Switzerland!

I'm being slow at writing these again, not sure how I managed to do a better job of keeping on top of these when I actually knew people living in Schwenningen and had roommates. I suppose I didn't spend so much time buying groceries and cooking. I really do miss my roommates awesome cooking, I've been eating variations of the same 4 things for the last two weeks: chicken, peppers, potatoes, and rice. It gets tiring after awhile. There is also some renovations going on in my flat, so it's a bit of a mess, at least they're done when I get home so I don't have to listen to power saws. On to the weekend that just passed, in Switzerland!

Back in April I think, Greg, who I hadn't met at that time, mentioned on our Facebook group visiting CERN, home of the Large Hadron Collider, in Geneva, Switzerland while we were all here in Europe. I agreed to go, and we were able to get a tour booked for about 4 months later, August 11th. Since it happened to fall on my birthday weekend, and because Switzerland has been one of the countries I've really wanted to see since doing a project on it in grade 4 or 5, I decided to make a weekend out of it.

After finishing work Thursday I headed directly to the train station with all my stuff, and since I was no longer limited by RyanAir's baggage restrictions, I brought too much stuff, but now I know better. I caught a train to Singen, then another to Zurich, a third one to Bern, and finally my last train to Interlaken. The last train ride was amazing, riding towards the Alps just as the sun was going down was incredible, such a great view. After getting my bearings, I located the hostel, Balmer's Interlaken, around 9:15pm. I met up with Sara, the only other UNB student that decided to visit Interlaken, some of the others had already been in the area back in June. I checked in to the hostel, got some Swiss Francs, and we went to the bar beneath the hostel, actually underground, and had a beer. We had signed up to go canyoning in Grimsel Pass, up in the Alps, at 8am the next morning, so we didn't stay up too late. Despite feeling the bass from the club two floors below me, I was able to fall asleep pretty easily.

Once I got up at 6:30ish, I paid for the hostel and canyoning and we had our breakfast included with our stay. We met the other people joining us for the canyoning; two girls from Oklahoma, and a couple from Ohio, who all turned out to be awesome fellow canyoners (canyoneers?). I expected a bigger group, and so did the tour company I think, so they only needed to send one guide with us since it was a small group. It actually turned out well having a small group, we were able to do more things, there was lots of space in the van, and there was more food at the end! Instead of explaining the whole canyoning adventure, which was one of the most fun and exhilarating things I've done, I'll let you watch the video that I bought at the end (it wouldn't upload so I made it public and linked to Facebook). If you ever are in Interlaken, I highly recommend going! That being said, there are so many adventure sports to pick from, white water rafting, skydiving, bungee jumping, paragliding, and the list goes on!

Canyoning Grimsel Video

After we finished up and got all our gear back in the trailer, we had a lunch in a nearby field consisting of sandwiches and beer. Both were delicious, and the scenery was incredible. After lunch we drove the 40 minutes back to Interlaken and I think all 6 of us slept for at least part of it, 2 and a half hours of canyoning is tiring!

When we got back we ordered the videos and the hostel rooms were closed for cleaning so we hung out with the people from Ohio (Ohioans?) in the Biergarten at the hostel and were treated to a pretty cool air show by some Swiss fighter jets. The Ohians headed off to go bungee jumping from a gondola over a laken, while Sara and I wandered around the city/town of Interlaken for a while and had some delicious ice cream. We headed back to the hostel where Elise, someone I went to NSCC with and travelled to the Netherlands with last year and is also now studying engineering, met us. It was a strange coincidence that we ended up in Interlaken on the same weekend, she's travelling Europe for a month and was with her friend Allison who I also knew from NSCC. They were staying at the tent village run by the same hostel we were staying at just a few hundred meters up the road, so we joined them at their village for the even for a BBQ and a few beer. It was a great time and we had an awesome, nearly cloud-free, view of Jungfraujoch behind us. Sara and I headed back to the hostel with the intentions of going to the bar downstairs, but we were far too exhausted, so we headed to bed. We did have to get a train the next morning at 8:30am, so doing that hung-over would not have been too great.

