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Beautiful sunshine, hot weather and nothing to do. That’s how summer holidays should be, and that was exactly how my weekend was. I took Friday off as Katja, from Slovenia, came to visit me. We managed to walk from Dübendorf to Zürich, since we had nothing better to do. It took around 3 hours, but we did take the longest way possible, got lost, and stopped off at a shopping mall. There are many ways of getting blisters, and I think I’ve now sampled them all

So not much happened during the weekend. There was a festival here in Dübi, but I only walked through it on Sunday morning, to see what was happening. There were food stalls, dance areas and even huge fair ground rides. People were dressed up in traditional Swiss costume and there was Swiss music playing. It was a pretty nice atmosphere, where the whole family would go out together and enjoy the community spirit. Very Swiss.

I kept walking and found myself a walking path up onto the mountains near Dübendorf. I just kept walking because I had absolutely nothing else to do and I didn’t want to stay in my room all day. I ended up in some village on the top and just walked along there until I got to Dübelstein, the castle ruins where I had a BBQ the first few weeks I was in Switzerland….was nice, except there was a kid taking a piss on the fire. Not sure I want to eat there again.

So I got back to my room late afternoon, with nothing really to do. I managed to tidy my room, do the laundry, sort out all the my draws and throw out a lot of paper. I sorted all my receipts into date order and added them up, before throwing them in the bin. I’ve spent around 500CHF at supermarkets so far. I just wonder how much has gone towards kebabs?! I’ve also been collecting all my train tickets, and there’s a lot of them, and I was going to through them away, but had this wonderful idea of maybe making a collage of them when I get back home, just to remind me where I’ve been.

So I was all bored, enjoying the summer heat (I think it was about 30°C outside) and decided to take an early night. It was so hot, I opened both windows and left a small gap in the door so I could get a nice draft. It was very nice, except for the first time I could really notice the traffic noise. Ok, I live right next to the train station, but I’ve never heard so many screeeach’s from the trains before, or noticed how loud fast trains are. And the number of drag races on my road! I think every other car had a modded muffler just so it can wake the entire village. I mean, the number of modded cars you find here in Switzerland is crazy. Back home, you would see one every now and then, but here, every other car is modded in some way. Ranging from a small sticker on the rear windscreen, or a few decals here and there, to full mean body kits, huge shiny alloys, loud exhausts and mad sound systems. Just crazy. I think they have too much Need for Speed Underground Love that game. It was a noisy night, let’s say, but I got to sleep eventually.

Wow, can’t believe it’s September already. It means only 28 more days in Switzerland before I fly back home to England! Time sure does fly when you are enjoying yourself, and it really has gone quick.

I’m expecting September to go a little slower though. I’m trying to save money, and I will also not be participating in the last two IAESTE weekends of the summer, so I might get a little bored here in Dübi. I’ll try and entertain myself…

It was Helgi’s last day today. His last day at EMPA and last day in Switzerland! He’s been a good friend since I arrived. He’s from Iceland, and was briefly known as the “Icelandic girl” but he’s a funny guy.

We’ll miss him, and his spam sent during working hours. There was a farewell party for Helgi last night, with people from work and a few other IAESTE trainees. There’s a dinner for a few other trainees tonight who are also leaving this week, but I’m still not sure if I’m going. My wallet seems to be a little thin nowadays.

So Helgi’s going to stop by in London for a few days (You couldn’t find me a flat could you?), and then he’ll be back in Iceland to finish his physics degree.

Wish you all the best Helgi and good luck! (or good f*ck?). Have a nice trip back home and I hope we can all meet again sometime in the future!

I’m going to keep this entry as short as possible. The weekend was spent in Luzern, who some say is the most beautiful city in Switzerland. I would say so too, although Switzerland to me is in general very beautiful and amazing.

On Saturday we went to a glass museum in Hergiswil where we saw how glass was made. Ok it was interesting, but it wasn’t anything amazing, for me anyway. It was right beside the lake though, so we could relax by it and admire the view. A nice boat ride back to Luzern, and a tour of Luzern by Roger. We saw the famous wooden bridge and even walked along part of the old wall and was fortunate enough to be in the bell tower at exactly 6pm (minus 1 minute perhaps, because I heard someone say this clock was a little off???)

