Sightseeing in Geneva

Today I decided to travel into Geneva and do some touristy sightseeing! 

View from the tram on the way from CERN to Geneva

My first stop: Lake Geneva

Jet d'Eau, Lake Geneva

The Jet is a famous landmark of Geneva, and is huge. The picture doesn't do it justice. The lake is beautiful, it's much lighter in person than it is in the photograph.

Me and the Jet d'Eau

 After crossing the bridge across Lake Geneva, I trekked into (uphill to) Old Town Geneva to see St. Peter's Cathedral, a cathedral from the 12th Century. I love old architecture, especially churches. It was breathtaking. As I was sitting in the pews, I couldn't help but think of all the people who have worshiped there since it was built.

Front of St. Pierre's Cathedral

St. Pierre's Cathedral 

A special chapel in the cathedral, the Chapel of the Maccabees had a beautiful ceiling and stain glass windows 

The Chapel of the Maccabees was my favorite part of the cathedral. It wasn't too big, but it was decorated beautifully. It was a true work of art.

Today was really fun! I liked seeing the ancient architecture and being able to explore. It was nice to have a relaxing day before the work week starts up again tomorrow. I'm looking forward to meeting all of the summer students who are just arriving. Every person I have met so far (other than in the group from Northern VA) has been from a different country. Greece, Holland, Germany, Austria...the list goes on and on!

Back at CERN, this is the view of the Alps from our hostel window

Exercises of the brain and body

The work grind has started as we've begun our projects. I started my specific project working for my professor, Dr. Rubin, and he has kept me busy. On Wednesday and Thursday, I dove into my job of designing a website for the workers of NA62 to use as a checklist for their shift. I've spent my time trying to teach myself a programming language for web design, which hasn't been easy...programming isn't my favorite task and it often frustrates me. My brain has had a little trouble keeping up with the new time, but I feel like I am on track now and work should be a little better from here on out. On Friday I attended a radiation safety training class that I needed before entering the area where the accelerator is located. I passed! And now I can tell you more about radiation safety than you would want to know. My favorite part was the hands-on training with radioactive sources. I guess I feel pretty legit to be trained by CERN in something like that.

I have been much more tired than I thought I would be, whether its from jet lag or walking around more than I'm used to...I'm way out of shape after my surgery! I have been into the city a few times this week to get groceries and sight see a little bit. I was looking forward to a relaxing Friday night, but it didn't quite turn out that way. I guess after years of using public washing machines at Mason without a problem, I was overdue for an adventure. I decided to use the laundry facilities in the basement of our hostel, and the washing machine decided to cut off while my clothes were still in it. There was supposed to be a lever to open the machine door that allowed it to be open in case of emergency...it was broken. After many people tried to pry open the door, two mechanics finally showed up. They said, "We usually work in the control room at Prévessin [the French site of CERN], but we should be able to break this thing open." And they did, thank goodness for geniuses. Unfortunately. my clothes were soaked but not clean, and I had to hand wash them. It could have been much worse; everyone was super nice and helpful. I've learned that even though CERN hosts some of the most brilliant scientists in the world, there are a few things that don't make logical sense here. Like the washing machines. And the building numbers. But every time I've been in trouble, someone is always willing to help. I have yet to encounter a rude person!

Today, my roommate Tina and I went into Geneva for some retail therapy. The shopping centers are very nice here, and have some adorable Euro-style clothes. I'm ashamed to say that I bought two shirts from H&M...but hey, it started in Sweden!! I bought a few other things that were much more European. Either way, it's fun to be able to shop in Europe!

Tomorrow, I'm planning on going into Geneva for some sightseeing with my camera and let my creative juices flow. There will be many pictures to follow. Au revoir! 

Entering the valley

Well, it's the end of day one, and what a day it has been. Will the whole trip be this jam-packed? I would say that the whole idea of going to another country became real when our plane landed, and I saw the city of Geneva nestled in the valley between the breathtaking Jura Mountains and the Alps. It felt like Europe! We left Dulles yesterday around 5:30 PM and arrived in Geneva around 1:30 AM this morning, which was really 7:30 AM in Switzerland's time zone. It has been a hard adjustment for me as I didn't sleep any on the plane, and I had to walk a lot with my bum knee from the plane, through customs (which went surprisingly fast), on a tram, to CERN. 

