my first working day

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Today I officially started the job part of my journey. I met my advisor, as well as the grad. student who will be mostly helping me. Everyone in the office is fluent in French except for me, so I'm wishing I knew some. I will be working on calibrating a photomultiplier tube. My advisor says he wants me to walk away from this experience being able to say that I did something at ATLAS, and I think it's a good fit. I will be going to safety training soon, hopefully tomorrow. Then I will get to work in the "pit" every once in a while, which is where the actual experiment is. Google pics ATLAS at CERN if you want to see the scale of the experiment. It's huge.
So, hopefully pictures will be accompanying my blog soon. Unfortunately, I haven't figured how to post them on my blog yet. If worse comes to worse I promise I'll e-mail them!
My friends and I are currently dreaming up our top places to travel while we are here this summer. My top two within train distance are Paris and Barcelona. I would like to visit Italy as well, but I'm not sure where yet. Any ideas, Caitlin? And, a far more important question: would we be wasting our time going to Euro Disney? The group is split on whether or not we should go, and I can't decide. It is Cinderella in Paris, after all.
This weekend we've all decided to stay in Geneva. There is a big music festival going on, and I have a lot of exploring I want to do. I'm thinking I want to go to old town, take a boat down the lake to a beach, and maybe do a bit of shopping.
I went to the grocery store for the first time yesterday to find hideable food. Everything here is so expensive! I finally found a few good items, but they ended up costing me 20 francs. But, the good news is, I got 400 g of chocolate for a franc! They offer a chocolate train here, that goes to the nestle factory and such. As far as I can tell, it only runs monday through friday. You can bet on where I'll go if I get a day off!
I opened my window for the first time yesterday. No pigeons flew in, thank goodness. I'm quite afraid for when it gets warm and I need a window.

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Comments

[Caitlin Shanks]

Florence!!!
As much as I loved Rome, if you only hit one Italian city it has to be Florence. Make sure you book tickets to see the David a couple weeks in advance so you can be sure to get in. There's another good museum there too with a lot of art you should also check out. We stayed at this awesome two star hotel we found on hostel world that was pretty cheap and had a free breakfast, so you should search that website. Arevederci gemella!

[tammy sabol]

Having fun!
I am so jealous! I have just sat down and read everything up to date. How exciting to be in Switzerland, eating choc and doing what you like to do. WOW!

[Grandma Sharon]

Places to see
I wanted to tell you how much I am enjoying your blog. I know that it must be a lot of work but it is really appreciated. Are you close to the Alps? I'd want to take a trip up to the alps if I was there. The place I enjoyed when we were in Italy was Pompeii. f course we did not get to see Rome like Caitlin so I do not know much about it. I would think that a weekend in Paris would be wonderful What a life ...to have chocolate to be the cheapest thing to eat...Eat some for me. Your Grandmother Heimer was scared to death of birds....one time she tried to crawl under the car when some swallows dove at her. My uncle lived on an island in Lake Michigan and we were going to visit him but we had to send a short wave message to him to come and get us in his boat as it was the only way to get there. We went to a house to send the message and mom went up to the front door to talk to the people who would send the message. Evidentally the swallow had build a nest in the eaves to the porch and took after mother to protect her nest. Mom ran back to the car screaming and tried to get in and couldn't and so she crawled under the car. Poor MOM! Now she that she can't remember anything she likes to sit in front of the aivary at the rest home and watch the birds. Keep sending the messages as they are interesting. I hope that you can get your pictures posted. They would be interesting. How many other people are in your hostel? how many in your group? Everything sounds like so much fun.