Lucerne

fire extinguisher fiasco

Some friends at the dorm went a little crazy late on Friday night with the fire extinguisher and covered our floor (and some of the other floors in the building) with white powder! It was like an inch of snow had fallen :D


It took the poor guys most of the next 24 hours to clean it up..

Sunday afternoon

Hanging out at a cafe in town...

Cool old-fashioned locomotive :)

I went windsurfing on the lake! Water was 12 deg. Celsius = 53 deg. F. But I had a wetsuit and didn't get too cold.

St. Moritz

St. Moritz is a very classy, expensive resort town--we saw a lot of really nice (think 007) cars while we were there. Unfortunately , the town was pretty empty and most of the stores were closed, as the summer season doesn't begin until July.

drive to St. Moritz

On the drive... there was snow on the ground!

Quite an isolated house (look hard, you'll see it)

mountain...

more pics from St. Moritz coming soon!

Tschau!

birthday!

We had a small party to celebrate my turning 21. About 10 people attended, the interns I live with and some others from work.
We had a barbeque, and I made a great (if I do say so myself) chocolate cake (recipe here: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Warm-Flourless-Chocolate-Cake-with-Caramel-Sauce/Detail.aspx).

company day off

The whole institute went for a trip today up the Rigi mountain in central Switzerland. It is right on the border between the mountain range and flat land which made the view fantastic. Here's a satellite image with Rigi circled in red:



the mountains:


and the flat land:





It was a pretty exhausing 1 hour hike up the mountain (450 meters = 1500 feet up, to be exact) and I know I was sore for a few days afterwards. We had a nice lunch at the restaurant on the very top of the mountain. Then we walked down down a different way than we went up and got our feet wet at the lake:

They treated us to a very nice dinner at a restaurant right on the water. No pictures of the view for now. Quote of the day... Apres les vin blanc, il y a toujours des vin rouge. (french, 'After white wine there is always red wine'). All of the glasses were a little hard to navigate

We got home around 11:30pm (after a very early start at 7am). Everyone was exhausted but some friends still stayed up with me until midnight to celebrate my birthday :)

Living and Working

I live in an apartment style building, the first one on the right here-- yes I have a balcony overlooking the mountains on both sides!

I live on a floor with 7 other interns. We share bathrooms and a mini-kitchen (it gets crowded!!). Here's one angle of my room:

I work at the AO Research Institute:




My commute: 10 minutes along a little creek on this beaten path

Then five minutes up a winding road-- I pass right by these lovely cows on the way.

Tschau!

25 hours of travel...

2 hours drive, home --> Newark airport
3 hours wait at airport
8 hour flight, Newark --> Warsaw, Poland
5 hours layover in Warsaw (I explored the city! see pictures below)
2 hour flight, Warsaw --> Zurich, Switzerland
3 hours, trying to buy train tickets, hanging around the station
2 hours train, Zurich --> Davos, Switzerland

When I got to Warsaw, I hopped on the bus that went "towards" town, not knowing where to get off. I knew I wanted to go to Sunday Mass, so I stayed on the bus until we stopped in front of this church, then hopped off.





Conveniently enough, Mass was just starting. Then I walked around a little.




On the train from Zurich to Davos:


Tschau!