Dear family and friends,
I had a wonderful Thanksgiving vacation with Mom and Dad. I met up with them in Paris last weekend, and then visited three amazing cities together this week: Geneva on Wednesday, Lyon, France on Thursday, and Lausanne, Switzerland on Friday. Unfortunately, since I am taking two online classes right now, I can't immediately update my blog with our adventures since I have to complete two midterm assignments. However, after I turn in my midterms, you can expect four different posts on the "Carla, Steve, and Allison do France and Switzerland" tale.
Sincerely,
Allison
Saturday, November 24, 2012
Thursday, November 15, 2012
CERN
This morning I went on a two hour tour of CERN (among other things, site of the creation of the World Wide Web by physicist Tim Berners-Lee in 1990) just outside of Geneva with a fellow Hopkins student, Victor. Unfortunately, the Large Hadron Collider is closed to visitors since it is currently operational and busy colliding beams of subatomic particles into each other to recreate the conditions just after the Big Bang and answer questions about the nature of the universe. No big deal.
The entrance to the main reception building:
A map of the Large Hadron Collider with particle beams going around Geneva and into France (not the best quality, the room was dark but flash ruined the photo):
We also got to see the Universe of Particles exhibit at the "Globe" --- a sphere 40 meters in diameter made entirely of wood, representing the Earth's future (from the 50th anniversary of CERN in 2004). Here's Victor in front of the Globe far away and up close:
The benefit of going on the tour was that we got to go to the building for ATLAS (A Toroidal LHC Apparatus), one of the seven particle detector experiments constructed at the Large Hadron Collider. ATLAS is 45 meters long, 25 meters in diameter, and weighs about 7,000 tons. The experiment is a collaboration involving roughly 3,000 physicists at 175 institutions in 38 countries. It was also one of the two LHC experiments involved in the discovery of a particle consistent with the Higgs boson earlier this year --- I still couldn't explain Higgs boson if my life depended on it but I am including that tidbit because that is what Wikipedia told me. Here is the building with a large artistic rendering of the ATLAS detector along with the ATLAS control room:
My gift to myself was to purchase a book called "Collider: The Search for the World's Smallest Particles" by Professor Paul Halpern to get a crash course in what particle physics is all about. Looking forward to reading it! Maybe then I will understand the Higgs boson... Probably not.
And we will end on a picture of me in front of an example of the particle accelerator:
The entrance to the main reception building:
A map of the Large Hadron Collider with particle beams going around Geneva and into France (not the best quality, the room was dark but flash ruined the photo):
We also got to see the Universe of Particles exhibit at the "Globe" --- a sphere 40 meters in diameter made entirely of wood, representing the Earth's future (from the 50th anniversary of CERN in 2004). Here's Victor in front of the Globe far away and up close:
The benefit of going on the tour was that we got to go to the building for ATLAS (A Toroidal LHC Apparatus), one of the seven particle detector experiments constructed at the Large Hadron Collider. ATLAS is 45 meters long, 25 meters in diameter, and weighs about 7,000 tons. The experiment is a collaboration involving roughly 3,000 physicists at 175 institutions in 38 countries. It was also one of the two LHC experiments involved in the discovery of a particle consistent with the Higgs boson earlier this year --- I still couldn't explain Higgs boson if my life depended on it but I am including that tidbit because that is what Wikipedia told me. Here is the building with a large artistic rendering of the ATLAS detector along with the ATLAS control room:
And we will end on a picture of me in front of an example of the particle accelerator:
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Zurich
This weekend was a nice, leisurely trip to Zurich to catch up with Sarah Young Goldberg, daughter of Cindy and Gary Young and our long-time family friends, whom I haven't seen in probably 10 or so years. We had a lot to catch up on, so most of the weekend was spent strolling through downtown Zurich, window shopping, and snacking on chocolate interspersed with lots and lots of conversation. It was an absolute blast! I really hope we don't go so long before seeing each other again. Here's a picture of the reunion:
I arrived in Zurich on Friday evening (November 9) and Sarah met me at the train station and took me a little ways out of the city to where she and her husband, Eli, live in Oberglatt (I hope that is right). Sarah cooked an amazing meal for us --- baked chicken, broccoli, and brown rice --- and honestly, probably the best meal that I have eaten so far in Switzerland. Swiss food is pretty yummy, but it is hard for it to not be greasy with so much melted cheese, so this is more the type of meal that one can regularly enjoy.