Anyhow, in the evening we had a lovely barbeque! I ate lots of meat!! After living off mostly bread, cheese and water, it was a welcome change, and there was plenty of it. I was nice and full after that. I think the most interesting or wierd part of the weekend was staying in the “Zivilschutzanlage” – which translates to Shelter for Civil Protection. It is basically a nuclear bunker underground. It was very basic with about 30 beds packed right next to each other and on top of each other, basically shelves with mattresses on it. Toilets were also in another room, and there was a shower room in which there were 4 showers. Just 4 showers, nothing else! It was an interesting experience, although I don’t think I could stay in such place for more than a week!

On Sunday we went up Mount Pilatus (7000ft), by cable car – so my feet are happy this week. Before going up we went on the longest toboggan slide in Switzerland. I think it’s 1350m long, but it goes very fast, as long as you don’t brake! After that we went up to the top, but there wasn’t an awful lot to see since it was very cloudy.

A fun weekend, but I think probably my last IAESTE organised weekend, since from now till I go back home, I need to start saving money. So I’m just going to live off bread and water, unless anyone would like to make some generous donation!

After spending the weekend in the French part of Switzerland, I suddenly realised this morning that I was trying to mutter phrases in French, rather than German as I should be.

During the weekend, whenever I needed to speak French I always came out with German words, because I’ve been around Swiss German for the last two months. Now I’m back in Zurich my mind has finally adjusted to the French, so I’m saying “oui” instead of “ja”, or “bonjour” instead of “morgen”.

I suppose if I was living in the French part of Switzerland, maybe in Geneva or Lausanne, I’d be fluent in French by now, since I did learn it at school for 5 years and I’d have more of a chance of picking it up than with Swiss German which sounds nothing like German.

Another weekend gone and more blisters. I don’t think my feet will like me ever again. We travelled down on Friday night to Geneva. A nice 3 hour train journey we managed to amuse ourselves with a game of cards, chocolate and drinks. After checking into the hostel, we headed to a pub somewhere in Geneva called Mr Pickwicks. Who is Mr Pickwicks? After sitting and watching people drinking due to a pint costing 8.80SFr, we went back to the hostel and went to bed, as one does.

It was an early morning. 6am to be precise. Nga had a tour of CERN booked for 9am, and we had to get up, shower, eat and get to CERN. There was just 13 of us for the tour, since that’s all they had space for. CERN was sort of a “must visit” for me. IAESTE had organised a biking weekend, where you basically cycle around for 150km, which I was really looking forward to. But when Nga announced that she had booked a tour of CERN, I kinda had to go. I mean, I am a “physics student at Imperial College London”…

CERN is the world’s largest particle physics centre, with a giant particle accelerator under part of Switzerland and France. We had a tour by an old guy who had worked there for 28 years. It started with a presentation about CERN, which seemed more like a standard lecture, since everyone lost concentration after about 40 minutes. We then hopped onto a mini-bus and were taken to some place where they had equipment and laboratories. I can’t really remember what everything was, but it looked cool, and the guide told us quite a lot about everything, even though I couldn’t really hear him. I might end up working at CERN one day, that would be nice.

After the tour we headed back to the train station to grab our stuff and go to Lausanne. Leaving our stuff at the guesthouse, we went towards the lake to head for Evian, France! That’s now my 3rd time I’ve been in France. Yay! Just need to visit Germany and Litchenstein and I’ll have been to all the countries surrounding Switzerland.

Evian should sound familiar. If not, you need to drink more water. Evian is a small town in France where all the Evian bottled water comes from. We went up to the fountain where Evian water first came from and we all filled our bottles and drank from it. After a nice walk around the town we headed back across Lake Geneva to Lausanne to spend the rest of the evening relaxing.

