Thursday, April 30, 2009
Free money!
Yeah! I qualify for the Training and Learning Bonus for Postgraduate Scholarship Holders. Well, I will qualify once I'm back home anyway. $950 for me! Sorry My Rudd, I don't think I'll be helping the Australian economy with the money... I think I should finally pay back the School of Physics for my half of my laptop...
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Painting...
Last week we got a letter from the Lodgement office informing us that our bathroom was getting painted this Tuesday and Wednesday, and that for those days we shouldn't take showers or baths as the humidity of the water isn't good for the new paint.
As you can expect we weren't very pleased about this, though it was good that they fixed the leak in the ceiling, I think we could have all dealt with some peeling off paint until the summer when less of us would be around.
Ah well, now we have a newly painted bathroom which we can use again.
As you can expect we weren't very pleased about this, though it was good that they fixed the leak in the ceiling, I think we could have all dealt with some peeling off paint until the summer when less of us would be around.
Ah well, now we have a newly painted bathroom which we can use again.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Shift Training
Just finished a day of DAQ/HLT shift training. For those who don't know, the Atlas Detector which I work on is run on a shift system, and each institute is allocated a number of shifts which they need to cover a year according to how many people there are from the institute. Last year I sat Trigger shifts (which I wrote about here) but since the LHC isn't running yet, and they aren't running any Trigger shifts until after I leave Geneva. So I had to look for another type of shift which was running next month and which I could easily train for. And from the training today, it seemed like DAQ/HLT shifts were fairly similar to Trigger ones, they are both looking at the data aquistion off the detector, just with different focuses, but I'll find out more when I sit some shadow shifts later.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Angels & Demons
I've written about Angels & Demons before and the fact that I didn't get to be part of the press event at CERN. Which turned out to be a good thing, considering some of the television segments which where made about that visit. Particle physics groupies? What the?
I'm in two minds about the book and movie really. I dislike the book for all its inaccuracies, particularly those which pertain to CERN and the physics which we do here. Ivy League like grounds? Our own airport and plane? The proton is the antimatter partner of the electron? We're trying to measure the mass of the neutron? The Z boson is massless? Seriously, how hard is it to get somebody to check the correctness your manuscript?
However, I don't really mind the publicity that it gives us, since this time it's a little more positive than the scares about the LHC destroying us all by producing black holes when we started up last year. It's nice that people have heard of CERN and since it's book they aren't scared that we are building a bomb of anitmatter.
And of course CERN is taking advantage of all this and people have organised a series of lectures around the US of A explaining the science behind it all. I had a look at the template talk that was made and it's quite good really. I've always found it very hard to explain what I do and all the science to people outside the field since I've never had to understand it without the background. Luckily, there are many other people out there much better at it than me.
I'm in two minds about the book and movie really. I dislike the book for all its inaccuracies, particularly those which pertain to CERN and the physics which we do here. Ivy League like grounds? Our own airport and plane? The proton is the antimatter partner of the electron? We're trying to measure the mass of the neutron? The Z boson is massless? Seriously, how hard is it to get somebody to check the correctness your manuscript?
However, I don't really mind the publicity that it gives us, since this time it's a little more positive than the scares about the LHC destroying us all by producing black holes when we started up last year. It's nice that people have heard of CERN and since it's book they aren't scared that we are building a bomb of anitmatter.
And of course CERN is taking advantage of all this and people have organised a series of lectures around the US of A explaining the science behind it all. I had a look at the template talk that was made and it's quite good really. I've always found it very hard to explain what I do and all the science to people outside the field since I've never had to understand it without the background. Luckily, there are many other people out there much better at it than me.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Basel
This weekend I had a sponsored trip to Basel by the International Relations Office of The Unviersity of Geneva. The trip has been the best perk of my scholarship so far, though the other various outings and associated meals have been nice. Each time I go on one of these, I feel so embarassed about my French, since almost all the other speak it reasonably well since most of them either study in French or were offered a fortnight of free language courses before their scholarship started.
There are around sixty Federal Scholarship holders currently affiliated with the University, but only around thirty of them came on the trip. Considering the train, hotel and almost all meals were paid for, I can only imagine that the other students already had plans, were too busy or sick, like my housemate. As soon as I received the email about the trip, I signed up, and then emailed the people I met on ski camp who live in Basel to see if they were around this weekend and wanted to meet up, since it is always nicer to be shown around a city by somebody who knows it. Actually, I lied before, the peak of my scholarship was definitely having my ski camp subsidised. This weekend comes easily in second place though. It has been really fun, informative and interesting. All possible because Basel is a very very different city than Geneva, with much more for a visitor to see and do.
