Day 35-38: What a weekend

The last four days have been amazing. I went on a tour of Switzerland and finished things off with a swim in the Aare. Here's the breakdown.

Thursday

Luzern: A place where a bunch of rich old Americans and Brits go on boat tours around the lake. Luzern was my first stop of my little three day tour. A really nice city placed on one of the northern points of Lake Luzern. I spent a few hours walking around the city before heading to Zurich. The last picture is of Mount Pilatus. In medieval times, it was believed that dragons with healing powers lived in the rugged clefts and crevices of the mountain.

Zurich: Where every man must wear a suit. I walked around the city for about 6 hours. University of Zurich was cool along with a museum I found nearby. Other than some other neat looking buildings, I didn't think Zurich was anything to write home about (wait...). It's probably because I appreciate cities like Luzern that are more about nature than business and society. A short story about my time in the train station- I was looking real cool sitting on a bench with my sunglasses on. Took a drink of water and somehow got water all down the front of my shirt. Two girls saw me and couldn't stop from laughing. Swiss girls 1 - American boy 0.

awesome

There was a festival starting on the weekend so that explains the Ferris wheel.

This big guy was in the zoology museum I happened to come across. Everything was in German, but I think it's a giant sloth.

Scuol: an ideal place to have a summer home (maybe in my future...actually saw a house for sale for 1.5 million franks...probably not in my future). I stayed at Patric and Vera's flat that they had rented for the week for the two nights I was there. They said it was old like a grandma's house, but I thought it was nice and cozy. I had my own room and when I walked in, I noticed a jar of peanut butter on the pillow of the bed- a welcoming present from Vera. 

Friday

Friday was the absolute perfect Swiss day. Hiking, Swiss food, more hiking, water tasting, run, Swiss dinner which included Rösti, cheese tasting, and a glass of wine. A long day, but wow. Life at its finest. 

At an elevation of ~2400m.

Down in a valley on the way back.

Restaurant where we stopped for frappes.

One of the weirdest things. In the old town of Scuol there are different types of drinking fountains. As you can see from the color, the two faucets on this fountain do not pour out the same water. The far one is normal, fresh water from the mountains. The other is water that has a higher concentration of iron AND it's carbonated. Carbonated straight from the spring! It was still perfectly clear and didn't taste too bad.

Saturday

Hit a bit of a speed bump. More like a roadblock on my train ride to Zermatt. Turns out I was lied to by the Zurich ticket office. A lady I spoke with there said it would be free to travel from Scuol to Zermatt with my Eurail pass. The ticket checker on the train thought otherwise, and after conversing with her it came down to her saying, "You need to either pay or get off at the next stop." I was going to have to pay a lot so I got off at the next stop. I still had to pay 9 franks to get back to the train station where I have free travel again. My train ride started at 5:27am. It was now quarter to 10 and I didn't want to just go back to Bern. I made a spontaneous decision to head to Geneva where I would spend an hour checking out the city and then head to Montreux until the latest train would get me back to Bern by midnight. And I did just that.

Geneva: windy weather = no Jet d'Eau (one of the largest fountains in the world). It was disappointing but the Coop Beach Tour was happening so at least I got to watch some beach volleyball. The city definitely had a French feel to it. Way different than Bern.

Where the fountain is suppose to be.

Got a free Coop hat! Coop is a grocery store. There's Coop banks too.

Montreux: The most hippy place in Switzerland. The Montreux Jazz Festival was going on so there were shops, street musicians, and a lot of people all along the lake shore. I walked down to some rocks and ate dinner, then headed to the Castle. The entire path to the Castle was beautiful. The sun was setting which enhanced the scenery to a whole nother level. A band started playing after sunset. They had an earthy tone that I really liked. I would have loved to stay all night but my train left at 10:18pm to get me back to Bern at 11:56pm. Montreux is definitely one of my favorite cities.

