that I realized how much I was going to miss having such easy access to a view like that...but I knew I'd be back someday.

Friday was spent finishing up anything I needed to do in preparation of leaving CERN - getting files from my work computer, turning in keys and ID's, etc etc. But the second half of the day was spent doing fun things, aka heading downtown to complete my souvenir collection and get the last of the gifts for my family. Chris and I ended up meeting a couple others downtown, and they told us about an awesome food market that they had just stopped at, so of course I wanted to check it out. I got bread and cheese for under 6 francs (awesome!) so that ended up being a pretty good dinner. We returned to CERN and sat on the patio for a while, eventually joining up with some others who were saying farewells as well. There was a group who wanted to do some last exploring around CERN and since I hadn't been around much of the site, I decided to join. Except we weren't exploring aboveground...yup, underneath CERN is a vast labyrinth of tunnels leading basically everywhere on site, and they all criss-cross and overlap with signs every so often telling you which building you are heading toward. Our destination was what has been dubbed the "Summer Student Temple" but it's essentially just a dead-end room of one of the tunnels, and the walls have been signed by many of the students who have found it. I was able to sign my name with a piece of salmon-colored chalk. That whole excursion took at least two hours, and it had been late when we first set out. I returned to my room exhausted.

Saturday the 11th was the final day of Fete de Geneve, so I went downtown with about six other people from my REU group to hang out and just enjoy our last day in Geneva. Actually, we were hardly downtown at all...we took a bus to the parks located north of the city and walked along the lake for two or three hours, stopping a few times to take in the view and take some pictures. At one point we stopped for a good hour, playing cards in the shade and just talking. Unfortunately, there was not enough space to throw a Frisbee...sad day. We split up into different groups at that point, and I went with the group that walked back toward Geneva. We made it to the edge of all the carnival rides and started to search for some food. We came across a surprisingly good deal (for Geneva at least) - a giant hamburger with fries for 13 francs. We caved and bought burgers, and started back towards the parks in search of a spot to sit to watch the fireworks. We found a spot, but realized that we were 2 hours early...whoops. So I played nine games of Egyptian Rat Screw, or ERS for short. Don't ask me how it got that name, I have no idea. This game is all about reflexes, and it's very rare to win only with the luck of the cards you're given to start with. But anyway, those nine games kept us occupied until the fireworks started at 10pm.

I can't describe to you how spectacular these fireworks were. I felt like I was seeing fireworks for the first time again. I had never seen anything like it. They covered a huge portion of the sky, and were separated into different segments, each probably 5 minutes or so long. Each ended with a pseudo-finale, getting progressively more intense. There were a couple of these pseudo-finales in the middle that were just like finales I had seen in the US, so I thought that the show would end there, but the streetlights never came back on and the show continued thirty seconds later. I found myself wondering how big the real finale would actually be...I was in for a treat. When the real finale started, I pulled out my camera and recorded the whole thing. I was sort of overwhelmed at how spectacular and impressive this show was. It was almost as light as day because of the fireworks that were exploding every quarter-second. To really understand, you just need to watch this video I took of it. I promise I will upload it to my picture page soon. But the bottom line is that this was by far the best fireworks show I had ever seen, and I very highly doubt anything will ever match it. Finally it was time to return to CERN, which apparently everyone else in Geneva was doing as well because the tram was filled to the brim. I honestly don't think another person could have been packed into it. I was uncomfortably close to people I didn't know, and the tram was that crowded all the way to CERN (which was the last stop on the route). At long last I stepped out into fresh air after the stuffy air of the tram.

Next on the agenda was laying in the grass with some other summer students to watch the Perseids meteor shower. I have the worst luck back home in Michigan when it comes to meteor showers or any other astronomical phenomena - it always seems to be too cloudy to see anything. So I was very excited to see some meteors! I laid in the grass for a while and counted 5 meteors streaking across the sky. Then I joined some of the U of M REU group members who hadn't left yet for a final glass of champaign to celebrate a fantastic summer filled with all sorts of adventures. We enjoyed each other's company until about 2:30am, but then it was time to finish packing and go to sleep. I had a pretty early day on Sunday.

