Day 41: Top Notch Research

Wednesday

Trains are back running smoothly. No delays today. Thank the heavens because if I know one thing about Swiss people, it's that they like there trains on time. Got to work today. Talked with Patric and Ursina a little bit. Went on a coffee break. I really enjoy a good coffee break. One of the best parts of the day. Once I had my dose of caffeine, I began processing data from the test day with the stairs. I finished by the time lunch rolled around. We didn't know if we were going to have a bbq and grill some food so just in case I brought bratwurst (turns out I butcher the word when I say it). Also, Americans are dumb when they say, "Can't wait to grill some brats" because brat means fry in German. Wurst means sausage which is what you are grilling. SO when we say going to grills some brats. It's like we are going to grill and fry. No food involved. Wurst is not pronounced like worst. It's pronounce like voorst. Back to the day at the lab. After lunch, at 2:00pm, a friend of Heiner stopped by. He has developed a therapeutic shoe. The shoe is projected to decrease pressures on the foot that lead to other issues such as back pain. It does this with the sole of the shoe which has the layout of the perfect pronation (inward roll/heel strike to toe off) of the foot. Today was the first day of his research. He will be back in late July to start testing with his actual subjects so he wanted to do a trial run today. Heiner asked if I wanted to be his very first subject. They performed the trial like they would in late July. Had to put the insoles that are on the treadmill into my running shoes and walk on the treadmill at 4km/h and then put the insoles into his therapeutic shoe and do the same. Each insole has 99 sensors. The data is sent directly to the computer which gives a live view of location and magnitude of pressure on the insole. The system cost 30,000 franks. However, the lab got it for free. Heiner's wife won it in a raffle. She is also in the health field.

After work I ran to the Aare. Joel invited me down to go for another float. This time we jumped into the river from a bridge. It wasn't too high. Floated down to the public pools again. Sat in the sun to dry off. And then ran back to Tscharnergut. Good day.

Day 39 & 40: Keeps getting better

Monday

I went to work at 8:30. Not too much went on today. Patric arrived at the lab at 1:30. We analyzed some graphs and then went up to his office and went over a previous project he did last year. Went shopping at Aldi after I got out. Made a meal inspired by my Germany trip: currywurst with bread you actually have to slice yourself (old school). I went for a run in the woods. Saw a deer. Just the second deer I have seen in the forest since I have been here. Saw more animals on my hike in Scuol than my entire time in Bern. Makes sense though because the hike was on a Swiss National Park. That concludes Monday.

Tuesday

As you can obviously see from the picture below I had a delay at the train station this morning on my way to the lab.

Translates to "the train has been cancelled."

Everyone had to get off from the train for a replacement train. It didn't arrive until 8:28. I was like this sucks but at least it isn't worse. It got worse. A guy came on the train and told everyone to get back off. He was speaking in German the entire time so I don't know what he was saying but everyone got off and started walking in the same direction. I followed. I ended up at a transit stop. Had to wait 7min for the next transit to Bern Bahnhof. Didn't get to the lab until after 9:00. So much for making the 8:00 meeting. I always thought of Swiss public transportation as the best, superior to all else. not anymore. When I was on the public transit it was so packed that I had to get off and back on at the stops to let people get through the door. One time I asked if a woman with a little boy needed to get off. She started talking to me in German and I didn't respond fast enough with, "Sorry only English." She said a lot of stuff and I just nodded and gave an agreeing sound. She talked some more and I acted like I understood and shook my head up and down again. Situation averted. Today was a great day at the lab. Finally got away from the computers and desk work. We had to move the stairs in the picture below across the lab into the view of the 3D kinematics system. Then we built a staircase in the place where the other one was because another researcher will be doing a test with stairs around the same time. We set up the force plates on the stairs (that's what the tower is for that Heiner is working on). Heiner has been soldering the last week, connecting the force plates in the floor to an EMG. We actually had the stairs placed on the force plates in the floor with the force plates on the steps above. Force plates on force plates connected to an EMG. High tech stuff. We'll only being using the ones on the stairs. Anyways...Heiner and I were standing by the tower and it just about blew up in our faces. Not literally but there was a small flame that shot out and some smoke. A short in one of the electronic chipboards caused the spark. We looked into it and everything appeared to be fine. Let everything cool down for a bit. Patric made another ground wire. We turned it back on and it worked perfectly. We also ran a some trials on the stairs. Ursina had the 5marker model on her foot and walked up and down the stairs. 

I watched a futbol game for the first time in Europe. It was at the track I workout on. Neufeld Stadium. BSC Young Boys vs. FC Winterthur. The Young Boys are the Bern team. Ended in a draw. 1-1.

(Throwback) Day 15, 16, 17: Italy Trip

Finally getting back to my trip to Rome and Venice...

