Grossed Out

Just moments ago I returned from a small trip to the grocery store. We essentially had no options, now we have a few. I was putting eggs into the egg holder in the fridge. The first egg I pulled out of the carton had feathers stuck to it. I know where eggs come from, but geez! Can't they wash that off? I'm pretty grossed out. I put the egg back in the carton and went on to the next one. I will deal with it another time.

The US Economy (sigh)

Want to know how to convert swiss-francs (CHF) to dollars (USD) ? Just multiply by 1 ! Geez, it is not fun earning graduate student wages and then suffering through these terrible exchange rates. To give you an idea how expensive this place is, a small starbucks coffee goes for about 4 CHF in the city. Since we live on the boarder of France/Switzerland, we have to carry around both currencies (euros and swiss-francs). Click here to see the 3 month trends of the CHF/USD ratio. We would want this ratio to be high of course, which its not... Click here to see the 3 month trend of the USD/Euro ratio. Conversely, we would want this ratio to be low, which its not. Joe and I had a laugh (more of a cry) about this today, since we have to pay rent this week (i.e. exchange a bunch of USD to EURO). Sucks...

CMS Bulletin Interview

Every two weeks, my experiment publishes a bulletin (or newsletter). Every once and a while they try to interview a graduate student or research scientist for this thing, and I was recently asked to do this. The video of the interview is on youtube, and can be found here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUasM4nhCVo

This video will be featured in a future newsletter two weeks from now. When it is published I will post a link to it on the blog.

Jeannette tells me that our blog audience may be interested in learning more about what I do here at CERN. I will try to dedicate some blogs in the near future to my activities here, and what our experiment is trying to do.

Here is a photo of the portion of the University of Florida's group that is stationed at CERN.

P.S.

I finally found some curtains at IKEA. They are great because they don't look like someone urinated down them! I also bought bar stools. Things are looking up!

It's Cold and I Have One

Today at 2:30 p.m. the temperature is 61 degrees. I'm NEVER going to make it through winter. I need more sweaters. Still haven't found a jacket that isn't a snow jacket. We found one, but they didn't have my size. I love the jacket I have, but I will get made fun of for wearing a winter coat in September. Apparently, it snows in November! This is very traumatic for a girl from Florida. Last week I wore shorts and now I'm thinking about putting my scarf on. This is RIDICULOUS. Want to know what else is great? We took our comforter to the dry cleaner...so I can't even snuggle under my covers. I also happen to have a cold. I can't breathe...I'm pretty miserable. I've got so much congestion that my teeth hurt. I whipped up some chicken noodle soup. Thank God for boullion cubes. It wasn't fancy, but the steam was helpful. Well off to go watch some kids! Yahoo!

IMPORTANT: Regarding Mail

We love getting mail, but there is something you need to know. When you write our postal code, 01710, make sure you cross your seven. In Europe an uncrossed seven is a one.

Remember to cross your sevens!

Pictures I Forgot We Took on the Jura

It just kept going up...this was acutally an easier leg of the trail.

Ronny wouldn't take the picture unless I was smiling. This was one of many breaks...a mountain climber I am not.

The view from the "not quite top". You can see the Jet D'Eau (water jet in Geneva) in the very back.

We made it! Let's go home!

The benefits of working at CERN

One of the great things about working at this lab is the high profile guest speakers that come from time to time (fairly often) to give seminars and visit the experiments. Yesterday, I went with Joe (roommate) and Didar (another colleague) to see a colloquium entitled "The Creation of the Universe". The colloquium was advertised to start at 3:30. We decided to go to the auditorium right after lunch to ensure that we could get a spot. At about 1:40 we arrive there to see that the house is nearly packed in anticipation of this very famous guest speaker. We were able to find seats (about 20 rows up). About 20 minutes later, there were no more seats, and we still had an hour and a half to wait for the talk to begin. It was mayhem. There were 4 rooms set up for the audience overflow, where the talk would be broadcast.

Finally, the moment came, and it was quite the experience. What an impressive human being! It would have been nice if the subject matter was a little more thought provoking...I kid, I kid. It was freaking awesome. Here is a clip of this legendary scientist entering the auditorium. You should recognize him.

Okay, Okay...

I realize that the last few blogs haven't been the happiest. Okay, so I had a bad week. These things happen. I didn't work that much last week and just hit some road blocks on the way to making this place feel more like a home. Things inevitably aren't always cheerful. Nevertheless, life here is not all that bad. I don't know where to find snow boots...I really want some Lands End boots but the shipping cost is too much, and I need to get an in-between jacket, something that isn't a winter coat. It is difficult not knowing how to solve immediate needs.

Last night Ronny and I went to a local event, the Salon de Vins. It was amazing! There were two spaces, one tent and one indoor room, full of wine vendors. We tried so much wine and ended with brandy. I had awesome real champagne and bought a nice bottle of Pinot Gris. People were buying cases upon cases--I've never seen anything like it. I guess a lot of people have wine cellars here, so they just stock up. We ran into one of Ronny's colleagues who speaks French, so that was very helpful with interacting with the vendors. It felt kind of weird drinking wine and then moving on. We felt a little bad...I guess it's an American thing. The Director of CERN was there. Ronny knew then that this was a big deal. There were a lot of wine snobs around too. One guy in front of us at a booth insisted that the vendor toss an entire bottle away because it was bad. He did the whole nose in the class, swish, and spit into a bucket that looks like a hat. It was very funny. Ronny had this really fancy, really expensive brandy and I tried this drink that was wine and brandy. Apparently, long ago a monk accidentally put wine in a barrel that still had brandy in it, he sealed it and the drink I had was the result. The walk home was chilly! We were there for about three hours. We had not planned on that at all! It was dark and windy when we were walking home. The temperature was about 53 degrees, which for those of you from Florida is cold. It is clear that winter is going to be interesting...fall might be interesting for that matter!

Fed Up

That's it! I've had it! Why does everything have to be such an ordeal or an adventure over here? Even the most mundane things like trying to find curtains. I have been on a mission this week to try to find curtains for the living room. We have a large back door that currently has the ugliest curtains I have ever seen. They are organza probably, and they are sheer but also tinted from the sun. What were once maybe white are now the color of urine. Looking at them makes me angry, so I'm trying to solve this problem. My new problem is I can't find a store that sells curtains that fit into two categories: a) look decent and b) aren't outrageously expensive. I have been all over, and I can't seem to find anything. I'm so angry it isn't even funny anymore. Where in the hell is the Bed Bath and Beyond of Europe? Why is everything so much easier back home? Everything so much more convenient? Back home I don't have to plan a script of what to say on the off chance I need help in a store. God forbid the store clerk speaks back to me because I didn't script the possible responses. I don't have to walk down every aisle because I can read the signs that direct me to the aisle I need. I don't have to go to four stores to find two things because back home there is one store that has everything! I'm tired of everything being an "adventure".

Ranting

I am so tired of spiders! I'm not afraid of them, I am just sick of them. They are in every corner, and they are HUGE! I guess this is a product of not having screens on the windows here. It makes me feel like the house is dirty. No matter what I do, I cannot keep this place looking very clean. The walls are dingy, the floors show every bit of dirt or speck of anything (I never want hard wood floors again), and I think we might have some problems with moisture in the walls. If this really is a 200 year old building, I don't think it was built with the most up to date moisture barrier. But back to the spiders. They really make me mad. It doesn't matter how many times we kill them, they keep coming back.

Not much to talk about...this is a pretty slow week. Only watching the kids on Wednesday. I am going to go to the CERN microcosm, a museum at CERN.