Thursday:
Heiner gave me the day off since my train left at 1:35pm for Rome. Even though I shouldn't have been pressed for time, I still managed to make getting to the train station in time a stressful event. I guess I was just excited to be going to one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Ranked #8 on a list I found with Venice (my next destination) being #1. The train ride had a connection in Milan. It was ~3 hours to Milan and then another ~3 hours to Rome. Less than an hour in and I was surrounded by mountains. Only 2 hours in and there was a definite change in scenery. The railroad tracks carved between beautiful mountains as a river followed along side.
The second picture is of Lake Thun (pronounced Tune). I was on the wrong side of the train so I had to zoom across the aisle but still looks amazing. Definitely a place I need to spend a day at. Along the small towns in the valleys I saw lots of hay fields. Not any new farm equipment, which makes sense because it would be difficult to maneuver on the side of a mountain. As my train ride continued south of the Alps, Switzerland started to look a lot like Italy. I arrived in Milan and had to go to the bathroom but decided to wait until I got onto the next train. In Europe I guess it is normal for there to be a fee to use the toilet. From Milan (or as they call it Milano) to Rome, my window view was filled with fields, farms, and small towns. Almost looked like I was on a train in Michigan. The fields raced pass as the Italian train averaged about 240 km/hr (150mph). Then there was a really long tunnel. I fell asleep and woke up to rolling hills covered in vineyards. The Italy everyone expects to see when traveling. Overall the trip to Rome went smoothly. It was once I got there that the fun began. I was suppose to meet Cody, a fellow Stamps Scholar from UofM, and my two friends, who I met in Bern, in the station at 8:00pm. I arrived at 8:05 expecting to see the girls waiting for me and then Cody not far behind. There was only one flaw. We didn't really plan where we were going to meet. After 20 minutes and checking the McDonald's for wifi, I miraculously ran into Cody. For some reason, I never panicked even though I was alone, in a huge city, outside of the US, where I didn't know the language, and didn't have a phone with service. Now that Cody and I were together, we were bound to find the girls. About 40 minutes later and starting to wonder if they bailed on us, we finally spotted them. Everything was fine, or so we thought...
cliffhanger. More Day 14 to come tomorrow with Day 15, 16 and 17.
Yesterday (Day 18) I went to work. Processed some data. Talked about the best ways to extract the most information from the data we have. Went around to a few stores in search of the cheapest peanut butter. Cheapest so far is 3.50 franks (crunchy). The battery on my watch died.
Today (Day 19) I woke up a little earlier to get to the lab at 8:00 for our weekly meeting about the progress of the study. I printed off some graphs for Patric to talk about and show to Heiner. Heiner proposed some good ideas that we later put into action. I calculated some measurements. Looked in on another project that is happening at the lab.
Its a chair that a student built. It has a motor and a disc break which work together to create different types of vibrations. Very cool stuff. Here they are recording the movements with the Vicon 3D kinematics system. Theres 6 cameras that pick up the movements. Getting two more cameras in the next few days. I ran with Patric today during lunch. It was about 92 degrees here. Hot one for sure. Once I got out of work, I did some grocery shopping, picked up a battery for my watch, and then headed to the gym. Here's how mayonnaise looks in Switzerland.
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