Chillon Castle

Sunday

Back in Bern. Planned to use the day to recover from all of the traveling from my Swiss tour, but ended up going to the Aare River with Joel. It was about 80 degrees here today. On the way to the river we walked pass the Clock Tower so I could see it for the first time. It was built in the 13th century. Pretty cool. We dropped off our stuff at the public pools then walked down to Eichholz (a park on the river). We jumped into the river and floated back to the public pools (about a mile downstream). The water was a frigid 62 degrees. Once your arms and legs went numb, it was nice. Floating down a river that is as fast as the Aare is an experience of its own. We hung out at the public pools for awhile to catch some rays and then headed back to Bumpliz. Capped off a weekend to remember.

Called Zytglogge

The park where the public pools are with the capital building in the background.

Day 33 & 34: Half way point

Tuesday was a great day.
I went into the lab ready to work. Today was a test day where we put on the markers and walk over the force plates while being video taped by the 3D kinematic system. In weeks past we would run the test on everyone in the lab (6 subjects) on Tuesday. Process the data all day Wednesday. Use Matlab to extract the data we need on Thursday. And finally make box plots of the data to gain a full understanding of our results from the test day on Friday. Now we are much more efficient. Tuesday we tested everyone and processed all of the data. We completed this all in half of a day. The rest of the day Heiner, Ursina and I talked about my Germany trip and other random topics. I enjoy talking with the people here more than anything. I have come to a conclusion about my internship... Although it is important that I learn lab techniques and increase by knowledge of physiotherapy, the one thing that I will learn the most from  my time here is my experiences with the people. I am now at the one month mark of my stay and I have learned so much from talking with the friends I have made in Fellergut and Tscharnergut and listening to stories from Heiner, Patric, and Ursina at work. Another thing that made today great was this:

Denner stocked their shelves with new peanut butter! 

The first time I have seen creamy peanut butter in Switzerland. Of course the jar has an American flag on it. Maybe they brought in a new shipment because the 4th of July is this week. And on that note I am sad I will be missing 4th of July in my home country for the first time in my life...I need to blow something up or grill a hamburger or go tubing on a lake! the Swiss national day is August 1st. I'm leaving July 31st but I am currently trying to find a way to push my flight back a day. There was another farewell party tonight. Susan, an Australian who is the best cook I have met, and Eolo, or as I call him, "the Swiss party animal," both are leaving Wednesday. I am going to miss them.

Wednesday.

Another great day at the lab. We finished the rest of our work today. The box plots look great! The extra 2 cameras have definitely improved our results. Once we looked over the box plots and went back to planning my next few days. The PhD student I work with has invited me to stay with him and his girlfriend in a cabin he has rented for the week in Scuol. I will leave Thursday at 6:00am. My first stop will be to Luzern, a beautiful city on a lake, where I will go for a run. I should have some good pictures from a track I found on google maps. After staying for 5 hours, I'll head to Zurich. I'll tour around the city for 5 hours and then head to Scuol where I will be meeting Patric at the train station. Friday will be full of hiking. Type "St. Moritz" in on google and go to images. It's worth it. Saturday I will be returning to Bern, but not before stopping to Zermatt, which is one of Switzerland's most famous destinations. It is for good reason with a beautiful view of Matterhorn, a glacier palace, and skiing year round. I cannot wait. It is going to be another busy weekend but at least I will have Sunday to recover this time. I still do not feel totally recharged from my trip to Germany last weekend. Here's what I made for dinner tonight.

I use the same plate every night.

Day 27-32: X Games Munich, among other things...

Going back to last week...

Last Wednesday (June 26th) was a normal work day. I woke up, went to the lab, left the lab, went to the gym, and went back to my room. Thursday was more of the same. Ursina and I had to do a calibration of the Vicon system to ensure all of our results are indeed valid. We had to run 10 separate tests of 10 trials each with markers at specific locations on the body. We finished before 4:00pm so I left early. Normally I would never want to leave work early, but because I still had to get ready for my Germany trip I was fine with it. Thursday night I washed some laundry, visited my friend who will be going home soon to Denmark, and packed my backpack for the next three days.