Kevin, Alex, and I were all on the same flight from Geneva to Washington DC, so we decided to meet up and travel to the airport together. We arrived and immediately jumped in the long line for the United Airlines check counters. Pretty soon, we saw some of our REU friends whose flight had been cancelled the day before - they were taking a flight scheduled for an hour before ours. I can't imagine having a flight like that cancelled. A small one out of Flint Airport, sure, but I didn't think trans-Atlantic flights ever really got cancelled...that same flight from Friday had been cancelled as well! But luckily ours was not, and everything went smoothly for the nine hour flight to Washington DC. I tried to sleep during that flight, to no avail, and so stepped into America in a bit of a daze, having only gotten three hours of sleep the night before. My body felt like it was 9pm, but it was only 3pm in DC, and I was struggling a bit. Kevin and I said goodbye to Alex first since his parents were picking him up from that airport, but we had connecting flights to catch. We made it through customs without a hitch, and went to our gates only to find Victor (one the people whose flight had been cancelled on Saturday) waiting at Kevin's gate for the same plane! How crazy! I stayed with them until 4pm, since my plane was scheduled to board at 4:25. Well, 4:25 came and went, and so did the departure time of 4:55. The guy came over the speaker and announced that they had not been given maintenance clearance yet and that wasn't expected for at least 25 minutes. And he kept saying that every 25 minutes until 6:10, when he said that "Your new expected departure time is 6:35...or 7:00. I'm gonna go with 7:00. Just wait." And sure enough at 7:00 he came on again and said, "We have finally been given maintenance clearance! I told you all it would be at 7:00...and now we're just waiting for the captain - not quite sure where he is." We  FINALLY pulled out of the gate around 7:30, getting me back to Detroit just before 9pm. Thank the Lord, I was almost home. I can't believe my luck with traveling, although I am extremely thankful that none of my weekend travels had any issues and that the only issue of the summer happened in my own country.

Andrew picked me up at the airport, and I was in even more of a daze after that whole ordeal. He helped me find my suitcases in baggage claim, and then I was truly on the home stretch. I couldn't wait to get home! When we finally made it, I gave my parents giant hugs, and then it honestly felt like I had never left. How strange is that? I am so happy I got the opportunity to have such an incredible summer, and I am so thankful for all the experiences I was able to have, both work and travel related. I learned so much about French and Swiss culture since that was where I lived, but I also got little tastes of the cultures of the places I visited too. I would repeat this experience in a heartbeat! I still can't believe it's over, but it's now time to move on to the next event in my life. The Spartan Marching Band begins practice in less than a week, and I could not be more excited to be one of the leaders of this incredible group! Thank you to everyone who made this incredible summer possible! It's been a pleasure blogging for you!

The City of Loovvveeee

No but really...Europe has considerably more PDA than the US does, and Paris was no different. Although, I suppose it is quite romantic to kiss your girlfriend by the river with a view of Paris in the background.

Anyway, as you must have guessed, my final big trip for the summer was to beautiful Paris, France (but don't worry, I will still post one or two more times as this experience comes to a close). This was not quite as long a trip as Rome, but it was close. I was able to attend the Summer Student Lectures at CERN on Friday morning and meet with my advisor one last time before she went on holiday for the remainder of my stay. Soon, though, it was time to catch the TGV high speed train to Paris! Of course, not before running with massive backpacks in an attempt to make the tram that would take us from CERN to the train station...thankfully we made it. But we were quite sweaty and I'm pretty sure everyone around us was giving us strange looks. We didn't care, we were going to PARIS!

