OK, here is a new post, at last. I'm only here 6 more months, and at this rate, this entire blog will only have about 10 posts, but oh well. I haven't been doing much lately, other than working, working out, cooking, and going grocery shopping. Here are some of the other highlights from the last month:
-Megan O'Grady came to visit for a week back in January. Thats right, the Megans went international. We ate a lot of bread and cheese and jam and, of course, chocolate. We spent one day in Zürich, where the highlight was a contest in the train station that rivaled the Super Bowl. People cut off the tops of their Christmas trees and competed with each other to see who could throw it the farthest. Bizarre, I know, but also entertaining. And it was sponsored by IKEA, the furniture company from that other Sw- country. We also spent one day cross-country skiing in Kandersteg, a little town in the Alps about one hour away. The weather was awesome so we saw mountains galore. It was a good time, although not as exciting or scary as downhill skiing. And pretty darn exhausting. We went with some other ex-pats living in Bern, half from N. America and half from Europe. Later in the week, Andre (my boss) took us out for some tasty fondue in Bern. That stuff is tasty. And fatty. Mmm. The tradition is to drink a glass of cherry brandy with the fondue - both Megans wisely passed.
-You might have seen recently on cnn.com (my only soure of news, I am embarassed to admit) that there was a big global conference in Davos, Switzerland a few weeks ago, attended by Al Gore and Bono (swoon). For the geographically impaired, Bern is the capitol of Switzerland and therefore houses all the government buildings for the country. So, some nutty people decided to protest something or another related to the conference, and there was a mini-riot in Bern. Which means there were 100+ riot police wandering around the train station and town while I was doing my Saturday shopping. I was at home doing laundry during the actual protest, but I saw some footage online that consisted of police outnumbering protesters about 15:1 while everyone else in town stood around and took pictures with their camera phones.
-I patched my first cell pair. Yay! If you don't know what this means, then it means I haven't bored you with my research yet.
-I'm still taking German lessons, but I still see having a full conversation in German as some unattainable goal well off in the future. Maybe I'll be good enough once I leave, but what good will it do me then?
Thats about it for the last couple weeks. As for now, Adam, a post-doc from my Harvard lab, is visiting this week, so I have someone to hang out with. We went to dinner last night in Bern, I had some tasty Rösti, a delicious cheesy potato Swiss dish. Tonight Andre is having us over to his house for dinner, we are having Raclette, another cheesy potato Swiss dish that I have yet to try. Tomorrow Fasnacht starts in Bern, which is a carnival that lasts until Saturday. I think it is similar to Mardi Gras, everybody dresses up in this crazy costumes and theres lots of street music and partying. Me, Adam, and Andre and his wife are going on Friday night, apparently from 10pm-1am. Should be interesting. Saturday me and Adam are probably going to attempt to ski the Alps, but downhill this time. Wish me luck.
As for the future, I am going to become Aunt Megan sometime next week! Unfortunately I won't see my niece/nephew until she/he is 6 months old or so, but such is life. I also bought train tickets to Paris the other day, ooh lala. Mallorie is coming in March and we are going to head to France, because we like it when people are rude to us.
OK, thats all for now. Tschüss!
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Long time, no see
Yes, I am a lazy blogger. But I would like to thank Kelly for her comment motivating me to post - and may it be a sign to the rest of you. More comments = more posts. And also, I started posting some pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/20949982@N05/ I am also a little behind in posting pictures, but that has a lot to do with the crappy internet I have here in Fellergut.
So, the biggest event of the last few weeks was Mike's visit. He was lucky enough to arrive on December 6, which is a big holiday here in Switz called Samichlaustag. Santa Claus (or Samichlaus, as he is called here) doesn't come on Christmas, he comes on December 6. And he doesn't come alone - he travels with this really creepy Grim Reaper-type guy called Schmutzli. Apparently these guys ride around town and hand out goodies to kids, but I didn't go join in the festivities because I had to work. Another odd tradition is everyone eats this sweet bread that is shaped like a man, complete with raisin eyes, called Griiti Baenze. This Samichlaustag dude also hands out mandarins and peanuts, and so these items are traditionally eaten throughout the holiday season, including our twice weekly teas in the lab. In Switz there are 4 types of Christmas cookies, each about 1.5 inches in diameter, that are eaten like crazy this time of year. I think two types are pretty good (cinnamon and chocolate), one is ok (butter), and one is just awful (annis). Anyways, when Mike arrived on this special day, I greeted him with a Griiti Baenze. We gobbled up our bread men before wandering around aimlessly looking for a restaurant. Unfortunately I haven't eaten at a lot of restaurants in Bern, so its still hard for me to find a good one.
Our plan was to head to France for the weekend. When we went to buy train tickets to Marseilles, all the trains were sold out. Bummer. So we decided to try Lyon instead - but all the hostels were sold out there. Double bummer. We said to ourselves at this point "Man, France is lame, who wants to go there anyways," which was also supplemented by my advisor telling me that Marseilles has no culture and you will only be robbed there. Thus, we spent our weekend in safe little Switzerland. On Friday, I worked in lab, where Mike met me for lunch. He stuck around for the few hours between lunch and tea and watched me patch clamp some mice cells. I'm sure he can attest that this was the most exciting portion of his visit and it should inspire each of you to come visit. After the tea we checked out Mr. Pickwick's, a bar in Bern that I have heard good things about. We had a beer or two and then mozied over to another less-good bar where we were captivated by curling on TV before heading home.
Saturday we went to Geneva, which is about 1 hour and 40 minutes from Bern on the border between western Switzerland and France. Obviously, Geneva is in the French part of Switz, so I had to switch from not understanding any of the German signs to not understanding any of the French signs. Geneva felt kinda like a ghost town. Its a pretty big city (by Swiss standards) with lots of big buildings, but not a whole lot of people. I think because of the UN, WHO, and all these other important international organization thingys, Geneva has a lot of really nice 5-star hotels that probably fill up for meetings and whatnot, but when theres nothing going on, it feels pretty empty. The biggest attraction is the Jet d'eau. Geneva is on a big lake (but its not called Lake Geneva!) and in the little harbor the Jet d'eau shoots water way up high in the air. We took some ridiculous pictures with the fountain, and then made our way to the Old Town. As in pretty much every city in Europe, Geneva has a normal city part and a medeival Old Town part. On the way to Old Town, we passed some big shopping streets, but only went into a toy store. We wandered around the big church in town, and then had some way overly priced and underly tasty fondue. It was the first time I've had fondue here in Switz, and probably the last. In general, the food is pretty good (hello chocolate), but I was not impressed with the fondue. After the cheese, we wandered over to the Botanical Gardens, but with it being December and all, there wasn't much to see aside from a little green house, a few goats, and a couple peacocks on the sidewalk. We wanted to tour the UN, but it was closed. Lame. We headed back to Old Town, where they were having some sort of historical re-enactment of the defense of Geneva when some other dudes wanted to take over the city in the 1600s. We marched behind some drummers and fifers to the big church, where we got some vin chaud (hot wine with some brandy and spices - another big Swiss holiday tradition) before following everyone else into the church. Before we knew it, we were sitting in a French church service, but we managed to sneak out before the sermon. We then saw some musket firing and followed another parade - this one with horses, so watch your step. At this point, we had our fill of Geneva, and caught the train back to Bern.
