Blogs from South-West, Switzerland, Europe - page 99

So, I made it back to Europe. It's a lot sooner than I thought I would be, but I am excited, nonetheless. Time to cheerish old memories and make a whole lot more. The fiaso of my journey to Geneva started early Monday morning when our family (Mom, Dad, Andy, and I) went down to East Lansing from Grand Rapids to drop Any off for his two week romp in the woods with his Forestry class. Did I mention he had to be there at 6:30AM? Then the three of us remaining went down to Dundee in time for the daily opening of Cabela's, sportsmen's Mecca. We then headed towards the airport and made a final pitstop at Meijer's for some food and a travel clock. I wound up getting timbits and an iced frap ... read more

Saturday April 28, 2007 - Meggie, Jacqueline, Tom, Ross, and I left Zurich together around 6pm. We headed for Interlaken. I hadn’t heard much about Interlaken before we got there, but Jacqueline insisted that it was the “Adventure capital of the world”. So we went, and even the train ride there was amazing. The mountains were incredible and the sunset over the lake was even better. We checked out a couple hostels and decided on the one that was a little more pricy because we would all share one room together instead of sharing one with 5 other people. Even though it’s Switzerland, security of our stuff is still a priority. Jacqueline, Meggie, and I went on a run along the river later that night and then we all tried to find a place to ... read more

As a project review by the European Commission is quite an important milestone, we held a Dress Rehearsal to iron out any remaining kinks.... read more

It has been a challenge to even blow our noses and cross the road, but, thankfully, we have managed to achieve a number of notable things: 1) Checked in to our hostel, then checked out the next day to move into one of only 15 CERN-managed apartments, skipping a waiting list of thousands thanks to terrific timing (we popped our head into Housing Services only hours after the previous guy broke his contract) 2) Unlocked door of said apartment after the tenth try. Can now open at our leisure. 3) Discovered only lift for said apartment is designed for midgets. Discovered lights in only lift are unreliable, able to plunge user into claustrophobic darkness at any time. Then discovered unidentified chunk of fresh vomit/diarrhea in corner of only lift. 4) Discovered stair case is extremely ... read more

Wengen is a really great place to live with superb hikes in summer and unlimited skiing opportunities in winter. We are located high above the Lauterbrunnen Valley with unblievable views of the surrounding mountains. Here's a colection of pictures from hikes around the area.... read more

We only have a few minutes left on our net time so this will be a short one for now. We have spent the last 2 1/2 days in picturesque Interlaken, where we have taken many pictures of the snow caps and scenery. Very much like SW New Zealand, but the mountains seem to be much closer. We went up the Jungfraujoch yesterday morning, and it was a long trip just for us both to get sick. Not sure whether we were suffering from travel sickness, altitude sickness or maybe abit of both, but we didn't enjoy our time up there as much as we should have. We also decided to skip Grindelwald, which we are both disappointed about, as we just wanted to get back to the hostel and sleep. We travelled over to Geneva ... read more