Finally I’m in heaven…
It took me amazing 9h to get there to realize that no one was there…
But one after the other:
Everything, besides to really amazing traffic jams, worked well until the french border. But then my little map-guide made me some difficulties to find my way… and of course I took the wrong one?! So I had to go back after some kilometers…
Being back on the right way I passed the beautiful city of Belfort, where I had to stop! The main part of this city is just one huge castle with gigantic walls around. Unfortunatly I lost the road while driving through the old part and climbing the main castle… I took me a while to get back to the right road. Getting closer to Geneva I decided to take the N5, which came out to have pros and cons, like all the things in the world…
But it’s a really beautiful road bending through the mountains… just the weather was a bit crappy, cause on some parts I couldn’t really see the road in front of my car!!
Anyway I made it to CERN at about 6h15pm…
The registration office just closed at 6pm and there was no one who could speak a word of english
*
A little comment at this point:
I didn’t expect a lot but I was still surprised to realize that it’s damn hard to find someone speaking english… especially if you’ve been to a country like Denmark where everyone speaks english… anyway!
*
After about an hour I could convince someone to let me in without a keycard… so I tried to meet someone I know in there. Which failed… of course!
The problem was that this guy had the key to my appartment…??
So I walked around and asked someone (who could speak english) to get me to the web, to check emails… which I did in the library! Having the right number to call I needed to ask again to get a call outside of CERN because my mobile battery was empty and so on…
Finally my supervisor fetched me up in front of CERN and showed me the way home. Today I actually got all the registration done and attended a security course… hoping to be able to access all areas… :-)
The rest of the day I tried to build up my new computer (I brought myself). Which didn’t succeed totally…now!
Tomorrow I’ll start the Summer School and probably start to work… ;-)
I’ll try to put some pictures on the web in the next days…
Category Archives: Physics
Back in Germany (but not very long)
Today I’m enjoying my one day stay in good old Germany…
Just returned from Basel (CH) last night after my experimental week at the Paul Scherer Institute (PSI). Tomorrow morning I’ll leave to Frankfurt to visit my sister and an old friend (greetz to Sirko). July 4th I’ll continue my trip and arrive at CERN in Geneva (CH).
The good side…
After having three (kind of aweful) days in the experimental hall at around 35 degrees, we now started enjoying the stay in switzerland a bit. On sunday we went to a local swimming pool and enjoyed the beautiful weather… Yesterday we began to write our report on the experiments we’ve done in the first days and we got invited to dinner by the danish head of PSI. Our teacher payed for the drinks, because he lost a bet… and we spent the evening in the penthouse flat of that danish guy, having drinks and snacks (btw. thank you very much again). Then we drove back to PSI with seven people in a five person car… Tomorrow we’ll have a guided tour at the high energy part of the PSI, go to the visitors center and probably get a sneak peek at the synchrotron (SLS)…
The life of a physicist…
After deciding to go to Germany one day earlier than planed and arriving at 5am, after a 7h drive, I had the amzing amount of 4h of sleep. After some dinner with my parents, meeting some friends, incl. Julie and going to bed at 1am I again had a great night (3h). Because I had to get up at 4am to catch my plain to Basel (CH) at 6h40am.
Enjoying my plesent flight next to some smelly girls, that probably demostrated against globalization the whole night by drinking beer, I toke the train to Brugg (CH) and waited for the rest of the group, lying around in the sun at 34 degrees. Then we took the Postbus to Villingen/PSI (CH) and checked in to our rooms in the hostel at PSI. After a first introduction, a security exam and getting some radiation batches we immediately started our first experiment using the RITA2 instrument. It was fun and the scenery is quite impressive, with all that huge machines. Not so funny was the fact that it lasted until 2am the next morning….
So again another greate night… anyway.
At least today we could sleep until 10am (almost 8h)…
And now we’re back at the machine looking at out over-night-scan-data and doing some new experiments…
I just have some minutes free, so that’s why I’m writing…
Slow progress…
After having some trouble with the payment of my travels during the summer now everything seems to be somehow organized… even if I still don’t know how I’ll get the money back I just bought tickets for the flight Berlin-Basel and return. Which means I’m more or less defenitly going to PSI. Even if I’m having some problems in making the reports on time… Anyway that’s of course not the only thing I have to do in the last days, so it’s kind of stressful these days…