Monday, June 3, 2013

Weekend road trip

It was another successful weekend of traveling around Switzerland. First we stopped in Bern, before spending the night in Geneva. The next day we visited CERN, and went to Zermatt. Sunday before coming back we went to the top of the Gornergrat.
Despite the rainy weather Bern was still a fun city to walk around and explore. I guess you could say the weather in Bern was a little unbearable... lolz. Armin gave us a tour of the down town area of the city and showed us a couple of old cathedrals. We walked up what seemed like millions of steps up a narrow spiral stair case to get to the top of a tower. The view made it worth it.

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Geneva is in the French part of Switzerland. This is the par to Switzerland where French is more common than German. The weather cleared up a little bit more by the time we got to Geneva. Armin gave us another tour of the city, then let us explore the rest of the city on our own.

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The next day we got up early to visit CERN. This, in my humble opinion, was the most interesting place to visit. CERN does not have any full time tour guides, all tours are given by engineers, physicists and electricians who work there. The first part of our tour was an introduction presentation, to explain what is CERN. Also to explain some of the more complex concepts behind particle physics. Next we were given a tuor of the control lab for one of the colliders. Afterwards we were taken to a testing facility for their magnets.

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That dude was a zombie in a zombie movie. Dr. Zombie.

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After CERN we went to Zermatt. Zermatt is a little mountain town that can only be reached by a train ride. We were treated to a four course dinner at a local restaurant that night. The next morning we took another train ride to the top of Gornergrat. The weather cleared up for the few hours we spent at the top. It really is a great view from the top. We even got to see the Toblerone Mountain.

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