We picked up our videos on USB sticks from Outdoor Interlaken and walked to the train station, picking up a few souvenirs on the way. We caught our train, switched in Bern and made it to Geneva around 11:15am. The last hour or so we were driving along the shore of Lake Geneva, a very impressive sight, it'd be a great place to rent a car and drive around stopping in the many towns that line the shores. We met up with the 7 other UNB students going to CERN at the train station: Carolann, Ed, Greg, Matt, Paul, Sean, and Scott K., and dropped off our stuff at the Geneva Youth Hostel, grabbed lunch and caught the tram out to Meyrin, the town just outside Geneva where the reception area of CERN is located. We had a three hour tour, where we got to see the control room for the ATLAS experiment and the magnet testing facility just across the border in France, literally a 5 minute drive away. We learned a lot about the LHC, the current objectives of CERN, and the Higgs Boson aka 'The God Particle.' Despite being quite exhausted and sore from the previous day, I was glad I was able to visit CERN, it's really a revolutionary place.

After the tour we headed back to the hostel, got our room, which looked brand new, it was very impressive, I've stayed in hotels that weren't as nice. After discovering that all the grocery stores had since closed, we bought beer and wine at a convenience store that actually stayed open, and headed down to the waterfront where the Fetes de Geneve festival (it's a French city) was taking place. Strangely, I found it odd going from German Switzerland to French Switzerland despite the fact I've gone from French Canada to English Canada many times without really thought about it. Must have something to do with the fact that Switzerland is such a tiny country and is influenced by the German, French, and even Italian languages and cultures. We had awesome hamburgers for supper on the waterfront, set up camp and waited for the fireworks. We were treated to an impressive and incredibly long fireworks show, it lasted just about an hour. After the fireworks, a few people went for a quick swim in the lake, all while being supervised by a fully trained and completely sober lifeguard I should add! At midnight everyone sang a great French version of Happy Birthday to me, if I didn't feel old before (which I did) I would now haha. I can't say I was too happy with turning 24, I'm officially in my mid-twenties. Makes me think I should get out of school soon, but these travelling opportunities are just so incredible. Some people headed to bed when we got back to the hostel but Matt, Greg, Paul, and I headed out to wander around Geneva. After learning that it would be 25-35CHF (about the same as Canadian dollars) just to get into a club, we decided to pass on that. We saw a few sights in Geneva and had the spiciest kebaps of life! I immediately bought a water for 4CHF but it wasn't enough. We tried to get ice cream at McDonlads but when we got to the front of the line they informed us they were out. How does McDonalds run out of ice cream! We found a convenience store and bought ice cream there before walking back to the hostel, incident free of course...

As much as a would have loved to sleep in on my birthday, we got up at 8am in order to get the breakfast included with our stay which only ran until 9am. It was a pretty decent breakfast so I was glad I got up for it. On the subject of sleeping in, I'm pretty sure I can count on one hand the number of times in the last 3 and a half months that I've slept past 9am. With the busy schedule I'm developing for the weekends in September and October I think I'm stuck being a morning person, and likely a coffee drinker. So after eating, we packed up our stuff and headed to the train station. I had booked an earlier train than many people so I was thinking of just staying and paying the fine so I could stay and see more of Geneva. Once I found out the fine was 90CHF in Switzerland and that those staying were going back to CERN to see an exhibit I decided to head back. We had a bit of time to kill before the train left, so we walked down to the waterfront where we could clearly see the giant stream of water shooting out of the lake (surely it has a proper name?) and visited a few souvenir shops. I bought the most expensive sushi of my life to take on the train for lunch, but hey, it was my birthday and I haven't had sushi all summer. The last sushi I did have was at UNB and it gave me the stomach flu, fortunately this sushi was very fresh and some of the best I've ever had, so it was worth it. I do want to go back to Toronto though, hard to beat all you can eat sushi for $20 or less. It took nearly 6 hours to get back to Schwenningen, with the last train not running and just barely making the substitute bus, I would have much rather stayed in Switzerland for my last 3 weeks, although I don't think I'd have enough money to make it to the airport in 3 weeks with the price of things there.

Work has been pretty uneventful this week, I was glad someone realized how monotonous the job they gave me for the previous two weeks was, so I got something new to do this week. It's way above my CAD ability but it's a good learning experience. A majority of the employees are on vacation this week, I think there are 9 or 10 of us in the engineering and development department this week, half of us are students.

