Category Archives: Cities

PopScience, BYOPD and PhD Comics

CERN, Geneva, LEGO, Outreach, Switzerland

Yesterday, we had another PopScience BYOPD event in Geneva. While it was a bit calm in the morning it ended up quite nice with a decent number of visitors/participants in the afternoon. In fact, I had Jorge Cham, creator of PhD Comics,  joining the competition. Unfortunately, I missed his talk and the showing of the PhD Movie sequel the day before. Luckily, I could make it up with a nice autograph from him (see below).
For the actual European researchers’ night, there were discussion of the physics in movies such as Gravity, Interstellar, Star Trek or Angels & Demons as well as a screening of Particle Fever and a discussion with some of physics cast.

Hmm … good food

Food, Germany, Maria Laach

Staying at Maria Laach – not as a student – apparently implies having one very nice dinner in a very nice restaurant. Supposedly, it’s been a tradition for more than 15 years now, which started with good old Father Athanasius, who was a known connoisseur.

So last Wednesday, all organiser, speakers and group leaders went to Gourmet Wagner in Mayen, to eat a special “13 TeV dinner”. According to the menu, it should have featured 13 courses, one for each TeV in centre-of-mass energy in the LHC, though it seems we were still in 2012, as we only got 8 courses!?

The staff seemed a bit unrelaxed, especially after I asked them about a juice menu (yes it exists, e.g. at Noma), and also the interior was quite posh … anyways, it was really nice food :)

Since I’m at it … the weekend before I had a very nice late lunch at the Hammesmühle, close to Mayen. Not as pricy and posh, but extremely nice food … I had escargots, venison steak and a lovely desert composition.

Deadwood, SD

Deadwood, Physics, United States

Deadwood, South Dakota it is for this week. The IX International Conference on Interconnections between Particle Physics and Cosmology (PPC2015) at The Lodge at Deadwood, to be even more precise. Yesterday we had our excursion to Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse, today I gave my presentation on Dark Matter searches in ATLAS (so I’m done with the compulsory part .. hehe) and tonight we’ll have the conference dinner :)

It’s all a bit in the middle of nowhere, but it’s seemingly really beautiful landscape in the Black Hills and the Badlands. Unfortunately, I ain’t got no time to see it all, or even a small part for that sake.