Sunday we traveled up to Basel - about 50 minutes from Bern, on the border between northern Switzerland and Germany. Basel is of course in the German part of Switz. I originally did not want to go to Basel, because I had changed trains there before and my impression from the train station was that it is industrial and ugly. Well, don't judge a city by its bahnhof - I really liked Basel and its probably one of my favorite cities I've been to thus far in Europe. We walked from the bahnhof to town, stopping at a church that had a really huge Christmas market. We then tried to make our way to the Tinguely Fountain, accidentally getting lost along the way and stumbling upon this huge wall next to a church that had been graffitied by some local artist with hilarious little comic pictures, most of which were taking jabs at America. We found the fountain, which was pretty sweet. There was some famous iron worker named Tinguely in Basel, and he made this fountain of little guys that have all these cool gadgets and wheels and squirty things. We then wandered around town some more, stopping at an old church and the Rathaus (town hall) - a really pretty, big red building that had a big Christmas tree inside (hooray!). We hunted down a place for lunch, again failing to find Aelplermagronen, a Swiss variety of mac and cheese with onions, potatoes, and other types of stuff thrown in. I had it in Lucerne this summer and it was my favorite thing in Switzerland, but we could never find it. Instead we settled for Roesti, another traditional Swiss dish consisting of hash brown-ish potatoes and cheese fried together into a big patty. Delicious. After lunch, we headed to the Muenster, which is the big cathedral in town. Of course, half of it was being renovated, because thats how everything is in Europe. We then walked around town some more, stopping by some other towers and monuments in Basel. The town of Basel is super cute. We crossed over a bridge, unsuccessfully finding some statue of a king's head that squirts water out of its mouth. We made a quick pit spot at a jungle gym before catching a ferry ride back across the river. The ferry is famous in Basel because it doesn't have a motor - it travels from one side of the river to the other powered only by the current of the river. We spent the entire ride trying to figure out how it worked, but we're still somewhat perplexed. There is a pully system in the front of the boat attached to a cable, and a big rutter in the back that some dude navigates with. On the other side of the river, we walked around some really old area of Basel, which even had a moat (which is now dry). We also found a super old church and then walked back to the main part of town. At this point it was dark, and all the Christmas lights in the shopping town were really pretty. We did the European thing and stopped for some coffee, and then caught our train back to Bern.
Phew. So, the next day (Monday) I headed to lab during the day. That evening was our department's Christmas apero (apero = party with light food and booze) at the Cinematte, a half bar/half movie theater that is down on the river in Bern. The plan for the evening was eat and drink 6-8, watch Chocolat from 8-10, and drink some more from 10-12. I was under the impression that the food would be equivalent to dinner, but I was mistaken, and being vegetarian severely limited what I could eat as well. So, I ended up drinking a lot of wine and only eating a few veggies - not a good combination. I was pretty tipsy by movie time, and none of the other people our age wanted to watch the movie anyways. Me and Mike sat in the movie with this Swiss girl I work with (Helen) and her Swiss boyfriend Mark. Mike and Mark managed to sneak out after about 10 minutes into the movie, and me and Helen followed about 20 minutes later to continue drinking and socializing at the bar. Mike was chatting with this French guy from another lab I've seen around, and man that guy is hilarious. Oddly enough, his wife lives in Urbana-Champaign, IL, so he had some interesting words to say about the US. He asked me and Mike why we were American - to which we responded "Because that's where we were born." There are also two other French guys in the department, one of which (Thomas) has been training me. For some reason, he started calling me Meggie in this really goofy, high-pitched voice. He also makes this funny pffff noise a lot, for example, "I don't know pfff." Mike fell in love with the "pfff" and developed a slight man-crush on Thomas. We stuck around the bar for another hour or so, hanging out with the tipsy Europeans. The last train back to where I live leaves around 11:30 from Bern, so we decided it was going to be a taxi night and stayed out later. At midnight, the bar closed, and we had the choice of splitting a cab home with the Swiss couple or going out some more with the Frenchies; we decided to stay out with the Frenchies. The original plan was to go to a bar, but instead we started walking to one of the Frenchy's apartments. It was a pretty long walk (almost an hour, although my sense of time at this point was pretty distorted). We made a stop for some kebop, which is like a gyro and is really popular here in Switz, and is apparently the late night drunk snack as well. Anyways, we finally made it to the Frenchy's apartment, which is close to my lab so I at least had some idea where we were. He pulled out some vodka, which I refused because I know better than to start taking shots of vodka at 1:30 AM. We hung out there for another hour or so, listening to one Frenchy say how he was going to sleep with the other Frenchy's girlfriend (although he used a more vulgar word) and the other Frenchy repeatedly defending his heterosexuality by saying "but I'm not gay" every 5 minutes. Around 2:30 or 3 (I think), we left and headed towards the bahnhof to catch a cab home.
I tried to get up around 8 the next day to head into lab, but when I tried to sit up, it felt like a power tool was drilling into my brain. Ouch. I took some ibuprofen and forced down some water and crackers before falling back asleep. An hour or so later, I woke up feeling much better, and managed to shower and get ready for lab. I got into lab around 11, and at 1 we had another apero in lab because it was Thomas's (the pffff-er) last day. Mike came by lab for the apero, and we gorged ourselves on bread and cheese, but stayed away from the wine for obvious reasons. I stayed in lab the rest of the day, then me and Mike found some Aelplermagronen for dinner, which was definitely not as good as the one I had in Lucerne. I had my German class that night, so Mike pretended he lived in Bern and wanted his free trial lesson so that he could sit in class with me. After German, we met up with the Frenchies at Mr. Pickwick's. We only stayed for about an hour, being pretty exhausted from the night before. Mike went off the Italy the next morning, and I spent the rest of the week trying to recover some sleep after all our adventures traveling and partying.