I did get some great news on Tuesday morning I had eagerly been awaiting (I would say hoping for, but I guess I have high expectations), I got a scholarship from UNB! Being a transfer student I couldn't get one of those renewable entrance scholarships, so this will definitely help! I also got some great news after work when I was asked to stand for my childhood best friend, Ryan Pyke, at his wedding in October, so I'm really looking forward to that. And less than a month now until my sister's wedding, I'm sure that'll be a great event, it'll be great to see the whole extended family at that.

Only 16 more days until I arrive back in Halifax, and I think I'm just about ready to head home. This'll be my last weekend spent in Germany, as I'll be heading to Prague next weekend with an undetermined number (between 8 and 12) of other Canadians +friends?, and then the weekend after that I head to Zurich where I'll get my flight on Sunday the 2nd of September. No real plans for this weekend, just going to take it easy, maybe I'll finally get to sleep in. It's going to be quite hot here both Saturday and Sunday so I think I'll head to the other lake in the Black Forest, Schulchsee, for one of the days at least. It's about a 2 hour train ride each way, but it's less than 10 Euro each way so it'll hopefully be a cheap weekend...

Have a great weekend and thanks for reading!

Barcelona, Spain and more Schwarzwald

I took last Thursday and Friday off work to go to Barcelona for the weekend, it was an incredibly fun weekend, one of the most party filled weekends of the summer. There were supposed to be six of us going but Joe had to cancel due to the lovely German bureaucracy causing him problems, so I ended up going with Breagh, Carolann, Danielle, and Kaylen. I'm starting to wonder where the other guys are on the weekends. I met Danielle and Carolann on the train to Baden-Baden where we met up with the other two and caught the bus to the airport. We met a guy on the bus from the states who is also in Germany doing an engineering work term, he was also heading to Barcelona for the weekend. We had a an hour and forty minute flight to Girona airport which is an hour and a half from Barcelona. I slept for most of the flight but couldn't do the same for the bus ride; I had a headache and the smell was terrible on the bus. I was glad when we finally arrived in the city around 5pm. We navigated our way to the subway, passing by the Arc du Triomf, and finding our hostel off the incredibly popular Las Ramblas. This was definitely the most centrally located hostel we've ever stayed at. We put our stuff in on lockers and headed down into the Placa Reial, or Royal Plaza, over which the hostel looked, and had supper. I had a mixtures of 8 different tapas, most of which were pretty good.  We walked around a bit after supper before partying with some Australians and Americans we met in our 26-bed dorm room. We ended up getting back to the hostel between 5am and 7am, and I only had one person attempt to steal my wallet as I was trying to enter the hostel, thankfully I had my back pocket buttoned so he couldn't get it!

 Arc du Triompf

 Placa Reial

 Placa Reial

Las Ramblas

The next day, or later the same day, after waking up, we headed to the market with the three Australians, Joe, Scott, and Ronnie and a Californian, Will, where we had something to eat before walking around the marina/port area on our way to Barceloneta Beach. We spent the afternoon at the beach and had a ton of fun. The waves were huge, and the water was a great temperature. Nobody got really burnt so that was a bonus. Once we got back to the hostel I went out to buy a pair of pants, because I had discovered the night before most bars in Barcelona don't let guys in if they're wearing shorts. I found a pair for 25 euros, and we didn't end up making it to a place that I even needed them, but I now have a pair of jeans from Barcelona. We partied in the hostel for the night, and got to bed at a reasonable time, about 2 or 3am.

I got up earlier than everyone on Saturday, got my free breakfast downstairs, had a shower, and was almost ready to go before anyone else was up. I really wanted to see the Sagrada Familia, Gaudi's church, and I knew that not everyone else was feeling up for it. Carolann ended up getting ready in a hurry and came with me. It was an incredibly impressive church, I like the design style inside as it is unlike any other church in the world that I have been to. The pictures don't even do it justice, if you go to Barcelona you have to visit this place, even if the wait to get in is an hour!