The trip started with an early meeting at the station to catch the train to Basel, check into the hotel, after which we had a free afternoon until dinner. We were staying at the Dorint, which is located outside the old town of Basel, across the Rhine, in which the locals call "Little Basel", as opposed to "Big Basel" (both of which sound much better in their original Swiss-German). It was a lovely hotel, except for the minor problem that we were sharing rooms and the two single beds which made up the double bed in the room couldn't be moved more than a couple of centimetres apart due to built in side tables. Luckily I was placed with a girl from Argentina who could speak English, otherwise it would have been an even more awkward situation.
I guess now would be a good time for me to locate Basel for all you lovely readers, in case you've never heard of it and perhaps impart some of the random facts I remember from my tour this morning.
As you can see, Basel (Basle in German or Bâle in French) is located to the north of Switzerland and borders both France and Germany. Supposedly there is a pole in the port of Basel which marks the intersection of the three countries. The airport of the city is actually in France, with Switzerland buying the land and the road leading there. It is probably the only Swiss city which does not have a view of the Alps and one of the rare ones that isn't by a lake.
According to my tour guide, the name of the town comes from a mythical creature, the Basilisk, which can be found in various places around the city holding their coat of arms, on which is a crosier, a stylised staff synifying the fact that Basel was ruled by Prince-Bishops before the Reformation.
The city is the third largest in the country, after Zurich and Geneva, though it feels bigger than Geneva as the old town is larger and there are many more shops and people around on Saturday, and in fact it was only in the last couple of years that its population fell below Geneva's. This is supposedly in part due to the fact that the half-canton of Basel-City taxes its higher income earners more than Basel-Country.
Anyway, we had Saturday afternoon off, which we used to eat a long lunch and walk around, focusing mainly on the Rhine, which is one of the longest and most important rivers in Europe, originating in the Swiss Alps and ending in the North Sea, acting as part of the border between Switzerland and Germany as well as between France and Germany. The bridge in the above photo is one of the oldest across the river and the reason why Switzerland owns the land on both sides of the river here is because they wanted control of the bridge.
Though if you didn't want to walk across the river, you could take one of the four ferries, which have been crossing the Rhine for the past 150 years. They are motorless and work by using the current of the river, via the shape and angle of the boat which is controlled by a rod which can be swung from one side of the boat to the other depending on which direction it needs to go.
Basel is sometimes called the "cultural capital of Switzerland" and it really deserves this title due to its 30 odd museums, though some of them are collections of the strangest things like, Sammlung Friedhof Hörnli which houses funernal objects, and the Hoosesagg Museeum which advertises itself to be the world's smallest museum and displays small objects which can fit into ones pocket in themes in a window.
We saw this fountain made of kinetic art by Jean Tinguely and decided to go to the Tinguely Museum. He made 'artwork' by collecting items from junk yards and putting them together with some sort of motor along some sort of theme. I didn't understand the art aspect of it, but it was kind of cool walking around and pressing big red buttons to get the sculptures to start, and seeing how everything was connected to each other and moved or made sounds, one of them being so big, you could walk on and in it.
Basel also boasts Switzerland's tallest building at 105m. There are other structures taller, but this is the tallest building. And on the top 31st floor, with a fairly decent view of the city, is Bar Rouge, so named due to the red lighting, where we partied after dinner.
Which was probably not a great idea, since we had a full itinerary on Sunday, starting fairly early with check out planned for 9:15am with a tour of the old town starting at 10am at the Rathaus; a gorgeous red sandstone building dating from the 16th century, with lovely colourful roof tiling and beautifully decorated with frescos.
Next door to the building was the TALLY WEiJL main store which had a huge poster starting "We make Basel totally sexy" with an appropriately dressed girl, which kind of spoiled the view a little. Though that was the only piece of tacky advertising in the old town, which was such a nice contrast to Geneva with all its lit signs along the lakefront advertising banks and watch brands.
Actually, the whole old town of Basel had more character than Geneva, with its history of guilds which the streets are named after in the lower areas, and the grander buildings on the hills with colourful shutters and flowering creepers, with what seemed like more restaurants and cafes with outdoor sitting.
After the tour, it was time for another couple of museums, the first of which was the Kunstmuseum during what was planned to be our lunchtime, but they had a rare Van Gogh exhibition opening which most of us wanted to see. It was titled "Between Earth and Heaven, the Landscapes" and I really enjoyed it. They bought Van Gogh paintings from all over North America and Europe on this theme together and displayed them in chronological order. Starting with his time in Nuenen, where he returned to live with his parents after failed attempts as an art dealer and a preacher, and where he attended the Art Academy in Antwerp. His pieces from this time period were so different from what people associate with him, in a different style with tight brushtrokes using a darker colour palette. The exhibition then followed him around France, starting in Paris where he was influenced by the Impressionists there, using brighter colours and freer brushstrokes. After two years in the city, he decided to move to the countryside for his health and went to Arles, where he painted his sunflower series (not part of the exhibition) and where he mutilated his left ear. After which he admitted himself to a sanatorium in Saint-Remy, where his paintings are pervaded with coils and swirls, which can be seen in his magnum opus, The Starry Night (also not part of the exhibition), a painting I remember on the title screen of an old game, I think it was Hocus Pocus. The last room of the exhibition was of paintings from his time in Auvers, which was his most prolific period, but also where he ended his life.