Day 15
...Cody and I woke up after a good nights rest in Hotel California ready to explore Rome. It was Friday morning. The plan was to check out Vatican City today and then Saturday we would go to the Colosseum. Before we left Hotel California we had to take advantage of the free breakfast. Once I was full on bread, nutella, yogurt, and croissants, I grabbed some more food to pack for lunch. Vatican City was a long distance away so we took a bus. The bus was packed to the brim with tourists. From here on out we knew we would always be running into long lines and crowded places. We started our tour of the city by going into St. Peter's Basilica. Beautiful man-made structure.

Next stop was the Vatican museum, which leads you through the Sistine Chapel. Everything was stunning, however, since there is countless statues, paintings, and other art pieces to see everything begins to blend together. Your eyes become accustomed to the surroundings and lose a touch of interest. Don't get me wrong though. Everything was still stunning.

We ended up running into Chelsea and Courtney, the two friends we planned to go everywhere with, in the Sistine Chapel. Not the best place to talk. There were guards walking around, constantly telling everyone "Silenzio!" Cody and I told them we would meet them outside of the museum. We finished walking through the museum and headed outside to eat lunch on some steps. We waited about 2 hours and still no sign of the girls. At this point we realized we were in Rome and didn't want to spend too much time waiting. I thought groups of two made it easier to walk around anyway so we left to see more of Rome. We walked just about everywhere, following our tourist map I got from a hotel last night when we were searching for a place to stay. It was about 90 degrees for the whole weekend. Around 6:00pm we started to get hungry. It was hard deciding which pizza place would be the best out of the hundreds we saw. Finally, we chose one and ordered a pepperoni pizza. It wasn't anything special. I would have been happier with a Cottage Inn delivery pizza. Once it started to get later in the day we began looking for places to stay. We went into an internet cafe (had to pay 50 cents for 15 min) and searched for hostels. We found one and wrote down the address/directions. 21 euro for the night. A lot cheaper than the hotel from the night before. There were 3 bunk beds in the room. Two young university students like Cody and I that were from Britain were in one bunk. Really cool guys. In the other was a guy from Poland who seemed to always be in a dazed state. The very first night we stayed there we met some new friends. A girl from Indiana, a girl from Melbourne, Australia, and a guy from New York. They invited Cody and I to go to another hostel called The Yellow Hostel. We walked into the building. Took a left and went through a door into a bar and then headed down some stairs into a basement. Blaring music, people from all over the world, flashing lights, fog, dancing, etc...It was like something I have never experienced. I didn't know places like this existed. A real gem. I couldn't stop from smiling. We stayed for awhile and I had a great time.

Common nude statue

Day 16
Woke up from a good sleep in our bunk beds. I still had some fruit and bread that I grabbed from Hotel California. Made for a light breakfast. Cody and I went upstairs to the room that has wifi. It was kind of a meeting room because all of the other people who were staying in the hostel also went there for the internet connection. We met a guy from Alaska who was currently on a 6 year trip around the world. He was into year 4 and had so many stories to tell us. I could have sat and listened to him all day. At 10:00am we left the hostel and headed to the Colosseum. Really long lines. I bought tickets for both of us online beforehand so we got to pass the lines and head straight in.

Once we finished our tour of the Colosseum, Palatine Hill, and Roma Forum, we were suppose to meet the Australian girl at the Capuchin Crypt which contains the skeletal remains of 3,700 bodies. Unfortunately it was closed for the day due to a power outage. So instead we walked around with her and toured more of the city. We went to another restaurant, this time to try some lasagna. We picked the perfect place. A 4 course meal with a drink for 10 euro. The restaurant was ran by an old Italian couple that fit the exact image I always imagined. I wanted to upset the old lady so she would chase me with a broom yelling Italian things. First course was Lasagna, then potatoes, then gnocchi, and finished off with lemon sorbet. Our time in Rome was coming to an end. I made sure to get gelato one more time before we headed back to the hostel. A couple things I almost forgot...the annual Europe Motorcycle Tour was going on so there were Harleys and guys walking around in black leather everywhere. Also on Saturday there was a gay pride celebration.

Day 17
Woke up at 5:55 to catch my train to Venice after going to sleep at 2am. I don't recommend it. Venice has a feel of its own. Narrow streets that are only made for walking. Canals separating the city into many islands with bridges holding everything together. At times it made me feel trapped.

I bought three cannoli (I only meant to buy one). I ate 2 while searching for the perfect pizza place since I didn't have any luck in Rome. I found a few places that offered a deep dish style with one standing out among the rest. I tried to buy it but they would only accept cash. This is where the last cannoli really helped me out. Chelsea and Courtney arrived two hours before I was leaving. Chelsea had euros so she bought me a slice of pizza in exchange for the cannoli.

Trip complete.

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.