 Should be finished between 2030 and 2050

The hat look was unintentional

We looked around the church for a little while before catching the subway back the hostel where we got a free tour of the Gothic District of Barcelona from one the employees at the hostel. There were only us five and one girl from France in our tour group, and the French girl left early so it was like a private tour. It was the first tour I've been on with a guy as the tour guide and he was hilarious, we didn't see the typical world famous sites, but the humor made up for that.

The tour was only about 2 hours, ending around 3pm, so we then headed to Park Guell. This is an amazing park developed by Gaudi, and includes the world's longest park bench. We spent a couple hours at the park before heading back to the hostel. We went out for supper with four guys from Florida that were staying in our room, Will, Adam, Ryan, and Alex. We had a very entertaining dinner at a tiny place called 'Restaurant' that claims to serve Barcelona's best sangrias. We had four or five pitchers between us, and I had paella with chicken to eat, it was extremely filling, but pretty tasty.

We bought a few drinks and headed to the Magic Fountain by the Royal Palace with the Australians to watch the fountain show. It was very impressive and we all had a great time among the thousands of people. Once it began to shower it was a mass migration to the subway and we had a very entertaining trip back to the hostel.

We partied in our room at the hostel with a bunch of people that joined us from the next room before catching cabs to the club Razzmatazz, the largest club on mainland Spain (the largest in Spain is on the island of Ibiza). We had a great night partying at the club, as you may have seen in the facebook pictures. 

Once we got back to the hostel around 5am we tried to find food, I forgot to eat supper, but did not have much luck, and had several prostitutes/gypsies chasing me and cornering me to try and steal my wallet. I didn't really have much money left at this point, but I managed to get away. We found a black market in the square our hostel was in where presumably stolen stuff was being sold, I bought an FC Barcelona scarf for 3 euro, not sure why, but it's a good souvenir. We gathered up our stuff and said goodbye to our new friends before heading to the bus station to catch our bus to the airport. There was no time to sleep. We missed the bus by 20 minutes, I thought they ran every 30 minutes, they did not. We begrudgingly took a cab to the airport at a cost of 170 euro, because it would have been much more expensive had we missed our flight. I slept for the whole cab ride and the whole flight, getting back to Schwenningen at about 4pm. I then proceeded to sleep for 12 hours before going to work the next morning. It was definitely a weekend to be remembered, we had some great laughs, and met some awesome people, I definitely could have stayed longer.

This past week was pretty uneventful, many people at work are on vacation, my supervisor is away for three weeks, and the head of the department will be gone for at least two weeks after next week. Some of the businesses around me have shut down for most of the month, it's very strange. It explains why there are no holidays in July and August. All workers in Germany get a minimum of three weeks of vacation, but many get several more. I slept for three hours when I got home from work on Friday, did some laundry and went back to bed. I got up early Saturday morning, I just can't sleep in (jetlag is going to be killer), so I did laundry, made breakfast, and went to the market all before 8:30am. I went to Lake Titisee for the day where I met Laura, and Carolann and her friend joined as around 2pm. It was a great day, I got pretty burnt but it's not so bad today. 

We left Titisee around 7pm, I went with Carolann and her friend who had a car to the Feldberg, the highest mountain in the Black Forest and the highest mountain in Germany outside of the Alps. It was a terrifyingly exciting drive in the 'Batmobil' as the decal on the back said. It was the tiniest car I've ever been it, it stuggled to climb the hills, the fuel gauge was on empty the whole time, and during the descent the breaks started to smell horrible, I'm glad we survived. We were able to drive to an elevation of about 1250m, and then we walked up the last 150m. It was a great view and because the sun was setting, there was hardly anyone there. We left the Feldberg around 8, I was dropped off at a train station in some small town where I waited an hour for a train before taking two trains and a bus, finally arriving back in Schwenningen after 11:30pm. 

I managed to sleep in today until 9am and I spent the afternoon in Rottweil, the oldest city/town in Baden-Wurttemburg, just a 15 minute train ride away. I met Greg at the train station and he showed me around as he had been there before. It was a very picturesque town but there is not much to do in any German city on a Sunday unless it's a major tourist destination. I got back home around 3:30pm and decided I should finish this blog since I've been putting it off long enough.

Hard to believe the first day of classes is just a month away. I am definitely not prepared for that!