We found our train in plenty of time, and met up with one of our group member's mom and sister who were in town and would be accompanying us to Paris. However, we were all in different cars since we actually had to have reservations for this train, meaning you were assigned a seat. I settled back to enjoy the ride. At first, the TGV was going as fast (slow?) as any normal train, with stops too close together to gain too much speed. I started reading my book and began to doze, and when I woke up we were flying at a comfortable 140mph. In Michigan, I can't stand driving through farmland because it's so flat and takes such a long time to get through. But in France and on this train, the farmland was located on gently rolling hills (much more pleasing to my eye) and it was flying by. There was a totally new scene out the window every 15 seconds or so, so I didn't get tired of the view. Also, in the fifteen minutes since I had woken up, we had gone from clear blue skies to clouds to dark skies spitting rain. It was unbelievable how fast the scenery changed!

The train ride took a total of 3 hours, a very enjoyable ride. We made our way to our hostel, which seemed to be located in a less touristy part of the city. We dropped off our stuff, and started wandering to find food. We eventually stopped at a small crepe shop (this is how I know we were in a less touristy part - the place was tiny and he made our crepes fresh, no premade wraps), where I ordered a panini and a Nutella crepe. Delicious! We then headed to Hotel de Ville so we wouldn't waste a whole evening in Paris.

To our surprise, when we came aboveground from the Metro we noticed a giant screen set up in the square in front of Hotel de Ville. And what was it showing? Why, the Olympic Opening Ceremonies of course! YES!! I wouldn't miss it after all!! So we sat and watched the 2012 opening ceremony, leaving when they started presenting the countries to wander across the river to Notre Dame and around that area. We were at least 3/4 miles away when we heard an enormous roar coming from Hotel de Ville: France had been announced. We continued wandering, with the intention of making it back for the announcement of the United States. We did, and don't worry, we let the whole square know who we were supporting, along with a surprisingly large fraction of the other people present. But then it was time to return to the hostel for bed.

Saturday morning began at Saint Chapel, located on the same island as Notre Dame. We met up with Kevin's mom and sister again, then went into the chapel. The lower chapel was beautiful, with a statue of Mary at one end, but it was nothing compared to the upper chapel. All of the walls (and I mean ALL of them) were entirely stained glass from about ten feet from the floor on up. There were 14 main panels (I believe...don't quote me on that), each depicting different stories from the Bible. There was also a rose-shaped window that depicted Judgement Day from the book of Revelations; in my opinion it was the most beautiful window of them all. We stayed and took it all in for a while, then headed to Notre Dame for our next stop of the day.

Notre Dame is one of the most impressive cathedrals I've seen, after La Sagrada Familia and St. Peter's Basilica. It's two main towers loom over a square, and you can't tell just how big it is until you look at it from the side (it's huge, by the way). We waited for one last person to join our group before heading into the cathedral. I don't want to say "There are no words" again because I feel like I've been saying that all summer, but there really aren't. Every trip I've been on this summer, I've seen incredible architecture and there just simply aren't words to describe any of it. The best I can do is try to take pictures that are good enough to capture some of what I'm seeing. But to really understand, you just have to go there.

After Notre Dame, we took a short walk to Jardin du Luxembourg, the home of the Medici family after they were kicked out of Italy. I'm pretty sure they wanted to make whoever kicked them out jealous because they built a gigantic mansion and a beautiful yard/giant garden as their new home. The only thing that tainted this place was the view of a nasty modern skyscraper poking out above the trees. Now really, why did they think it was a good idea to build a skyscraper right in the middle of the old part of Paris? Yes, there is a newer part with more modern buildings, but this skyscraper really isn't close to that...I don't know, apparently all the Parisians hate it and I can definitely see why. Anyway...we spent about an hour walking around the garden, admiring the mansion, the pond with a fountain, the flowers, the palm trees...yes, palm trees in Paris. No, they are not native - apparently they are brought from further south every year. Can you imagine having that job?