I haven't been doing much else here in Bern. Last Saturday, I went to Zurich to do some Christmas shopping and see the city with all its Christmas lights up. It was really pretty, Zurich is awesome. Part of the city (Bahnhofstrasse) felt like 5th avenue in New York - lots of big department stores and very crowded with people. Most of Zurich is Old Town-y, with little shops built on top of each other all over the place on these crooked little streets. Very cute. I did a lot of shopping for my family, and stopped for some ice cream. For some reason, I cannot find any quick places to get ice cream here in Bern, so I indulged myself in Zurich. I'm sure most of you are aware of my addiction to ice cream, so this alone made my day.
I did a google search for American meetup groups in Bern, and I found an ex-pat group that I then joined. The girl who organizes it is from Rhode Island, so I thought it seemed promising. Earlier this week, we met up for Gluhwein (same as vin chaud - hot red wine with brandy and spices) that they sell in the big Bern Weihnachtsmarkt(Christmas market). There were only 4 of us - the girl from RI, a German girl, and a Spanish girl. It was a good amount of people though, I can talk to people in small groups pretty easily. We stood outside drinking a couple cups of Gluhwein for a couple hours until our toes were completely frozen, at which point we went to the RI girl's apartment. I hung out there for an hour or so before heading home. It was nice - I like them a lot and I would enjoy hanging out with them again. Hooray friends!
This week in lab was really boring. My advisor is in Russia on some "expedition" below the Arctic Circle. No one really wanted to work this week, so none of the techs killed any baby mice or rats, which meant no cells for me, and thus no experiments. Most of the people on my floor have already left for Christmas, except me and a guy from India who is not going home. So, things have been pretty quiet and lonely around here. But I am flying back to the US tomorrow! My flight leaves Zurich at 9:40 AM, so I am probably going to leave my dorm at 6 to catch the train from Buempliz Nord to Bern, then take the train from Bern to Zurich from 6:30-7:30, hang out at the airport for a couple hours, fly 11 hours to Atlanta, hang out there for a couple hours, fly a couple hours to Miami, meet up with my parents, and then drive a couple hours to Marco Island. I think its about 20 hours of travel time. We are going to Florida this year because we now have a condo that use to belong to my grandparents and now belongs to my parents and aunt and uncle. My sister lives nearby and my cousin is coming down with her two sons, so it should be a nice Christmas. After 5 days in Florida, I am heading to St. Louis for a week for New Years and whatnot. I am looking forward to seeing everyone and being able to understand everything!! Hopefully I won't forget too much German while I'm away, not that I know that much to begin with.
OK, so thats all for now. Hope you made it to the end. Enjoy your holidays, and if you are going to be in St. Louis from Dec 29-Jan 5, then we should hang out. I spent 115 Francs (about $100) on chocolate yesterday to bring back to the US, so that should give you extra motivation to want to see me :)
So, the biggest event of the last few weeks was Mike's visit. He was lucky enough to arrive on December 6, which is a big holiday here in Switz called Samichlaustag. Santa Claus (or Samichlaus, as he is called here) doesn't come on Christmas, he comes on December 6. And he doesn't come alone - he travels with this really creepy Grim Reaper-type guy called Schmutzli. Apparently these guys ride around town and hand out goodies to kids, but I didn't go join in the festivities because I had to work. Another odd tradition is everyone eats this sweet bread that is shaped like a man, complete with raisin eyes, called Griiti Baenze. This Samichlaustag dude also hands out mandarins and peanuts, and so these items are traditionally eaten throughout the holiday season, including our twice weekly teas in the lab. In Switz there are 4 types of Christmas cookies, each about 1.5 inches in diameter, that are eaten like crazy this time of year. I think two types are pretty good (cinnamon and chocolate), one is ok (butter), and one is just awful (annis). Anyways, when Mike arrived on this special day, I greeted him with a Griiti Baenze. We gobbled up our bread men before wandering around aimlessly looking for a restaurant. Unfortunately I haven't eaten at a lot of restaurants in Bern, so its still hard for me to find a good one.
Our plan was to head to France for the weekend. When we went to buy train tickets to Marseilles, all the trains were sold out. Bummer. So we decided to try Lyon instead - but all the hostels were sold out there. Double bummer. We said to ourselves at this point "Man, France is lame, who wants to go there anyways," which was also supplemented by my advisor telling me that Marseilles has no culture and you will only be robbed there. Thus, we spent our weekend in safe little Switzerland. On Friday, I worked in lab, where Mike met me for lunch. He stuck around for the few hours between lunch and tea and watched me patch clamp some mice cells. I'm sure he can attest that this was the most exciting portion of his visit and it should inspire each of you to come visit. After the tea we checked out Mr. Pickwick's, a bar in Bern that I have heard good things about. We had a beer or two and then mozied over to another less-good bar where we were captivated by curling on TV before heading home.
Saturday we went to Geneva, which is about 1 hour and 40 minutes from Bern on the border between western Switzerland and France. Obviously, Geneva is in the French part of Switz, so I had to switch from not understanding any of the German signs to not understanding any of the French signs. Geneva felt kinda like a ghost town. Its a pretty big city (by Swiss standards) with lots of big buildings, but not a whole lot of people. I think because of the UN, WHO, and all these other important international organization thingys, Geneva has a lot of really nice 5-star hotels that probably fill up for meetings and whatnot, but when theres nothing going on, it feels pretty empty. The biggest attraction is the Jet d'eau. Geneva is on a big lake (but its not called Lake Geneva!) and in the little harbor the Jet d'eau shoots water way up high in the air. We took some ridiculous pictures with the fountain, and then made our way to the Old Town. As in pretty much every city in Europe, Geneva has a normal city part and a medeival Old Town part. On the way to Old Town, we passed some big shopping streets, but only went into a toy store. We wandered around the big church in town, and then had some way overly priced and underly tasty fondue. It was the first time I've had fondue here in Switz, and probably the last. In general, the food is pretty good (hello chocolate), but I was not impressed with the fondue. After the cheese, we wandered over to the Botanical Gardens, but with it being December and all, there wasn't much to see aside from a little green house, a few goats, and a couple peacocks on the sidewalk. We wanted to tour the UN, but it was closed. Lame. We headed back to Old Town, where they were having some sort of historical re-enactment of the defense of Geneva when some other dudes wanted to take over the city in the 1600s. We marched behind some drummers and fifers to the big church, where we got some vin chaud (hot wine with some brandy and spices - another big Swiss holiday tradition) before following everyone else into the church. Before we knew it, we were sitting in a French church service, but we managed to sneak out before the sermon. We then saw some musket firing and followed another parade - this one with horses, so watch your step. At this point, we had our fill of Geneva, and caught the train back to Bern.