Germany Trip
Here was the itinerary I made for the trip:

Friday
6:04 depart from Bern (4 train changes)
12:59 arrive in Rothenburg ob der Tauber
16:06 depart from Rothenburg ob der Tauber (3 train changs)
21:44 arrive in Berlin

Saturday
Spend the day exploring Berlin

Sunday
00:13 depart from Berlin (3 train changes)
10:17 arrive in Nürnberg
12:02 depart from Nürnberg (0 train changes)
13:12 arrive in Munich
17:28 depart from Munich (2 train changes)
23:56 arrive in Bern

I wrote notes in my phone on the trip. My writing from here on out will be a little more like a diary.
Train to Berlin. I slept to Basel. Relatively flat with hills in the distance as I passed Baden-Baden. 
It's 9:37 and I think I'm done taking naps. I went to bed around 1:40am last night and woke up at 5:00am to catch the 5:48 train from Bumpliz Nord to Bern. Anyways, I am really tired.So far I have had 2 train transfers. Both went smoothly. I pretty much slept the whole time on the first two trains. Now I'm headed to Ansbach. I'll get there around noon and by 1:00pm I'll be in Rothenburg ob der Tauber. Looking forward to seeing the city. The country side so far isn't anything special.

Met an American on the train from Ansbach to Steinach. She is actually more German. She lived from age 10 to 16 in Germany because her dad is in the army. Now she is visiting friends for a few weeks. Now on a train from Steinach to Rothenburg (finally) and it is full of handicapped students. Must be some kind of field trip.

It's 12:44pm and I feel overwhelmed as I think about how much I have traveled so far and how much I still have left today. Sometimes I wonder how I orchestrated all of this. 

Rothenburg ob der Tauber...

Entering Rothenburg ob der Tauber

Staircase along the city wall

View of part of the city

Another entrance

On top of the wall looking in

On top of the wall looking out

I ate a schneeballe (snowball), which is a ball of wide strips of dough covered in chocolate or powdered sugar, etc. It is kind of crunchy and tastes like shortbread cookies.I liked it but it was nothing spectacular.

Center of the city

...was amazing. Possibly my favorite city I have been to in my life. Actually it is for sure. The perfect size. Not too big and not too small. Walked all the way around the wall. Food here is a lot cheaper than Switzerland. I want to get pretzel bread and cheese or meat at the grocery store before I get on the train again but I can't understand what the packages are saying. I bought two pretzel rolls for .50euro and a mozzarella and tomato sandwich for 2.75.

Onto Berlin...

It's 17:47 and I'm happy my phone is charging from how much I have used it today (foreshadowing without knowing it at the time). Only one more train to take after this one and I'll be in Berlin. Hopefully, the hostel is easy to find.

It's going on 6:00pm  and this is one of the longest feeling days. Too much time on trains and the landscape isn't anything compared to Switzerland. The train I am on is going 225km/h.

I  woke up at 9:00am. Left my european outlet adapter for my phone charger on one of the trains I was on yesterday (foreshadowing complete). I asked the person working at the front desk of the hostel if she would let me charge my phone on her computer. She said yes. I walked around for about an hour and a half and then headed back to the hostel to pick it up. Saw a few soccer fields, a track that was locked, and went into a grocery store.

People like to wear fanny packs in Berlin.

It's 2:26pm. I started walking at 9:30am and besides sitting down to eat lunch (salad) I have been walking ever since.

Walking down a nice nature trail. Old man walking a ways in front of me stops. He looks back for awhile and definitely sees me. Now I'm only about 10 meters away from him. He starts walking again and farts. Nice.

Lamborghini Aventadors that drove pass me as I was walking to my first tourist site. The coupes cost 397,500 usd and the convertible roadster (white) costs 441,600 usd. I plan on having one in the future.

A theatre or museum or something. I met a family with a guy wearing a Red Wings shirt in front of the building. He saw my Michigan shirt from a distance and yelled, "Go Blue!" The guy lives in Ann Arbor.