On Saturday morning, we took the train back into Zurich, and started on our stroll. Here is a view of Zurich Hauptbahnof:
Here are several more views of Lake Zurich and the surrounding areas downtown:
This is the Grossmünster cathedral --- a Romanesque style church from the 12th century with some pretty cool stained glass windows made with agate stones:
This is the Fraumünster --- a church just across the lake from the previous one with even cooler stained glass windows by the artist Marc Chagall (added in 1970).
I arrived in Zurich on Friday evening (November 9) and Sarah met me at the train station and took me a little ways out of the city to where she and her husband, Eli, live in Oberglatt (I hope that is right). Sarah cooked an amazing meal for us --- baked chicken, broccoli, and brown rice --- and honestly, probably the best meal that I have eaten so far in Switzerland. Swiss food is pretty yummy, but it is hard for it to not be greasy with so much melted cheese, so this is more the type of meal that one can regularly enjoy.
On Saturday morning, we took the train back into Zurich, and started on our stroll. Here is a view of Zurich Hauptbahnof:
Here are several more views of Lake Zurich and the surrounding areas downtown:
This is the Grossmünster cathedral --- a Romanesque style church from the 12th century with some pretty cool stained glass windows made with agate stones:
This is the Fraumünster --- a church just across the lake from the previous one with even cooler stained glass windows by the artist Marc Chagall (added in 1970).
We then ran into these Swiss horn players in the square --- and completely randomly ran into my fellow Hopkins student, Jennifer, who was visiting Zurich with her brother at the same time:
Sarah and I had a light lunch up above the city, and I took a couple more pictures of the view:
Soon it started to get dark, and so I took a couple more cathedral pictures of Zurich at night:
Then we went and had a genuine Swiss dinner at Zeughauskeller --- that was a blast --- before returning to Sarah and Eli's home for the night and more good conversation. I even managed to convince both of them to watch the first couple episodes of my favorite TV show of all time, Firefly --- I hope that they finish it and I will have converted two more people!
All in all, a wonderful trip with wonderful friends (new and old!).
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Amsterdam
Thank goodness I decided to still go to Amsterdam despite being very sick last week. It was another 3-day weekend (Saturday to Monday this time) traveling with Jill, and it was an all-around successful trip.
Saturday got off to a painfully early start --- I had to get up at 4am in order to make a 6:10am flight to Amsterdam. Since we had to get up so early, Jill and I had thought that we might need to take it easy, spend a lot of the time sitting, and maybe even take a nap in the afternoon. In fact, we ended up having probably the most active day of any travel day that we have had.
After taking the train from the airport to Amsterdam Central Station, we walked over to our Saturday night hostel in the Jordaan neighborhood (in the northwest area of the city center). We dropped off our bags and thought we would visit the Anne Frank House since it was so early, but the line was already quite long. So then we went to walk around the Nine Streets area nearby to check out the shops --- I ended up buying a long-sleeved navy blue dress that I love.
We continued our walking tour to include the Nieuwmarkt area and the Waterlooplein to check out the flea market there.
Looking really, really tired:
After stopping for lunch, we also did a tour of the Dutch Royal Palace.
As we walked back toward our hostel to rest, we saw that the line for the Anne Frank House was much shorter, so we waited in line for 30 minutes in order to do that tour. Here's a picture of the queue...
It was incredibly moving and quite astonishing how central the location of the house is --- it is hard to imagine the difficulty of staying quiet in the "Secret Annex" during the day given how many people must have been in and around that building all the time. It also makes me want to re-read Anne Frank's Diary... adding that back to my reading list.