Sunday we traveled up to Basel - about 50 minutes from Bern, on the border between northern Switzerland and Germany. Basel is of course in the German part of Switz. I originally did not want to go to Basel, because I had changed trains there before and my impression from the train station was that it is industrial and ugly. Well, don't judge a city by its bahnhof - I really liked Basel and its probably one of my favorite cities I've been to thus far in Europe. We walked from the bahnhof to town, stopping at a church that had a really huge Christmas market. We then tried to make our way to the Tinguely Fountain, accidentally getting lost along the way and stumbling upon this huge wall next to a church that had been graffitied by some local artist with hilarious little comic pictures, most of which were taking jabs at America. We found the fountain, which was pretty sweet. There was some famous iron worker named Tinguely in Basel, and he made this fountain of little guys that have all these cool gadgets and wheels and squirty things. We then wandered around town some more, stopping at an old church and the Rathaus (town hall) - a really pretty, big red building that had a big Christmas tree inside (hooray!). We hunted down a place for lunch, again failing to find Aelplermagronen, a Swiss variety of mac and cheese with onions, potatoes, and other types of stuff thrown in. I had it in Lucerne this summer and it was my favorite thing in Switzerland, but we could never find it. Instead we settled for Roesti, another traditional Swiss dish consisting of hash brown-ish potatoes and cheese fried together into a big patty. Delicious. After lunch, we headed to the Muenster, which is the big cathedral in town. Of course, half of it was being renovated, because thats how everything is in Europe. We then walked around town some more, stopping by some other towers and monuments in Basel. The town of Basel is super cute. We crossed over a bridge, unsuccessfully finding some statue of a king's head that squirts water out of its mouth. We made a quick pit spot at a jungle gym before catching a ferry ride back across the river. The ferry is famous in Basel because it doesn't have a motor - it travels from one side of the river to the other powered only by the current of the river. We spent the entire ride trying to figure out how it worked, but we're still somewhat perplexed. There is a pully system in the front of the boat attached to a cable, and a big rutter in the back that some dude navigates with. On the other side of the river, we walked around some really old area of Basel, which even had a moat (which is now dry). We also found a super old church and then walked back to the main part of town. At this point it was dark, and all the Christmas lights in the shopping town were really pretty. We did the European thing and stopped for some coffee, and then caught our train back to Bern.
Phew. So, the next day (Monday) I headed to lab during the day. That evening was our department's Christmas apero (apero = party with light food and booze) at the Cinematte, a half bar/half movie theater that is down on the river in Bern. The plan for the evening was eat and drink 6-8, watch Chocolat from 8-10, and drink some more from 10-12. I was under the impression that the food would be equivalent to dinner, but I was mistaken, and being vegetarian severely limited what I could eat as well. So, I ended up drinking a lot of wine and only eating a few veggies - not a good combination. I was pretty tipsy by movie time, and none of the other people our age wanted to watch the movie anyways. Me and Mike sat in the movie with this Swiss girl I work with (Helen) and her Swiss boyfriend Mark. Mike and Mark managed to sneak out after about 10 minutes into the movie, and me and Helen followed about 20 minutes later to continue drinking and socializing at the bar. Mike was chatting with this French guy from another lab I've seen around, and man that guy is hilarious. Oddly enough, his wife lives in Urbana-Champaign, IL, so he had some interesting words to say about the US. He asked me and Mike why we were American - to which we responded "Because that's where we were born." There are also two other French guys in the department, one of which (Thomas) has been training me. For some reason, he started calling me Meggie in this really goofy, high-pitched voice. He also makes this funny pffff noise a lot, for example, "I don't know pfff." Mike fell in love with the "pfff" and developed a slight man-crush on Thomas. We stuck around the bar for another hour or so, hanging out with the tipsy Europeans. The last train back to where I live leaves around 11:30 from Bern, so we decided it was going to be a taxi night and stayed out later. At midnight, the bar closed, and we had the choice of splitting a cab home with the Swiss couple or going out some more with the Frenchies; we decided to stay out with the Frenchies. The original plan was to go to a bar, but instead we started walking to one of the Frenchy's apartments. It was a pretty long walk (almost an hour, although my sense of time at this point was pretty distorted). We made a stop for some kebop, which is like a gyro and is really popular here in Switz, and is apparently the late night drunk snack as well. Anyways, we finally made it to the Frenchy's apartment, which is close to my lab so I at least had some idea where we were. He pulled out some vodka, which I refused because I know better than to start taking shots of vodka at 1:30 AM. We hung out there for another hour or so, listening to one Frenchy say how he was going to sleep with the other Frenchy's girlfriend (although he used a more vulgar word) and the other Frenchy repeatedly defending his heterosexuality by saying "but I'm not gay" every 5 minutes. Around 2:30 or 3 (I think), we left and headed towards the bahnhof to catch a cab home.
I tried to get up around 8 the next day to head into lab, but when I tried to sit up, it felt like a power tool was drilling into my brain. Ouch. I took some ibuprofen and forced down some water and crackers before falling back asleep. An hour or so later, I woke up feeling much better, and managed to shower and get ready for lab. I got into lab around 11, and at 1 we had another apero in lab because it was Thomas's (the pffff-er) last day. Mike came by lab for the apero, and we gorged ourselves on bread and cheese, but stayed away from the wine for obvious reasons. I stayed in lab the rest of the day, then me and Mike found some Aelplermagronen for dinner, which was definitely not as good as the one I had in Lucerne. I had my German class that night, so Mike pretended he lived in Bern and wanted his free trial lesson so that he could sit in class with me. After German, we met up with the Frenchies at Mr. Pickwick's. We only stayed for about an hour, being pretty exhausted from the night before. Mike went off the Italy the next morning, and I spent the rest of the week trying to recover some sleep after all our adventures traveling and partying.
I haven't been doing much else here in Bern. Last Saturday, I went to Zurich to do some Christmas shopping and see the city with all its Christmas lights up. It was really pretty, Zurich is awesome. Part of the city (Bahnhofstrasse) felt like 5th avenue in New York - lots of big department stores and very crowded with people. Most of Zurich is Old Town-y, with little shops built on top of each other all over the place on these crooked little streets. Very cute. I did a lot of shopping for my family, and stopped for some ice cream. For some reason, I cannot find any quick places to get ice cream here in Bern, so I indulged myself in Zurich. I'm sure most of you are aware of my addiction to ice cream, so this alone made my day.