It started raining around 3:30pm. It rained lightly and then stopped. At about 6:00 it started again with some strong wind but it didn't last for long.

Berlin wall

Currywurst with ketchup and bread. Like a bratwurst but with curry spices. I also had doner kebab (kind of like a Turkish burrito/shawarma/gyro), schnitzel, and a Berliner (jelly filled doughnut). Heiner talked about all of these foods and said I needed to try them. Doner kebab was the best.

Suppose to be one of the best German biers. I asked a local (appeared to be an experienced drinker) who was purchasing some bier in the liquor store when I was and this is what he recommended. Tasted like beer to me.

TV Tower (has a restaurant in it) is 368meters tall. It is the tallest structure in Germany.

The coolest looking building in Berlin in my opinion

Holocaust Memorial

Next is Nürnberg...

It's 2:00am on the train and the Drunk Germans won't shut up. Guys laughing and having a jolly ole time.
3:00am and now I have a 2 and a half hour wait.

Bench that I slept on in the Leipzig train station as I waited from 2:56am to 5:26am for my next train.

It's 9:30am. On the train from Chemnitz to Nürnberg. Definitely the shakiest train I have been on. A little sketchy at times. Tough to keep balance in the bathroom. I just had breakfast. Nutella and bread. I tried to sleep as much as I could on the trains, but I didn't manage much. At least I feel somewhat refreshed. My legs and especially my left ankle/foot are hurting form the 14+ hours of walking yesterday. I don't think I will be running around Nürnberg to see everything.

Bavarian style Castle

View from the castle

Last but not least, Munich...

Train to Munich is going 300km/h. Getting there quick!

X Games Munich

Big air competition

Olympic Stadium

Random skater laying down his best trick.

Mountain bike Slopestyle course

Train back to Bern. It's 9:14pm. I found an opened bag of peanut M&Ms with a fair amount left. Should I eat them? 9:23. I gave in and ate one. Only one though. I'm waiting a little bit to see if anything happens. 9:28 I have now confirmed the M&Ms to not be poison and have claimed them to be mine. I ate them all.

I took 696 photos on the trip so it took me a long time trying to select the ones I wanted to use in this post. I loved the trip. By the time I was back in Bern last night I was exhausted. I walked the most I ever have in 3 days. Rothenburg ob der Tauber was my favorite city. A must-see city for anyone who is traveling in Germany.

Today (Day 32) was sad. We had a farewell party for Setareh. She is leaving for Denmark tomorrow. Another really close friend I have made here.

Day 25 & 26: Back to reality

Quick recap of the last two days. Monday Heiner and Patric weren't at the lab. Slow day of work. Nothing spectacular happened. After work I went to the gym. Had a great run. Found out Rafa lost in the first round. Great news for Switzerland and Roger Federer. I got back to my room and realized I desperately needed to go grocery shopping. I tried to find the Aldi Suisse but couldn't find it until it was closed. Today was a lot more interesting.

Doing work at the lab. Heiner, Patric, and Ursina discussing the box plots Ursina and I made last week. Good stuff. I proofread Patric's proposal for the study last week and today we went over it together. It was a totally different experience editing a paper written by a none native English speaker. I enjoyed it. We ran test day 3. First time using the additional 2 cameras. All went according to plan. Lunch rolled around and with it being Tuesday, Patric and I went for a run (Heiner had a meeting). We ran along the Aare River, which will never get old to me. I went to the gym. When I was doing lifting session (wearing a Michigan t-shirt), a guy asked where I was from. We talked for awhile and turns out he did an exchange program when he was in high school to Minnesota. I made another attempt at finding the Aldi Suisse. Success this time. A little different than the Aldi in the US but pretty much the same. Solid last two days. One of my best friends that I have met here left Bern today. Nicolas (pronounced Ni-co-la) headed back to France. We might meet up in Denmark before I leave for the states. 