We did manage to rest for a little while at the hostel after this, and then went to a nearby Spanish restaurant in Jordaan recommended by Lonely Planet called La Oliva. I had an absolutely fantastic dinner: a beef filet with red wine sauce, roasted potatoes, and mushrooms.
As you might imagine, we went straight to bed after dinner. According to Jill, I lasted about 5 minutes before completely passing out once I got in bed.
Sleeping in until 8:00am on Sunday morning felt luxurious after the previous day. We moved hostels on Sunday, so while we were still able to leave our bags at the first one, we wanted to check out the Red Light District and Medieval Center of Amsterdam which were quite close (parts of which we had already seen on our walk on Saturday). The area of Jordaan, Nine Streets, and the Anne Frank House is strikingly different in personality from the Red Light District. As expected, there were lots of "coffee shops" and headshops advertising marijuana products and we did pass several store windows with sex shows, clothes and toys, and prostitutes. Very different than any other city I have ever been in. We did tour the "Sexmuseum" which had imagery of sex and prostitution across history, but I couldn't bring myself to go in the Hemp, Hash, and Marijuana museum --- it smelled too much like pot and I didn't want the smell to get in my clothes.
We then visited a completely different area of Amsterdam called the Begijnhof. The Begijnhof is the only inner court of Amsterdam founded during the Middle Ages and, as the name suggests, it was home to the Beguines, a loose semi-monastic community of nuns but without formal vows. Although the last Beguine died in 1971, the community is still entirely women. It is also the site of the English Reformed Church and the oldest wooden house in Amsterdam (1528).
Then we went back to get our bags from the first hostel to move to our second hostel, the Flying Pig, near the Museumplein (area with several important Amsterdam museums).
We then walked to the nearby I AMsterdam sign, which was quite crowded with tourists taking pictures, but once it started raining -- the area cleared out and we were able to take more pictures from a nearby cafe where we got lunch.
Can you see me?!?
At this point, it was already so late in the day that we decided that we didn't have time to visit the Van Gogh museum, which is currently moved from its Museumplein location to a temporary set-up at the Hermitage Amsterdam, which was quite far from where we were. We decided to just go from our late lunch to the Heineken Experience, a tour of the famously Dutch Heineken Brewery (Jill really wanted to go and I was fine with doing it even if beer is no longer an option for me).
It really was an experience! Not only did you get to see every stage of the beer making process and have it explained, but there was even a 4D "ride" called Be the Brew where you stood on moving platforms with heat lamps, fans, and even sprinkles of water to make it seem as if you really are the beer being brewed and bottled. There are a ton of interactive steps along the self-guided tour --- unfortunately the "bottle your own beer" activity was out of order but we did take this high quality photograph of ourselves:
By the time we finished touring the Heineken Experience, it was just after 5pm. It had been raining off and on the whole day, and neither of us wanted to walk around more areas of Amsterdam at that point. We decided it was movie night! We found a 7:20pm showing of The Perks of Being a Wallflower nearby, and there was even a reasonably priced sushi place on the same block where we were able to get dinner beforehand. The movie was great --- not what I thought it was going to be about, and now I want to read the book. One of my favorite parts of the movie, though, was actually a beer commercial that they showed beforehand --- the sound of opening this particular beer sent off a chain reaction of different individuals opening up a beer themselves, culminating in a man at a sidewalk cafe opening a beer and a limousine stopping after hearing the sound and you hear a man say, "Sir, we can't stop..." and the sound of President Obama saying "Yes, we can." Best beer commercial ever. (No intention of spouting political ideology but I was just so entertained that I wanted to share --- in other news, I did wake up at 2am this morning to watch election coverage, fell back asleep, and then got up again at 5am to watch all of the results.)
That was the end of Sunday night. Monday morning we checked out of hostel #2 and decided to carry our bags with us so we could go straight to the train station in the afternoon. We started off the day checking out the Albert Cuypmarket, an area of a few blocks that has a daily street fair during the week.