I did a google search for American meetup groups in Bern, and I found an ex-pat group that I then joined. The girl who organizes it is from Rhode Island, so I thought it seemed promising. Earlier this week, we met up for Gluhwein (same as vin chaud - hot red wine with brandy and spices) that they sell in the big Bern Weihnachtsmarkt(Christmas market). There were only 4 of us - the girl from RI, a German girl, and a Spanish girl. It was a good amount of people though, I can talk to people in small groups pretty easily. We stood outside drinking a couple cups of Gluhwein for a couple hours until our toes were completely frozen, at which point we went to the RI girl's apartment. I hung out there for an hour or so before heading home. It was nice - I like them a lot and I would enjoy hanging out with them again. Hooray friends!
This week in lab was really boring. My advisor is in Russia on some "expedition" below the Arctic Circle. No one really wanted to work this week, so none of the techs killed any baby mice or rats, which meant no cells for me, and thus no experiments. Most of the people on my floor have already left for Christmas, except me and a guy from India who is not going home. So, things have been pretty quiet and lonely around here. But I am flying back to the US tomorrow! My flight leaves Zurich at 9:40 AM, so I am probably going to leave my dorm at 6 to catch the train from Buempliz Nord to Bern, then take the train from Bern to Zurich from 6:30-7:30, hang out at the airport for a couple hours, fly 11 hours to Atlanta, hang out there for a couple hours, fly a couple hours to Miami, meet up with my parents, and then drive a couple hours to Marco Island. I think its about 20 hours of travel time. We are going to Florida this year because we now have a condo that use to belong to my grandparents and now belongs to my parents and aunt and uncle. My sister lives nearby and my cousin is coming down with her two sons, so it should be a nice Christmas. After 5 days in Florida, I am heading to St. Louis for a week for New Years and whatnot. I am looking forward to seeing everyone and being able to understand everything!! Hopefully I won't forget too much German while I'm away, not that I know that much to begin with.
OK, so thats all for now. Hope you made it to the end. Enjoy your holidays, and if you are going to be in St. Louis from Dec 29-Jan 5, then we should hang out. I spent 115 Francs (about $100) on chocolate yesterday to bring back to the US, so that should give you extra motivation to want to see me :)
Sunday, December 2, 2007
Museums, Meat, and Onions
It has been awhile since I wrote here, but I'm not sure anyone even reads it because there are usually no comments, so I don't know if it matters or not :)
Anyways, the past two weeks haven't been too exciting. I have been working in lab a lot, which has been pretty good. I am learning a lot and also contributing to the lab here. I started German lessons, which I really like. Unfortunately, Swiss German sounds pretty different than High German, so I think lessons might be less helpful than I think. I also joined a gym, so I have been going there after lab. It is not much different than American gyms, its just smaller, which is fine because its never that busy. The only problem is all the machines are in German so I don't really know how to program them. And all the trainers have really sweet faux hawks.
Last Monday was the Zibelemärit (onion market) in Bern. I guess it is their big event of the year - a whole festival devoted to the onion. It started at 5 AM, but I didn't show up until around 5 PM. The city of Bern was crowded with booths selling onions and onion pie, onion quiche, onion soup, etc. It is tradition for kids to throw confetti at you. They are pretty violent about it - several kids went right up to me and pelted me. The annoying thing was that teenagers would throw it in your face. Little jerks. It is also tradition to bonk people on the head with plastic hammers. While waiting in line to get some delicious garlic bread, I got bonked in the head about 5 times. I also got some fried apple slices, but then I felt nauseous the rest of the night. It was a very strange evening.
I also went to the Zentrum Paul Klee last weekend. It is a new-ish art museum devoted to Paul Klee, a Swiss artist that they are very big on here. The building was really neat (pictures to come). I stopped by the bear pits on my way home to watch a couple chubby brown bears sit on their bums and catch food that was thrown at their mouths. Quite an eventful day.
Yesterday I went to a university event with my advisor. I still don't quite understand what it was, but there were a bunch of old professors there getting some awards. The entire thing was in German. I think I would have been bored even if it was in English, so being in German made it even worse. There was some nice music during the breaks, at least. Andre showed me the meat market in Bern - it was kinda gross, a vegetarian's nightmare. They had entire skinned animals hanging inside booths, and plucked pheasants that still had their long feathery tails attached. Andre took me to a nice lunch afterwards at a really good Swiss restaurant. I have decided that Swiss food is quite tasty, but its mainly cheese and potatoes, so its hard to mess that up. Andre also took me to see the child eater fountain in Bern - its pretty funny (here's a picture http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1161/538662148_6a2a021336.jpg). I guess there used to be a guy in Bern who ate children and they decided to dedicate a fountain to him. The Swiss are so weird. Anyways, that ended my date with Andre.
Tomorrow it is back to the lab. I have the pleasure of welcoming Mike Roy as a guest on Thursday. We are planning to go to the south of France over the weekend, should be fun. Then he is hanging around in Bern with me for the rest of the week, mainly to cook and subsequently eat vegetables. Hooray!
Anyways, the past two weeks haven't been too exciting. I have been working in lab a lot, which has been pretty good. I am learning a lot and also contributing to the lab here. I started German lessons, which I really like. Unfortunately, Swiss German sounds pretty different than High German, so I think lessons might be less helpful than I think. I also joined a gym, so I have been going there after lab. It is not much different than American gyms, its just smaller, which is fine because its never that busy. The only problem is all the machines are in German so I don't really know how to program them. And all the trainers have really sweet faux hawks.
Last Monday was the Zibelemärit (onion market) in Bern. I guess it is their big event of the year - a whole festival devoted to the onion. It started at 5 AM, but I didn't show up until around 5 PM. The city of Bern was crowded with booths selling onions and onion pie, onion quiche, onion soup, etc. It is tradition for kids to throw confetti at you. They are pretty violent about it - several kids went right up to me and pelted me. The annoying thing was that teenagers would throw it in your face. Little jerks. It is also tradition to bonk people on the head with plastic hammers. While waiting in line to get some delicious garlic bread, I got bonked in the head about 5 times. I also got some fried apple slices, but then I felt nauseous the rest of the night. It was a very strange evening.
I also went to the Zentrum Paul Klee last weekend. It is a new-ish art museum devoted to Paul Klee, a Swiss artist that they are very big on here. The building was really neat (pictures to come). I stopped by the bear pits on my way home to watch a couple chubby brown bears sit on their bums and catch food that was thrown at their mouths. Quite an eventful day.