Next on the agenda was a walk through Montmartre. Thankfully Kevin's mom had brought a guidebook, so we were able to follow a walking tour up to the crest of the hill. Montmartre is actually a village, and many famous artists used to live there (not so much anymore...too expensive, too many tourists, blah blah blah). As we were walking, we were gradually making our way up the hill, occasionally catching an awesome view of the city when we crossed a street. We started our walk at Moulin Rouge, and then went on to see the house of Vincent Van Gogh, the building where Picasso did some of his work, and several other cool things that I can't remember right now. Our walk ended at the Basilica Sacre-Coeur, the highest point in Paris and thus having an impressive view of all of Paris:

Another added bonus of this basilica was the random guy down the steps a ways who was juggling a soccer ball like he was a pro. He was spinning in circles on a 2ft x 2ft square post, crouching, even climbing a lightpost...all without the soccer ball touching the ground. He had control of it the whole time! Needless to say, he attracted quite a crowd and received tons of applause when he was done. We then toured the inside of Sacre-Coeur (unfortunately we couldn't take pictures...), which was incredible by the way, and then sat outside and admired the view for a while. Eventually we all decided we were starving and went back down the hill to eat.

Wherever we go, we always look for the value menus, like a main course plus dessert and drink for ten euros for example. Since Montmartre is a very touristy area, we weren't so fortunate as to find something for 10 euros, but we did find a good deal for about 14. Here is where I had authentic French onion soup (yum!) and lamb for the first time. It was pretty good! At this point, we had finished our entire itinerary for the day, so for our evening activity we decided to check out the Eiffel Tower.

I never realized how beautiful a giant mass of metal could be. The Eiffel Tower is located almost right on the Seine River, and there are no buildings around it, so it just towers over the surrounding trees. The sun was hitting it at a perfect angle so it took on a nice orangey-brown glow. We had gotten off one stop early from the Metro on purpose so we could walk and enjoy the river. We ended up hanging out at the Eiffel Tower for quite a while, staying until after it had gotten dark and the tower had lit up. But there was a surprise in store (for me...I'm not sure how many of the others knew about this). At 10pm, the tower suddenly started sparkling - thousands of light bulbs placed all over the tower start flickering on and off for five minutes on the hour every hour after 10pm (not sure til how late...). I was sort of mesmorized for those five minutes...after we had finished looking at the tower, we went across the street for crepes, but then returned to the hostel for the day.

On Sunday, we met up with the full group at the Louvre at 9:30am after getting croissants and coffee for breakfast. We proceeded to take pictures in front of the famous glass pyramid, which is apparently directly above the bones of Mary Magdalene according to The Da Vinci Code...haha just kidding. Before long, we were entering the museum and making our way to the Mona Lisa to beat the crowds. I guess we were sort of successful since there were still massive crowds there throughout the day, but the crowd we dealt with was considerably smaller. I honestly have no idea why this painting is so famous - it's so small! However I just read on the internet that it once hung in Napolean's bedchambers, and it was stolen from the Louvre when that was said to be impossible and that at one point during that whole thing Picasso was accused of stealing it. So it gained some popularity there, and then its popularity added to its popularity and now no one knows why it's so popular - it just IS. So of course we had to see it. However, after the Mona Lisa we all split up into groups of two or three. I was with Aditi, and we started the "Masterpieces Tour" from her audioguide. We walked around for nearly two hours, hitting many of the masterpieces in the Louvre including Winged Victory, Venus, and the Coronation of Napolean. Then I went off on my own to tour all of the Egyptian art. Everyone reunited between 2:30 and 3, and we set off down Champs d'Elysses.

Champs d'Elysses is probably the most famous street in Paris, where everything is ridiculously expensive. It's a gigantic tourist trap essentially, but there are a couple palaces and cool things to see along the way, like the US Embassy. We didn't actually stop at many of those cool places though, instead just walking down the couple kilometers of the busy street and ending up at Arc de Triomphe. I know this famous arc because this is where the Tour de France ends. It was built to honor those who fought in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars and was inspired by the Arch of Titus in Rome (hey, I saw that! They definitely have some similarities). We went through an underground tunnel to bypass the busy roundabout it stands in the middle of and see the arc up close. Like much of the architecture I've seen while I've been in Europe, it was very impressive. Underneath it was a torch and flowers that are apparently changed at 6pm everyday, and they were just starting that ceremony as we left to go to the Eiffel Tower for the second time. In fact, we passed the military members carrying the flowers and flags heading to the Arc.

