CERN

29/05:

A friend of a friend (shout-outs to Stefanie and Gianluca!) gave me a great tour of CERN today. CERN, by the way, stands for Csomethingfrench Esomethingfrench Rsomethingfrench Nsomethingfrench -- it's a research center with a few thousand scientists working away at solving some of physics' big questions by smashing protons and/or lead ions together at about 99.9% of the speed of light.

In the evening, the rain which had been plaguing the country since I arrived let up and let the sun shine spectacularly through. Switzerland may be the most beautiful place I've ever seen (and that's saying something).

Hiking Montreux

Feeling a bit under the weather today, I decided to get over the weather by hiking up a mountain! Okay, maybe the logic doesn't work there, but it's what happened anyway. It was a tough choice today: tour one of the world's most delicious chocolate factories, or hike some of the world's most beautiful mountains? My compromise was to hike the mountains, then buy a whole bunch of chocolate.

The hike was spectacular. Most of it was very similar to what can be found in the Pacific Northwest in America, but it all had a unique Swiss character (especially the views at the top).

After the hike (about 10 miles), I came back down to Montreux and walked along the shores of Lake Geneva. There is a beautiful pedestrian area that stretches for a few miles, lined with little shops, a casino, and what must be ridiculously expensive hotels. There were also some swans which moved into attack formation and hissed at me when I tried to sit by the peaceful lake.

I don't speak French

28/05:

After expertly navigating a train connection in Paris (believe me, it was tricky), I made it all the way from Amsterdam to Lausanne, Switzerland by rail. The journey took about 8 hours. Unfortunately, I didn't have a window seat, but I could still see some countryside rolling by. Actually, more like flying by -- the trains I took cruised most of the way at about 160 mph (this sets a new personal land speed record).

Upon making it into Lausanne, I was picked up by some distant relatives (I think technically they are my step-aunt/uncle-in-law), who I will be staying with for the next few nights.

Delft

My Dutch roommate Jon gave me a nice overview tour of the university town Delft (where he studied for several years). Then, we split up for the day so he could get some work done and I could dive into some of the more typical tourist activities.

The town is not that large, but it's got a ton of history and beautiful areas. I toured its 2 huge churches (the "Old Church" from 1200-something and the "New Church" from a hundred years later -- the Dutch are not very creative with their names), even climbing all the way up to the top of the New Church (see pictures)! There's a veeery small old spiral staircase which winds up through the center of the tower to give access to the bells and lets you get almost to the very top. By the time you climb the 30 stories or so of stairs, you are certainly aware of how high you are, and when you lean over the railing, you get a healthy dose of vertigo.

I should also mention that the Dutch make really good food that's bad for you. I've had sizable "samples" of their cheese, apple pie (x2), ice cream (x3), cookies (x8?), stroopwafels (x3... so far), and a whole host of meat-based yummies (of which the locals have learned to never inquire about ingredients).

Sailing

To escape from the Ghost of Slot Assumburg (and all attendant dragons, witches, and medieval tax-collectors), I caught a train to meet up with my Dutch housemate, Jon. Being the Dutch sea warrior that he is, he took me sailing with some of his buddies from his Scouts club (basically Boy/Girl Scouts in a sailboat). I felt a lot like Bob from the movie "What About Bob?".

Also got to see some real Dutch windmills here! Just need my Sancho Panza...

Amsterdam

Got to explore the once-great city of Amsterdam today. I say "once-great" because it's hay-day was really 400 years ago, when it was the seat of the society which ruled the world at the time. Now it's still pretty cool, especially the canals which connect everything (and make it very difficult to navigate the city on land.

Last night and tonight, I am sleeping in a castle. It was built sometime in the 13th century. Yeah. (see pictures)

Cycling

20/5/2013

I learned a few important lessons today:

1. The English countryside is very beautiful.
2. So beautiful, that it's easy to get distracted while cycling.
3. The front and back brakes are reversed on U.K. bikes.
4. Doing a front flip over the handlebars still hurts, even in a foreign country.

Yes, it's true. While admiring the quaint countryside passing me by, I looked back at the road to discover with horror that my bike was no longer aligned with the road and was, in fact, heading straight into a rut off the side. Being somewhat of an expert in not crashing bikes, I used my failsafe move: lock up the back wheel, apply moderate pressure to the front brakes, and hope for the best. Except that in the U.K., what should be the back brake is actually the front brake. Thus, I was sent hurling over the handlebars of my bike. Don't worry, no major injuries -- just some minor scrapes.

22/5/2013:
Quick update: I'm now back in London for another day before I fly to Amsterdam tomorrow.

Cambridge

I took the train up from London to Cambridge this morning (about 1.5 hours). Cambridge is like every university town I've been to, except the buildings are several hundred years old and way more awesome looking. I think if there were a zombie apocalypse, England would be pretty safe with all its impenetrable stone fortresses.

When I first got to Cambridge, I found this amazingly talented kid playing guitar and singing some of my favorite songs. The whole downtown area was speckled with talented street performers separated by hearing distance.

London part 2

I'm a day late posting this (didn't really have a chance earlier):

I started today off with a beautiful walk through some of the royal gardens (specifically, Holland Park, Kensington Gardens, and Hyde Park). It's amazing how big the gardens are -- I think Kensington Gardens covers about half a square mile.

Then, I went to the Royal Gallery at Trafalgar Square, which is a great (free) museum of paintings from throughout the centuries. This was followed by a trip to the Tower of London. It's a huuuuge castle/fortress right in the heart of London. Lots of people have died there. After that, I went to yet another world treasure: the British Museum. I only got to spend a short time there, but the best part was the giant collection of ancient Greek and Roman ruins. Seeing such advanced art from thousands of years ago was inspiring but also worrisome. There have been several times in human history when civilization has fallen backwards by hundreds or thousands of years; let's not let it happen again.

The day finished off with seeing the Phantom of the Opera at Her Majesty's Theatre. Londoners really know how to be classy.

A very long, exciting day

The past 2 days have been kind of a blur, with about 5 or 6 hours of sleep somewhere in there. The flight across the Atlantic was very interesting for me as it was the shortest night I have ever experienced. The sky was only dark for about 3 hours due to the season, high latitude, and direction of motion.

London is a very interesting city. Tons of weird customs (the changing of the guard??), tons of cultures, and tons of really cool things to see. I think it's the most international city I have ever been in -- it seemed like every person I overheard was speaking in a different language, and every person I talked to in English had a different accent.

See below for some photos from the day!

Preparations continue...

5 more days at home until I leave! As I continue to plan and make travel arrangements, I thought I would test my procedure of transferring photos from my camera to my Nexus 7 tablet, backing them up to a flash drive, and posting some interesting ones on here. Also, I wanted to make sure I could type on this teeny little keyboard I've got -- so far, so good!

The photo attached to this post is what the CU Boulder campus looked like only a few short weeks ago! We had a very snowy April (and even into May).

I know no one is reading these (yet) because I haven't even given out the link yet ;)  If you find this, good for you!

Getting ready for an adventure!

In almost exactly 1 week, I leave my home in Colorado for my first foray into Europe! As always, I go camera-in-hand, and I will try to be regular about posting some photos and stories on here.

Ad astra!