Yesterday I went to a university event with my advisor. I still don't quite understand what it was, but there were a bunch of old professors there getting some awards. The entire thing was in German. I think I would have been bored even if it was in English, so being in German made it even worse. There was some nice music during the breaks, at least. Andre showed me the meat market in Bern - it was kinda gross, a vegetarian's nightmare. They had entire skinned animals hanging inside booths, and plucked pheasants that still had their long feathery tails attached. Andre took me to a nice lunch afterwards at a really good Swiss restaurant. I have decided that Swiss food is quite tasty, but its mainly cheese and potatoes, so its hard to mess that up. Andre also took me to see the child eater fountain in Bern - its pretty funny (here's a picture http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1161/538662148_6a2a021336.jpg). I guess there used to be a guy in Bern who ate children and they decided to dedicate a fountain to him. The Swiss are so weird. Anyways, that ended my date with Andre.
Tomorrow it is back to the lab. I have the pleasure of welcoming Mike Roy as a guest on Thursday. We are planning to go to the south of France over the weekend, should be fun. Then he is hanging around in Bern with me for the rest of the week, mainly to cook and subsequently eat vegetables. Hooray!
Sunday, November 18, 2007
mein Wochenende
It is now Sunday night, which means I have wrapped up my first weekend here in Bern. Saturday I went into town to shop because that is what everyone does on Saturday since the shops are closed on Sunday. There is also a big outdoor market, so downtown is very crowded. I found a big arts and crafts store, which made me happy, and I bought a memory card reader so that I can finally upload some photos (still working on that). I also found a movie theater in town. It only has one screen, but it is pretty big. The movie was expensive (16 Francs! Over $14), and you had to pay one extra Franc to have stadium seating. My ticket had a reserved seat number (odd), and then halfway through, they stopped the movie, showed a commercial for ice cream, and half the audience got up to buy ice cream before starting the movie again! The Swiss are weird. But, I got to see American Gangster in English, and the German and French subtitles were good for learning. For example, I now know the word for "gun" in German is Waffe.
Sunday, I did laundry in the morning. The washers here use very little water, so it takes at least one hour to wash one load of clothes, not including the dryer. Luckily, everything turned out OK, and hopefully my clothes are as clean as I believe they are. I didn't quite understand the diagram for loading the soap, but the little drawer was empty when I finished, so that leads me to believe I did it correctly.
The weather was very nice (chilly, but not a cloud in the sky), so I thought I would check out the small mountain in Bern (Gurten). I had to take the train into town, walk to a tram stop, take the tram to the bottom of the mountain, and then take a vernicular railway up to the top. I didn't think there would be many people there, but actually everyone in town with a child under the age of 12 was at that mountain today. Everyone was bringing sleds up to the top, even though there was only a couple inches of snow. At first, I saw a nice view of Bern from the top of the mountain. I followed everyone else to a spot where there was an incredible view of the mountains, especially because the weather was so clear. I took lots of pictures and will post them soon (I promise). Besides all the little kiddies sledding, there was also an awesome playground with snow-covered slides to sled down, and hills with mini-jumps to take the sleds over. It made me wish I grew up in Bern. I also found a tower with a spiral staircase that went up 4-5 floors (and definitely swayed in the wind at the top). It also had some awesome views. There were lots of little trails to explore, but I decided to save them for when people come to visit, and when I have on my snowboots and not tennis shoes.
Other than that, I started working in lab last week. It has been pretty boring so far, since I have just been watching a post-doc do his experiments. Hopefully this week I will be able to do some of my own. I have a whole room to myself, with a patch clamp setup and a brand new computer. Pretty nice.
I am starting German lessons on Tuesday night - luckily the University pays for international students to take language classes. I think I will be much happier when I know the language better. Right now I feel like a total alien, and it will be nice to not have to embarrass myself anymore by asking everyone to speak English.
I also found (via Facebook) some Americans in my dorm who are celebrating Thanksgiving on Thursday and I asked to join in. I couldn't possibly miss a holiday based around sweet potatoes and green bean casserole. Hopefully I will also meet new people and maybe even make some friends!
Sunday, I did laundry in the morning. The washers here use very little water, so it takes at least one hour to wash one load of clothes, not including the dryer. Luckily, everything turned out OK, and hopefully my clothes are as clean as I believe they are. I didn't quite understand the diagram for loading the soap, but the little drawer was empty when I finished, so that leads me to believe I did it correctly.
The weather was very nice (chilly, but not a cloud in the sky), so I thought I would check out the small mountain in Bern (Gurten). I had to take the train into town, walk to a tram stop, take the tram to the bottom of the mountain, and then take a vernicular railway up to the top. I didn't think there would be many people there, but actually everyone in town with a child under the age of 12 was at that mountain today. Everyone was bringing sleds up to the top, even though there was only a couple inches of snow. At first, I saw a nice view of Bern from the top of the mountain. I followed everyone else to a spot where there was an incredible view of the mountains, especially because the weather was so clear. I took lots of pictures and will post them soon (I promise). Besides all the little kiddies sledding, there was also an awesome playground with snow-covered slides to sled down, and hills with mini-jumps to take the sleds over. It made me wish I grew up in Bern. I also found a tower with a spiral staircase that went up 4-5 floors (and definitely swayed in the wind at the top). It also had some awesome views. There were lots of little trails to explore, but I decided to save them for when people come to visit, and when I have on my snowboots and not tennis shoes.
Other than that, I started working in lab last week. It has been pretty boring so far, since I have just been watching a post-doc do his experiments. Hopefully this week I will be able to do some of my own. I have a whole room to myself, with a patch clamp setup and a brand new computer. Pretty nice.
I am starting German lessons on Tuesday night - luckily the University pays for international students to take language classes. I think I will be much happier when I know the language better. Right now I feel like a total alien, and it will be nice to not have to embarrass myself anymore by asking everyone to speak English.
I also found (via Facebook) some Americans in my dorm who are celebrating Thanksgiving on Thursday and I asked to join in. I couldn't possibly miss a holiday based around sweet potatoes and green bean casserole. Hopefully I will also meet new people and maybe even make some friends!
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Italia!
OK, so since this is going to be pretty long, I think I will break it up into each day of my trip, isn't that what bloggers do?
Day 1 (Thursday): This day is not very exciting, because all we did was sit in the car during the 10 hour drive from Bern to Rome. The only thing worth mentioning is that driving through the Swiss Alps is totally awesome. Very "majestic." For half the time we were driving right beneath these massive mountains, and the other half the time we were inside tunnels, including the Gotthard Pass, which is 17 km long. After getting through the Alps, driving in Italy is insane. People drive really really fast, and if you are in the left lane, they will come up right behind your car and flash their lights at you to get out of their way. Driving in Rome was not much better, the roads are even worse than those in Boston. Luckily my dad got the Europe maps added to his GPS, or else we probably never would have made it. When we got to Rome, we checked into our hotel, and found a little Italian place nearby for dinner. The food was good and the restaurant was luckily not touristy, but my mom knocked a full glass of red wine onto the white tablecloth and all over herself. Oh Joyce.