I got a delicious apple for breakfast (it was called an Elstar, has anyone seen this type before?), and a raspberry smoothie, and some chocolate fudge, and a 6 euro multi-colored scarf. It was a blast --- and we even had pretty good weather for at least the first part of walking around. We got a light lunch of tomato soup and then headed back toward the Heineken Experience to wait for the Heineken shuttle boat to take us along the canal to the Heineken brand store, which happens to be right across from the Hermitage Amsterdam, where the Van Gogh collection currently is. Unfortunately, the boat didn't come and we ended up walking... so no canal rides during the trip. But we did get to see the art of Van Gogh as well as an additional temporary exhibit on the other Impressionists. I loved it! I definitely learned some new things about Van Gogh --- one of his inspirations was Japanese art, which I never knew, and I didn't realize quite how quickly the timeline of his painting progressed. He was born in 1853 and then taught himself to paint at age 27, but he only painted for 10 years until he shot himself in 1890 --- with most of his works being completed in the last 2 years of his life, which he painted at least one painting per day.
Pictures of the final walk through Amsterdam:
We had thought that we would explore more of the area around Nieuwmarkt after the museum exhibits, but we ended up walking straight to Central Station without stopping... and so we arrived in our terminal at the airport about 4 hours before our 9pm flight. It gave me the chance to buy a diamond star necklace and a bunch of chocolate at the duty free shop at least!
All in all, a truly fabulous trip to Amsterdam!
Saturday got off to a painfully early start --- I had to get up at 4am in order to make a 6:10am flight to Amsterdam. Since we had to get up so early, Jill and I had thought that we might need to take it easy, spend a lot of the time sitting, and maybe even take a nap in the afternoon. In fact, we ended up having probably the most active day of any travel day that we have had.
After taking the train from the airport to Amsterdam Central Station, we walked over to our Saturday night hostel in the Jordaan neighborhood (in the northwest area of the city center). We dropped off our bags and thought we would visit the Anne Frank House since it was so early, but the line was already quite long. So then we went to walk around the Nine Streets area nearby to check out the shops --- I ended up buying a long-sleeved navy blue dress that I love.
We continued our walking tour to include the Nieuwmarkt area and the Waterlooplein to check out the flea market there.
Looking really, really tired:
After stopping for lunch, we also did a tour of the Dutch Royal Palace.
It was incredibly moving and quite astonishing how central the location of the house is --- it is hard to imagine the difficulty of staying quiet in the "Secret Annex" during the day given how many people must have been in and around that building all the time. It also makes me want to re-read Anne Frank's Diary... adding that back to my reading list.
We did manage to rest for a little while at the hostel after this, and then went to a nearby Spanish restaurant in Jordaan recommended by Lonely Planet called La Oliva. I had an absolutely fantastic dinner: a beef filet with red wine sauce, roasted potatoes, and mushrooms.
As you might imagine, we went straight to bed after dinner. According to Jill, I lasted about 5 minutes before completely passing out once I got in bed.
Sleeping in until 8:00am on Sunday morning felt luxurious after the previous day. We moved hostels on Sunday, so while we were still able to leave our bags at the first one, we wanted to check out the Red Light District and Medieval Center of Amsterdam which were quite close (parts of which we had already seen on our walk on Saturday). The area of Jordaan, Nine Streets, and the Anne Frank House is strikingly different in personality from the Red Light District. As expected, there were lots of "coffee shops" and headshops advertising marijuana products and we did pass several store windows with sex shows, clothes and toys, and prostitutes. Very different than any other city I have ever been in. We did tour the "Sexmuseum" which had imagery of sex and prostitution across history, but I couldn't bring myself to go in the Hemp, Hash, and Marijuana museum --- it smelled too much like pot and I didn't want the smell to get in my clothes.
We then visited a completely different area of Amsterdam called the Begijnhof. The Begijnhof is the only inner court of Amsterdam founded during the Middle Ages and, as the name suggests, it was home to the Beguines, a loose semi-monastic community of nuns but without formal vows. Although the last Beguine died in 1971, the community is still entirely women. It is also the site of the English Reformed Church and the oldest wooden house in Amsterdam (1528).