Since I didn’t buy any food for dinner, I decided to go out and eat at some restaurant. I’m not too sure what I ordered, but the beef was almost raw but it was pretty nice. Came with a nice serving of fries and salad. Filled me up, but it was pretty expensive, and the service wasn’t that great either. After a quick tour of the old part of Lausanne at night we went back and I managed to get a good nights sleep. It’s been a while since I could sleep without having to set my alarm. I got up at 9am eventually, only to realise that everyone was waiting for me downstairs ready to go.

From Lausanne, we all set off to Montreux. There were two options. An easy hike along Lake Geneva, or a harder hike up Rochers-de-Naye. Since I like pain, I chose Rochers-de-Naye, and said goodbye to being able to walk properly for the next few days. Only Martha, Kasia, Salom? and myself (all Emponians) went on this hike. The rest just stayed in Montreux and visited Chateux de Chillon. We started the hike from the very bottom, i.e. by the lake and started walking up. The tourist office said it would take 5 hours to walk up to the top so it wouldn’t be too easy.

The actual hike was fairly steady, only with a few bits that were somewhat steep, but we kept a fairly fast pace. Except for moments when my muscles gave up! At one point, a tree collapsed behind us. I was under it about a minute before, and it was a good thing that I didn’t stop there. We managed to get to the top in good time, 4.5 hours. Had a quick lunch and then took the train down. We were planning on hiking down also, but we had to meet the rest at 6:45pm and we didn’t have much time left. I think the actual elevation difference we hiked was something like 1600m. Which is quite an achievement, for me anyway. I was out of breath, sweating like mad, and simply tired.

But on the way down it was really nice. Salomé and Martha even jumped in the lake for a quick swim before the meeting point. Wish I bought my swimming shorts so I could join them. It would have been nice. The weather was perfect on Sunday, just the way I like it.

A great weekend. Thanks to Nga for CERN and Martha for Evian and hiking! Apologies to my feet, but just 5 more weeks and you’ll be back home

Ok, just got back from the doctor’s and he said my infection should have gone now and my leg will be back to normal within a few days. It’s still slightly swollen, but it looks so much better than it did on Thursday night!

So I spent the weekend in Bern, the capital of Switzerland. On Friday night, a small group of us went to Fribourg, not too far from Bern and stayed at Nele’s place. Her room is huge. Lots of windows, huge bed, sofa and space! Many of which, my room lacks. We went out that night, to 3 different bars! We didn’t drink anything however, because they were all so full, so we just went back and sat around in the kitchen. I’m not supposed to drink alcohol, since I’m on antibiotics now, so I tried my best to limit what I drank this weekend.

After a good night’s sleep on Nele’s floor (thanks!), we headed off to Bern to meet the main group. The day started off pretty laid back, just walking to the youth hostel and then taking a walk around the city of Bern. We saw the bears, which are the symbol of Bern and is on the Bern flag. We also had a tour of the Parliament building in which the Swiss government and politics happen. It was pretty nice inside, although we weren’t alowed cameras or anything. I even set off the metal detectors as I walked through. It always goes off with me. Same thing happened at the UN Palais des Nations. Maybe they don’t like me.

After the tour, I just went back to the Youth Hostel. I didn’t want to do too much walking, since my leg wasn’t really better. Was still quite swollen. I helped wash and boil the potatos for our Swiss dinner – Raclette! This is boiled potatoes with melted Raclette cheese on top. I thought it was really really nice. I’d like to try it again. However, I can’t say the same for Blake, who stupidly ate about a whole kilogram or more of cheese? You crazy?

I took an early night to rest my leg. To be honest, I got a bit bored on Saturday, since I had already been in Bern. The novelty factor of seeing a city for the second time seems to wear off, but it’s still a beatiful city never the less, and I did get some different views, e.g. from the top of Bern Cathedral.

Sunday was more like my style. We went to Kiesen, somewhere near Thun, and inflated a load of rafts. From there we set off down the river back to Bern. Since I bandaged up my leg, I went into the dry boat, or the “cripples” since Ryan had injured his ankle on the bungee jump. So we were supposed to stay dry. The time spent on the river was probably around three hours, and there were some stunning views of the alps. I wish I took my camera with me now, since I didn’t get that wet and could have stayed completely dry if I wanted to. However, poor Azadeh who was also in the dry boat managed to fall off and get completely soaked just as she was getting out! But it wasn’t her fault, Tom Fredrik pulled the boat just as she was climbing out of it.