Day 2 (Friday): The day of the Vatican. This morning we waited in line for about an hour to get into the Vatican museums (and its not even tourist season), but it was worth it. Most of the museum collection is Roman and Renaissance art, but there was also some cool Egyptian stuff. There were entire rooms painted and decorated from the Renaissance, and of course the culmination was the Sistine Chapel at the end. Unfortunately, by the time you get there you've been looking at art for several hours, so it maybe doesn't seem as impressive. But it was still good to see, and one of those mandatory things to do in Rome. After the Vatican museums, we went to St. Peter's basilica, which is incredible. It is very impressive from the outside alone, but the inside is ridiculous. The church is huuuge and every wall and ceiling and column is extravagantly decorated. We also went into the crypt and saw the tombs of all the dead popes. The hardcore Catholics were sitting and crying in front of John Paul II's grave (Jeff, you should feel guilty). The tombs of all the popes were, of course, extravagant. After it got dark, we wandered over to the Tiber River and crossed a really pretty bridge into Rome before going back to the hotel.
Day 3 (Saturday): We spent today in Rome. Rome is a massive city, and we spent the whole day on our feet. We started the morning at the Colosseum (another mandatory Rome tourist spot, and we had a mandatory cheesy tour guide), which was OK. A lot of the marble in the Colosseum was pillaged to build St. Peter's, and the popes felt guilty about it later and rebuilt part of it with bricks. Totally lame. I did get a picture with a gladiator, though. We also walked quickly through some Roman ruins, but my dad thought they were boring, so we didn't waste a lot of time there. Next we walked through all the normal tourist spots: Trevi fountain, Spanish steps, Pantheon. The Trevi fountain was completely swarmed with tourists and all these really annoying guys trying to sell a bunch of crap that no one wanted. We went back to the Trevi fountain at night (because everything is better at night), and while my dad was taking a picture of me, a guy came up with roses and literally forced me to take one. We didn't want to pay him a euro, but he also refused to take the rose back, so we gave him 80 cents. Really annoying and rude. We also walked through the really expensive shopping area, but its not much different than Newbury Street, just a little extra snobby. The Pantheon was cooler than I thought it would be, its a huge ancient Roman building than is not in ruins but actually preserved. We went to a little mom and pop restaurant for dinner, which was deliciouso. We walked back to St. Peter's to see it at night again (because it was my dad's favorite) and there were these crazy flocks of birds when we crossed the bridge. I have never seen so many birds - there were several huge flocks that would follow the wind. It was actually really cool to see, until one of them pooped on my dad's hand. Then we had to leave.
Day 4 (Sunday): We woke up early this morning and drove from Rome to Florence. It was another beautiful drive - Tuscany looks just like it does in all the pictures (imagine that). After getting to the hotel, we went to the Uffizi art museum, which is the home to tons of Renaissance art. The building itself is really gorgeous, and the art collection is massive. My dad got really into it - we bought the tour book and he read the descriptions out loud to me and my mom. We walked around Florence at night and ate dinner at the place our cab drive recommended. Florence is quintessential Italy, but there are so many tourists, its hard to even believe its real. Sometimes it felt like Disneyworld.
Day 5 (Monday): We spent today walking around Florence. Of course, we went to the famous Duomo, which looks like "cardboard," as my dad says, because it is so perfect and flat. It is made out of white, pink, and green marble, so it has a very different look than traditional cathedrals. I was not impressed by the inside, but that might be because I was at St. Peter's three days before. We then walked across the Poncho Vecchio, which is a bridge with all these little stores hanging off the edges, held up by wooden posts. Unfortunately, all the stores are really expensive jewelry stores, so we were not allowed into any of them. Apparently a long time ago there were all types of stores, but the butchers smelled so bad, that the city only allowed goldsmiths to be on the bridge. We walked to the Boboli Gardens next, which was the best thing we did in Florence. The gardens were not crowded at all (which was a nice break) and it was good to see some green after being in cities all week. We walked up a bunch of hills to get to the top of the gardens, and the view was unbelievable. On one side, we saw a beautiful view of the Tuscan countryside, and on the other side we could see all of Florence. Awesome. We then went to another church (that I cannot remember the name) that has the tombs of Michaelagelo, Galileo, Rossini, Machiavelli, and some other important Italian dudes. Again, crazy extravagant Renaissance church and tombs. Randomly there was a leather school attached to the church, so we watched some guy make a purse. We found a hotel for that night at lastminute.com, which was probably not the best idea. The website listed a 4 star hotel for about 80 euro, which we thought was a deal, but the hotel was really more of a 2 star hotel. It was right on the river in Florence, but the toilet only flushed every once in awhile, and whenever it did, the whole room would smell like sulfur. Oh well. We went to an awesome Italian place for dinner, it was the best meal I had on the entire trip. And me, Tom, and Joyce finished off 1.5 liters of Chianti. Me and Tom were both a little drunk and Joyce was just herself.
Day 6 (Tuesday): Today we drove from Florence to Bern - another long drive, and another awesome trip through the Alps. We got back to Bern and thats when the electricity disaster happened (see my last post), but that is all taken care of now, and I have lights again :)
I took about a million pictures, but I brought the wrong camera cord, so I can't put them online yet. So I will just keep you in suspense until then!
Day 1 (Thursday): This day is not very exciting, because all we did was sit in the car during the 10 hour drive from Bern to Rome. The only thing worth mentioning is that driving through the Swiss Alps is totally awesome. Very "majestic." For half the time we were driving right beneath these massive mountains, and the other half the time we were inside tunnels, including the Gotthard Pass, which is 17 km long. After getting through the Alps, driving in Italy is insane. People drive really really fast, and if you are in the left lane, they will come up right behind your car and flash their lights at you to get out of their way. Driving in Rome was not much better, the roads are even worse than those in Boston. Luckily my dad got the Europe maps added to his GPS, or else we probably never would have made it. When we got to Rome, we checked into our hotel, and found a little Italian place nearby for dinner. The food was good and the restaurant was luckily not touristy, but my mom knocked a full glass of red wine onto the white tablecloth and all over herself. Oh Joyce.