We made our way to the Eiffel Tower again, where we met up with two of my friends from the States who were in Paris that weekend as well. It was so good to see them again! Unfortunately, our plans of climbing the tower with them were postponed (and eventually canceled) because of the rain that wasn't supposed to happen at all that day. How annoying! But we were able get dinner as a big, happy group at an excellent restaurant a little ways away. Afterwards, we headed back to the Eiffel Tower for crepes while we waited for it to light up and sparkle. At that point, KC and Erica decided not to climb the tower with us and to do it a different day. However, that was the rest of the group's last chance, so we were climbing the tower if it killed us! Let me tell you, it was WELL worth 3.50 euros.

We (of course) took the stairs up the Eiffel Tower, but you can't go all way to the top without taking the elevator. But I've actually heard that the second level is better than the top, because the top is almost TOO high. but anyway, we got to the first level and walked around for a while. It was threatening rain again, but Paris is beautiful at night so it made any threat worth it. Just as we were about to ascend to the second level, it started downpouring. And I mean a torrential downpour. The best part? The Eiffel Tower is only metal supports - no glass windows or anything, unless you go into the restaurant on the first level. So we took shelter where we could, but then just decided to go for it. Thankfully the staircase we needed was on the far side of the tower from where the wind was blowing, so we were pretty protected from the rain. After 669 stairs, we came out to the entirety of Paris laid at our feet, beautifully decorated in lights. We could see the building under which Napoleon is buried, Sacre-Coeur way in the distance, the ferris wheel on Champs d'Elysses, Arc de Triomphe, river tour boats putzing along...oh and don't forget that nasty skyscraper that doesn't fit in. We could see that too. If you looked straight up, you could see the remainder of the Eiffel Tower looming over you. Quite a sight. There were a couple cool things that happened while we were up there. One, Kevin noticed that as the spotlight on top of the Eiffel Tower went around, it reflected off a different skyscraper in the distance, and if you followed it you could see the brief flash of light. Awesome! Two, we were up there at 11pm. Remember what happens on the hour? Yup, all of a sudden everything was flashing around us. I took a couple videos of both of these events, check 'em out on the picture page! We stayed up there for a while longer, but then headed down and back to the hostel.

Whew another long post...one more day left! We got to sleep in on Monday (hooray!), heading to the Pere-Lachaise Cemetery around 10:45am. We stopped at a bakery along the way, where I had the most delicious raspberry tart of my life. Good thing it was 3.60 euros (~$4.40) or I would have bought three or four of them! Anyway...this cemetery is where several famous people are buried, including Jim Morrison, Oscar Wilde, Auguste Compte, Alfred Chopin, and Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac (a famous physicist and chemist...woot!). So we spent about two hours wandering around there before heading to Les Invalides, the war museum and where Napoleon's tomb is located.

To hear about how self-centered and cocky Napoleon was and to see it are two totally different things. I was amazed at how many carvings and statues the man had dedicated to himself. I suppose he probably deserved to be demolished by the Russian winter all that time ago. After spending some time at the tomb, we continued to the WWI and WWII museums, where the women spent about an hour and a half walking through and the men spent about two hours. However, at 5pm it was time to leave to make sure we had time for dinner before catching our train back to Geneva. We had our last crepes (I had two...one with ham, cheese, and egg and one with honey) and headed to the station for our 7:11 train.

This trip was an excellent way to round off my travels for the summer! I can hardly believe I have less than two weeks left here - how time flew! I'm so thankful for this incredible opportunity, but I am definitely ready to be back in the States and with my family, friends, and boyfriend. This weekend will be spent relaxing in Geneva (definitely needed after two big weekends of travel) and possibly taking a walking tour to some chocolate shops. The end is in sight - it will be bittersweet, but I know I will be back someday!