CERN visit

I’m doing my best to make the most of the rest of my time in Switzerland. One example of this came a couple weeks ago when I was able to join my Finnish friend Erkki on a trip to visit CERN, the large particle physics campus on the outskirts of the city. CERN is where the Large Hadron Collider (basically the world’s largest particle accelerator) is nearing completion and where scientists will be looking for so-called “God particles” that may give better understanding to the Big Bang. It is what some people think will be the end of the world. I will probably get many of these details wrong because I am not a scientist, but Erkki is an engineer and worked on the data collection panels at one of the accelerator sites.

For an overview of the whole thing, I recommend listening to Kurt Anderson’s excellent Studio 360 podcast which this week happened to discuss CERN:



Here’s what I can explain: the basic layout of the accelerator is a very large underground ring. There are actually a series of rings, in which the particles are loaded and then transferred until they finally get to the larger outer ring. At various points along these rings are a series of experiments designed to collect different types of data. The experiment we visited was CMS which is actually over the border in France. (Here’s a diagram from Wikipedia:)


At this site, protons will be smashed into each to try and find new subatoms. Each type of particle has a certain properties that give it a certain trajectory when collided. These trajectories are picked up by the data collectors and can then be used to determine what types of particles were produced. If previously unknown trajectories are detected, these may represent the “Higgs boson,” a hypothetical undiscovered subatomic particle. It’s all very dense, but if you are interested in learning more, check out the Wikipedia page about the CMS site which gives almost as good an overview as Erkki. (But not quite.)

Anyway, I didn’t know what to expect the accelerator to look like, but I certainly had something in mind like a sterile white lab. Instead, it was a massive mutli-colored mechanical construction that was more on the scale of space exploration. Very impressive. Here are the photos:


The throughly impressive data collection station at CMS


The even more impressive heating and cooling controls


Me in front of the accelerator


Once the experiment goes live, this fun retinal scanner will make sure only official people can get in. Side note: I didn’t know real retinal scanners already existed.


The whole thing is about 100 meters underground. It doesn’t seem like it when you’re down there, but we climbed the stairs back up, and I assure you it’s deep. Here’s my proof (creepy yellow lighting an added bonus).

Mike Wong

I recently booked my plane ticket home so I will officially be returning to America on July 20th. I know I’m ready for a change, but it will be a bittersweet departure from this city that’s been, for better or worse, home for the last two years. This means I’m now entering the phase where everything marks a potential “last” time to do something. Last night for example, I attended my penultimate French class and between that and YAGs I decided to grab some Pad Thai from a local Asian Fast Food mini-chain (by which I mean it has 2 locations).

And I honestly can’t believe I haven’t written about the magic of Mike Wong any earlier than this. Sure, I’ve only been there a few times (even “fast food” and “cheap” options in Geneva are expensive by American standards), but it’s got a unique charm. You see, Mike Wong’s “identity” blatantly rips off not 1, but 2 major American corporations. Sure, the McDonalds reference is obvious, but check out the squashed Nike swoosh that typography is riding on. Pretty amazing.

Last night’s trip was the first time I noticed the slogan on the carry-out bag:



In case you can’t make it out, that does indeed say “I’m lovin’ it too much.” Above another swoosh, of course.

Oh, Mike Wong; how I’ll miss you.

Return to Bernese Oberland, Part 3: Bern

After our canyoning adventure, Andrew and I decided to make the most of his Swiss Rail Pass and boarded a train to Bern, the country’s capital. I’ve now been living Switzerland for about 21 months and it took me almost that long to get there (not counting the evening I spend in the train station following a concert in Zurich). I’m really glad we went! It was a nice sized city and very active (though perhaps some of that was the fact it was the day after a national holiday so many had probably taken off work). We walked pretty much the whole thing and covered Rick Steves’ suggested city tour. The symbol of Bern is the bear (the name has to be some sort of Germanic remnant meaning the same) so there are bears all over the place.




Bern has several of these medieval fountains around town that are one of the city’s trademarks


Also fairly well-known: this clock, on which at the turn of every hour the characters do pretty much nothing…


The final judgement entryway of the otherwise sparse cathedral




Beautiful stepped hillside by the river






Walking the line between depressing and hilarious (hilariously depressing?), Bern keeps a bear pit by its tourism office. You can buy food to throw down to them and they are so lazy they often don’t bother unless they can catch it without moving.


Me and Bern


bookstore gnome


Swiss parliament


The fountain of an ogre. Yes, those are children he is eating.


scariest mannequin ever


Controversial fountain that is, at the least, interesting


And finally, yes, this was in a store in Bern. Obama ’08! Even Switzerland’s getting into the act!

After a busy afternoon and a bit of window shopping, we hopped on a train back to Geneva in time for dinner and some rest before Andrew’s insanely early 6:00am flight. He managed to pack a lot into the trip and I’m glad I was able to join for at least some of it. Now I just have to find a way to get out to Wyoming to visit him…

Return to Bernese Oberland, Part 2: Canyoning!

On Friday morning Andrew and I went canyoning, which involves traveling through a canyon by climbing, rappelling, jumping, swimming, etc. It just so happened that the day we went was the first time the outdoor adventure company was opening this particular passage of river for the season, so we lucked out. The weather was also much more cooperative than Adam, Julie and my failed attempt at paragliding.

It was quite a fun experience, though not nearly as physically demanding as I may have thought (or hoped). For example, the rappel was controlled entirely by the blayer and not myself. Even so, the various jumps and dives were a blast and we got our money’s worth. I bought the photos afterwards, so here are a few of those:




The crew: me at back left, Andrew front and center


The canyon




This is my "I've done actual rappelling before and this is nothing, so since you're making me take a picture I'm gonna be really enthused about it" face.




Psyching up for a jump


one of our instructors demonstrates the “Superman” dive

Return to Bernese Oberland, Part 1

Schrummy’s trip conveniently coincided with a Swiss holiday and I took an extra day off to join him on a little Swiss travel (Maggie had to head back to Paris midweek). We met up in Interlaken (where I’d recently gone with Adam and Julie) and fortunately had better luck with weather this time around.

We spent Thursday hiking around various alpine villages, starting in Lauterbrunnen and trekking straight up to a little mountain town called Gimmelwald (highly recommended by Rick Steves). The sign told us it would be almost a two-hour hike but we managed in half the time. I guess those signs are for a slightly different demographic of traveler.

From there, we wandered around the little town (which is about as traditionally/stereotypically Swiss as you can get) and over to a slightly bigger ski destination called Mürren where we had some great Rösti (the glorified hashbrown dish I’m sure I’ve mentioned at least once before. After making our way around there, we decided to try and get back down to Lauterbrunnen and found a snow-covered path that was still “closed for winter.” We figured it couldn’t be too bad and lucky for us, a prior visitor had left a pretty good boot path, so we only ended up knee-deep in snow a couple times.

We ultimately made it back to the city and finished our day with an outdoor drink at one of the hotels before returning to Interlaken and our hostel.

Misc:


Interlaken


Interlaken’s flower clock and my best tourist face


Valley between Lauterbrunnen and Stechelberg


Gnomes were everywhere. My theory is that the big one here recently killed the two at bottom right. He appears to be quite excited about it, too.

The Hike Up:










Me, by Andrew

Gimmelwald:








the firehouse; everything in town is made of wood, so during the dry season there’s 24-hour fire watch


example of lots of wood storage







Mürren:




Alps near the Jüngfrau


Andrew makes the rösti look almost as good as in real-life

The Hike Down:


Andrew, by me


Me, by Andrew




Waterfalls a-go-go

More to come.