I suppose a nice way to spend a weekend and pretty cheap too. Right, back to work!

What english weather today. Thunderstorms and heavy rain yesterday meant that the BBQ/work party was postponed until next week. I was looking forward to trying my chicken I brought at Migros. Ah well. So now it’s grey and not too warm outside. I had to wear a jacket for the first time in the last month!

As a few of you may know I managed to get a few nasty insect bites on my leg a week or two back. I don’t know where I got it from. I think either by the lake in Zurich, or when I was in sunny Ticino. But on Wednesday, the bites started swelling up and it didn’t look good. On Thursday, sometime during work, I took a glance at my leg and noticed that my entire lower leg was swelling up, and getting worse too!

So I went to my supervisor and asked him where I should go. He booked an appointment for me with a local doctor. I really didn’t want to go to the doctor’s here in Switzerland, because I’m not sure if my insurance covers me properly. It should, but since I work and live here, I’m supposed to have “Swiss” health insurance…which is not cheap, hence, I’m in the process of checking if I can be exempt from this regulation.

As I walked into the doctor’s practice, I noticed how it was very nice and clean, and much better than anything I’ve seen in England. In the waiting room, there were the standard magazines and a fish tank. What would a waiting room be without a fish tank? There were these two fish that just did nothing except float. Then there was a small fish, that looked a bit like a tiger. It kept swimming back and forth and this slightly larger fish that looked like a mini mini shark, kept trying to chase it. I thought, “leave it alone, mean mini mini shark!”

Anyways, I saw the doctor, and he gave me some antibiotics after a somewhat strange diagnosis, and also arranged a tetanus jab. Now my left arm feels like it’s going to fall off and I can barely use it, but I was told to expect this from the nurse.

So price? Zero Apparantly an insect bite is an “accident”, so I was covered by my company, as I have to pay for accident insurance at work and elsewhere. So now I just need to sort some paper work, and all should be well. My leg, this morning, is feeling much better. The swelling has gone down, which is a good sign.

Off to Bern this weekend. Hope it’s a relaxing weekend, don’t want to waste my feet again.

Last night after work a few of us went round Salomé’s place to have dinner and watch a movie. She lives in a somewhat dodgy area of Zürich, but her apartment is really nice. It’s very big, and even has a balcony.

We made pizza and had that on the balcony. I’m sure Helgi liked the view of the ugly naked guy through the neighbour’s window, but it was that type of place. Women were just standing by windows, resting on a cushion, wearing nothing but underwear. I’ve never seen such place before. Ok, maybe London’s Soho is a little like this, but it’s not that obvious.

So anyway, the pizza was really nice, even better than the Pizza week at EMPA. After the dinner we watched Before Sunrise. It’s quite an old film (1995?), but I thought it was really good.

It’s set in Vienna and about two strangers that meet on the train and only have one day together. It reminded me of my time in Vienna not so long ago! A romantic film. We’re planning on going to see the sequel on Monday, Before Sunset, just to see how the story ends.

It was a relaxing night, and I enjoyed it. Work has been pretty good recently. Managed to get quite a lot done on my program this morning. Right now I’m just trying to re-produce some stuff from an article about “Acoustic Black Holes,” which is pretty interesting actually.

After receiving an interesting comment from some stranger on my entry about the Wine and Cheese party held in Kasia’s room, I now have photographic evidence to back up the warning (see pic):

So, Kasia, from Poland, is dangerous!

On a completely different subject, I just found out my results of my second year exams. I got 67.7% in my second year, which brings my average up to 65.7%. It’s an improvement but I was hoping to get into the 70s, but I’m not complaining. I know where I went wrong, and there’s not much I can do about it now.

I’m still aiming for a first, although it seems to get further and further away each time I try, but I still have two more years of my physics degree to finish.

So, I’m off to Vienna this weekend. Hope it doesn’t rain, and I hope I can get some sleep!