Day 2 (Friday): The day of the Vatican. This morning we waited in line for about an hour to get into the Vatican museums (and its not even tourist season), but it was worth it. Most of the museum collection is Roman and Renaissance art, but there was also some cool Egyptian stuff. There were entire rooms painted and decorated from the Renaissance, and of course the culmination was the Sistine Chapel at the end. Unfortunately, by the time you get there you've been looking at art for several hours, so it maybe doesn't seem as impressive. But it was still good to see, and one of those mandatory things to do in Rome. After the Vatican museums, we went to St. Peter's basilica, which is incredible. It is very impressive from the outside alone, but the inside is ridiculous. The church is huuuge and every wall and ceiling and column is extravagantly decorated. We also went into the crypt and saw the tombs of all the dead popes. The hardcore Catholics were sitting and crying in front of John Paul II's grave (Jeff, you should feel guilty). The tombs of all the popes were, of course, extravagant. After it got dark, we wandered over to the Tiber River and crossed a really pretty bridge into Rome before going back to the hotel.
Day 3 (Saturday): We spent today in Rome. Rome is a massive city, and we spent the whole day on our feet. We started the morning at the Colosseum (another mandatory Rome tourist spot, and we had a mandatory cheesy tour guide), which was OK. A lot of the marble in the Colosseum was pillaged to build St. Peter's, and the popes felt guilty about it later and rebuilt part of it with bricks. Totally lame. I did get a picture with a gladiator, though. We also walked quickly through some Roman ruins, but my dad thought they were boring, so we didn't waste a lot of time there. Next we walked through all the normal tourist spots: Trevi fountain, Spanish steps, Pantheon. The Trevi fountain was completely swarmed with tourists and all these really annoying guys trying to sell a bunch of crap that no one wanted. We went back to the Trevi fountain at night (because everything is better at night), and while my dad was taking a picture of me, a guy came up with roses and literally forced me to take one. We didn't want to pay him a euro, but he also refused to take the rose back, so we gave him 80 cents. Really annoying and rude. We also walked through the really expensive shopping area, but its not much different than Newbury Street, just a little extra snobby. The Pantheon was cooler than I thought it would be, its a huge ancient Roman building than is not in ruins but actually preserved. We went to a little mom and pop restaurant for dinner, which was deliciouso. We walked back to St. Peter's to see it at night again (because it was my dad's favorite) and there were these crazy flocks of birds when we crossed the bridge. I have never seen so many birds - there were several huge flocks that would follow the wind. It was actually really cool to see, until one of them pooped on my dad's hand. Then we had to leave.
Day 4 (Sunday): We woke up early this morning and drove from Rome to Florence. It was another beautiful drive - Tuscany looks just like it does in all the pictures (imagine that). After getting to the hotel, we went to the Uffizi art museum, which is the home to tons of Renaissance art. The building itself is really gorgeous, and the art collection is massive. My dad got really into it - we bought the tour book and he read the descriptions out loud to me and my mom. We walked around Florence at night and ate dinner at the place our cab drive recommended. Florence is quintessential Italy, but there are so many tourists, its hard to even believe its real. Sometimes it felt like Disneyworld.
Day 5 (Monday): We spent today walking around Florence. Of course, we went to the famous Duomo, which looks like "cardboard," as my dad says, because it is so perfect and flat. It is made out of white, pink, and green marble, so it has a very different look than traditional cathedrals. I was not impressed by the inside, but that might be because I was at St. Peter's three days before. We then walked across the Poncho Vecchio, which is a bridge with all these little stores hanging off the edges, held up by wooden posts. Unfortunately, all the stores are really expensive jewelry stores, so we were not allowed into any of them. Apparently a long time ago there were all types of stores, but the butchers smelled so bad, that the city only allowed goldsmiths to be on the bridge. We walked to the Boboli Gardens next, which was the best thing we did in Florence. The gardens were not crowded at all (which was a nice break) and it was good to see some green after being in cities all week. We walked up a bunch of hills to get to the top of the gardens, and the view was unbelievable. On one side, we saw a beautiful view of the Tuscan countryside, and on the other side we could see all of Florence. Awesome. We then went to another church (that I cannot remember the name) that has the tombs of Michaelagelo, Galileo, Rossini, Machiavelli, and some other important Italian dudes. Again, crazy extravagant Renaissance church and tombs. Randomly there was a leather school attached to the church, so we watched some guy make a purse. We found a hotel for that night at lastminute.com, which was probably not the best idea. The website listed a 4 star hotel for about 80 euro, which we thought was a deal, but the hotel was really more of a 2 star hotel. It was right on the river in Florence, but the toilet only flushed every once in awhile, and whenever it did, the whole room would smell like sulfur. Oh well. We went to an awesome Italian place for dinner, it was the best meal I had on the entire trip. And me, Tom, and Joyce finished off 1.5 liters of Chianti. Me and Tom were both a little drunk and Joyce was just herself.
Day 6 (Tuesday): Today we drove from Florence to Bern - another long drive, and another awesome trip through the Alps. We got back to Bern and thats when the electricity disaster happened (see my last post), but that is all taken care of now, and I have lights again :)
I took about a million pictures, but I brought the wrong camera cord, so I can't put them online yet. So I will just keep you in suspense until then!
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Back in Bern
I just got back in Bern after spending 6 days in Italy. Unfortunately, my dad was trying to help me set up my electronics (because I had already blown 2 power converters by this time), and when he plugged everything in, he blew the electricity. And not just in my room, but on half the floor. My parents also just left to drive back to Zurich to catch their flight tomorrow.... so now I am alone, in the dark, with only my laptop battery to save me. I will write about my trip to Italy when I am in a better mood, and have better lighting.
PS It is snowing!
PS It is snowing!
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
I have arrived!
That's right, I made it to Switzerland. I don't have much exciting to say, other than I am now living in a dorm room again and have been demoted back to twin bed status. Yuck. But at least I have my own room.
Other than that, it has been an adventure with my dad driving in Europe, especially in Bern, where the main road in town is under major construction. Joyce is also being a nutcase, walking behind me and Tom and snapping pictures of our backs because she thinks we will refuse to turn around and take real pictures.
OK I am really tired and going to bed, even though its not even 8 pm. Yes, jetlag! Tomorrow I will be running errands in Bern, including opening my very own Swiss bank account (oooh). Thursday I am going to Italy with my parents for a few days, it should be fun.
Other than that, it has been an adventure with my dad driving in Europe, especially in Bern, where the main road in town is under major construction. Joyce is also being a nutcase, walking behind me and Tom and snapping pictures of our backs because she thinks we will refuse to turn around and take real pictures.
OK I am really tired and going to bed, even though its not even 8 pm. Yes, jetlag! Tomorrow I will be running errands in Bern, including opening my very own Swiss bank account (oooh). Thursday I am going to Italy with my parents for a few days, it should be fun.
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