Then we went back to get our bags from the first hostel to move to our second hostel, the Flying Pig, near the Museumplein (area with several important Amsterdam museums).
We then walked to the nearby I AMsterdam sign, which was quite crowded with tourists taking pictures, but once it started raining -- the area cleared out and we were able to take more pictures from a nearby cafe where we got lunch.
Can you see me?!?
At this point, it was already so late in the day that we decided that we didn't have time to visit the Van Gogh museum, which is currently moved from its Museumplein location to a temporary set-up at the Hermitage Amsterdam, which was quite far from where we were. We decided to just go from our late lunch to the Heineken Experience, a tour of the famously Dutch Heineken Brewery (Jill really wanted to go and I was fine with doing it even if beer is no longer an option for me).
It really was an experience! Not only did you get to see every stage of the beer making process and have it explained, but there was even a 4D "ride" called Be the Brew where you stood on moving platforms with heat lamps, fans, and even sprinkles of water to make it seem as if you really are the beer being brewed and bottled. There are a ton of interactive steps along the self-guided tour --- unfortunately the "bottle your own beer" activity was out of order but we did take this high quality photograph of ourselves:
By the time we finished touring the Heineken Experience, it was just after 5pm. It had been raining off and on the whole day, and neither of us wanted to walk around more areas of Amsterdam at that point. We decided it was movie night! We found a 7:20pm showing of The Perks of Being a Wallflower nearby, and there was even a reasonably priced sushi place on the same block where we were able to get dinner beforehand. The movie was great --- not what I thought it was going to be about, and now I want to read the book. One of my favorite parts of the movie, though, was actually a beer commercial that they showed beforehand --- the sound of opening this particular beer sent off a chain reaction of different individuals opening up a beer themselves, culminating in a man at a sidewalk cafe opening a beer and a limousine stopping after hearing the sound and you hear a man say, "Sir, we can't stop..." and the sound of President Obama saying "Yes, we can." Best beer commercial ever. (No intention of spouting political ideology but I was just so entertained that I wanted to share --- in other news, I did wake up at 2am this morning to watch election coverage, fell back asleep, and then got up again at 5am to watch all of the results.)
That was the end of Sunday night. Monday morning we checked out of hostel #2 and decided to carry our bags with us so we could go straight to the train station in the afternoon. We started off the day checking out the Albert Cuypmarket, an area of a few blocks that has a daily street fair during the week.
I got a delicious apple for breakfast (it was called an Elstar, has anyone seen this type before?), and a raspberry smoothie, and some chocolate fudge, and a 6 euro multi-colored scarf. It was a blast --- and we even had pretty good weather for at least the first part of walking around. We got a light lunch of tomato soup and then headed back toward the Heineken Experience to wait for the Heineken shuttle boat to take us along the canal to the Heineken brand store, which happens to be right across from the Hermitage Amsterdam, where the Van Gogh collection currently is. Unfortunately, the boat didn't come and we ended up walking... so no canal rides during the trip. But we did get to see the art of Van Gogh as well as an additional temporary exhibit on the other Impressionists. I loved it! I definitely learned some new things about Van Gogh --- one of his inspirations was Japanese art, which I never knew, and I didn't realize quite how quickly the timeline of his painting progressed. He was born in 1853 and then taught himself to paint at age 27, but he only painted for 10 years until he shot himself in 1890 --- with most of his works being completed in the last 2 years of his life, which he painted at least one painting per day.
Pictures of the final walk through Amsterdam:
We had thought that we would explore more of the area around Nieuwmarkt after the museum exhibits, but we ended up walking straight to Central Station without stopping... and so we arrived in our terminal at the airport about 4 hours before our 9pm flight. It gave me the chance to buy a diamond star necklace and a bunch of chocolate at the duty free shop at least!
All in all, a truly fabulous trip to Amsterdam!
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