Once we got to CERN we dumped our bags and set out to complete the necessary paperwork to become official Summer Programme Trainees, with ID badges and everything. A few hours (any many different offices) later, we had signed enough forms and met enough people to be rewarded a lunch break. After lunch, we walked around the site some more as my advisor, Dr. Rubin, pointed out the places that we have only learned about in text books or read about on the news before coming here. The site is and isn't what I expected: there are very cool science-y things everywhere but the buildings are all very old. They were built in the 60s, when there was money for new buildings, but now I think the money just goes to conducting the experiments instead of renovations. The hostel we are staying in is very nice though, and is somewhat like a hotel room that has a dorm-like feel to it as all the summer interns will be staying here.  

After we (finally) got the chance to check into our rooms, we ran a few more errands around CERN like getting our bike rentals and meeting our project supervisors before resting up for dinner. It is tradition for Dr. Rubin to take us to Restaurant La Meyrinoise, an Italian place a few tram stops from CERN, on the first night. Their pizza is amazing and is served to each person like a medium sized pizza would be served to a group in the States. It was fun to get out into the city and see what the culture is like here and how it compares to American culture and what I am used to. I have a feeling I'll be saying that a lot this summer. 

Now, it's getting late here in Geneva but I am so mixed up as to what time I feel like it is because of the jet lag. All I know is I'm tired, and I'm looking forward to crawling into bed. Tomorrow will be my first real day of work, and I'm excited to see what CERN has in store for me!

The beginning: Training week

Hello!
I am writing to you from George Mason, but soon I will be on a plane headed to Geneva! This week was dubbed "training week" as we prepare for our journey. I will be working for my professor on his project called NA62. (I'll get into that more later.) Another student from Mason and my roommate at CERN, Tina, is also working on NA62 but she will be doing much more advanced research than I will. There are also four other students from around the northern VA area that my professor hired. The six of us are grouped together based on location and the grants that my professor is given, but we won't be working on the same projects.

For those of you that might be wondering, CERN is the largest particle research laboratory in the world.  The most famous accelerator at CERN is of course the Large Hadron Collider. The LHC is the world's largest and highest-energy accelerator. Its most famous research concerns the Higgs boson, an elementary particle that plays an important part of our current theories (you can read a story about it here.) There are many accelerators hooked up to the LHC at CERN, as you can see in the picture below. All have very specific and exciting research projects that are confirming and changing our current research theories with every experiment!

I'll be working in the central part of the picture that says "North Area." (An interesting thing to note is that half of CERN is in France and half of it is in Switzerland. I'll be living in my dorm in Switzerland, but working in France.) The project that I'll be joining, NA62, is designed to use the Super Photon Synchrotron to study rare kaon decays. For example, when a kaon particle decays into a pion, a neutrino, and an antineutrino. The goal is to record this rare event 100 times in a two year period. 2013 is the final simulation period before actual results are recorded next year. This research is a collaboration of scientists from around the world and I am very lucky to be joining them (even if I'll just be doing the menial programming tasks!)

This week at Mason is a time for us to learn more about the facility and our projects at CERN, as well as the material we should be familiar with before starting our projects. I have been spending my training time learning C++, a programming language that I will use at CERN, and Linux, a computer system on which the computers at CERN operate. The preparation I'm doing now will hopefully prevent me from being too confused when I start my project!

I think I am most excited for the people I am going to meet and the places I will see. I'll be living in a dorm with about 300 interns from around the world...think of the different cultures and great minds all in one place! I'll be hearing lectures from the world's greatest scientists. I'll be seeing Nobel Prize laureates in the cafeteria! And even more, I'll be able to travel all around Europe! Castles in Switzerland... beaches in Italy... the Eiffel Tower in Paris... here I come!

CERN's Wikipedia entry lists its major scientific achievements in particle physics. It shows that a new breakthrough has been discovered for the past three years in a row... I wonder what discovery will happen this summer?