Day 23 & 24: Mountain hike + Mountain bike

The weather looked like it was going to cooperate with us on Saturday so we left for Kandersteg bright and early. My friend, Joel, and I left Tscharnergut at 7:00am to catch the train. After about an hour and a half of travel we arrived in Kandersteg. The hike was split into two segments. First we had to hike to a village at the base of the valley. Then we would hike through the valley and up the mountain side to spot a glacier. It was my first time ever hiking into mountains. Basically everywhere I looked took my breath away. Here are some photos from the trip. I took about 200 photos so this is just a small sample.

The low cloud cover would come and go as the day went on. At times we couldn't see the mountain tops but then moments later the peaks would come into sight against the clear blue sky.

Diary farms are common on hillsides and in the mountains in Switzerland. We passed a few pastures along the trail. Here are some calves we spotted wearing Swiss cowbells. At first they would amble away as I neared the fence. Once I finally got close enough to pet one though, he didn't want me to leave. 

Pure spectacle by mother nature. It looked like a machine operated by man gouged a giant tunnel into the mountain side. However, man cannot be thanked for this beauty. The waterfall was created by the amazing power of the melted ice rushing down from the top of the mountain at gravity's request.

The path crisscrossed about many streams. Here is a bridge with a sign marking the hiking trail. Wanderweg means hiking (wander) way (weg) or hiking path. Above the word is the coat of arms of Bern. 

A less fortunate young Alpine ibex (species of wild goat that lives in the Alps). I don't know the events for this little guy leading up to this point, but I'll try to make my best guess. Lil' Billy was playing with the other kids. Their parents kept telling them to quiet down because they could cause an avalanche. Lil' Billy didn't pay much attention as he was having the time of his life. In his joy, he decided to call out his loudest bleat, "Baaaaaaa!" Seconds later he heard a thunderous cracking sound. He scampered as quickly as he could along the jagged terrain of the mountainside, rocks slipping beneath his hooves, but wasn't able to escape the path of the boundless wave of suffocating white snow. Packed like freshly poured concrete, encasing Lil' Billy in silence until the warm days of June have now freed him- lifeless.

On another note here are some beautiful wildflowers.

My hiking guides. Joel in front followed by François.

About a meter wide path. Rock face on the right. Drop-off to the left. And we crossed it. Probably the craziest thing I have ever done. Living life on the edge.

The exact kind of bridge you imagine when I say "here is a shaky wire bridge over a stream." Really cool.

Blue skies. I took this photo on the way back. This was before Joel and I decided to start running to catch the 20:13 train back to Bern. If we missed it, we would have to wait an hour for the next train. We looked at our watches at 19:20.We didn't know the exact distance we were still out, but we estimated about 5k. Turns out it was more than double that. We ended up running for 50 minutes to reach the station at 20:08, just 5min before the train departed. I got back to my room in Tscharnergut at 10:00pm. Ate dinner, took a shower, and headed to Fellergut for a night with friends. We went to the city center and stayed out late enough to take the first morning train back to Bumpliz Nord. A very long, very memorable day.

Patric, a PhD student I assist at the lab, invited me to go with him and his girlfriend to the European Mountain Biking Championships. The championships were held on the top of Gurten for the first time. Gurten is the highest hill in Bern and overlooks the entire city.

Here is a picture of part of the course where the great view of the city below can be seen.The course started on a grass loop. They repeated this loop about three times and then went onto the big loop, which they did seven times before heading towards the finish. The total time of the race for the winner was 1hr32min21sec.

Here is Nino Schurter (Switzerland) leading Julien Absalon (France). They are both the class of the field and minutes ahead of the rest of the competition. The course has jumps (as seen here), tight trails in the forest, steep downhills followed by tight corners and large uphills, and other obstacles. Nino Schurter is "The Man" when it comes to Swiss and European Mountain Biking. He won the last world championships and finished with a silver medal in the 2012 Olympics.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nino_Schurter

Sadly, even with me cheering "NINO! NINO! NINO!" he came up short and finished second to the Frenchman, Absalon. Instead of taking the cable car down Gurten like I had taken it up, I decided to walk. After hiking all day yesterday, I'll admit my legs were a bit sore.