Anyway, the last museum we went to, Foundation Beyeler, is one that I wouldn't have gone to on my own, and was kind of interesting, with a fairly small collection of Western artwork ranging from impressionism to pop art, which was displayed in time order with collections of artifacts from Africa and Oceania. It made for a strange juxaposition, with the information booklet trying to draw the parallels between them. Most of the group spent a short time in the museum and rested outside in the gardens, which were quite pretty with a pretty view of the surrounding countryside, since the museum wasn't in the centre of the city.
There are around sixty Federal Scholarship holders currently affiliated with the University, but only around thirty of them came on the trip. Considering the train, hotel and almost all meals were paid for, I can only imagine that the other students already had plans, were too busy or sick, like my housemate. As soon as I received the email about the trip, I signed up, and then emailed the people I met on ski camp who live in Basel to see if they were around this weekend and wanted to meet up, since it is always nicer to be shown around a city by somebody who knows it. Actually, I lied before, the peak of my scholarship was definitely having my ski camp subsidised. This weekend comes easily in second place though. It has been really fun, informative and interesting. All possible because Basel is a very very different city than Geneva, with much more for a visitor to see and do.
The trip started with an early meeting at the station to catch the train to Basel, check into the hotel, after which we had a free afternoon until dinner. We were staying at the Dorint, which is located outside the old town of Basel, across the Rhine, in which the locals call "Little Basel", as opposed to "Big Basel" (both of which sound much better in their original Swiss-German). It was a lovely hotel, except for the minor problem that we were sharing rooms and the two single beds which made up the double bed in the room couldn't be moved more than a couple of centimetres apart due to built in side tables. Luckily I was placed with a girl from Argentina who could speak English, otherwise it would have been an even more awkward situation.
I guess now would be a good time for me to locate Basel for all you lovely readers, in case you've never heard of it and perhaps impart some of the random facts I remember from my tour this morning.
As you can see, Basel (Basle in German or Bâle in French) is located to the north of Switzerland and borders both France and Germany. Supposedly there is a pole in the port of Basel which marks the intersection of the three countries. The airport of the city is actually in France, with Switzerland buying the land and the road leading there. It is probably the only Swiss city which does not have a view of the Alps and one of the rare ones that isn't by a lake.
According to my tour guide, the name of the town comes from a mythical creature, the Basilisk, which can be found in various places around the city holding their coat of arms, on which is a crosier, a stylised staff synifying the fact that Basel was ruled by Prince-Bishops before the Reformation.
The city is the third largest in the country, after Zurich and Geneva, though it feels bigger than Geneva as the old town is larger and there are many more shops and people around on Saturday, and in fact it was only in the last couple of years that its population fell below Geneva's. This is supposedly in part due to the fact that the half-canton of Basel-City taxes its higher income earners more than Basel-Country.
Anyway, we had Saturday afternoon off, which we used to eat a long lunch and walk around, focusing mainly on the Rhine, which is one of the longest and most important rivers in Europe, originating in the Swiss Alps and ending in the North Sea, acting as part of the border between Switzerland and Germany as well as between France and Germany. The bridge in the above photo is one of the oldest across the river and the reason why Switzerland owns the land on both sides of the river here is because they wanted control of the bridge.
Though if you didn't want to walk across the river, you could take one of the four ferries, which have been crossing the Rhine for the past 150 years. They are motorless and work by using the current of the river, via the shape and angle of the boat which is controlled by a rod which can be swung from one side of the boat to the other depending on which direction it needs to go.
Basel is sometimes called the "cultural capital of Switzerland" and it really deserves this title due to its 30 odd museums, though some of them are collections of the strangest things like, Sammlung Friedhof Hörnli which houses funernal objects, and the Hoosesagg Museeum which advertises itself to be the world's smallest museum and displays small objects which can fit into ones pocket in themes in a window.
We saw this fountain made of kinetic art by Jean Tinguely and decided to go to the Tinguely Museum. He made 'artwork' by collecting items from junk yards and putting them together with some sort of motor along some sort of theme. I didn't understand the art aspect of it, but it was kind of cool walking around and pressing big red buttons to get the sculptures to start, and seeing how everything was connected to each other and moved or made sounds, one of them being so big, you could walk on and in it.
Basel also boasts Switzerland's tallest building at 105m. There are other structures taller, but this is the tallest building. And on the top 31st floor, with a fairly decent view of the city, is Bar Rouge, so named due to the red lighting, where we partied after dinner.
Which was probably not a great idea, since we had a full itinerary on Sunday, starting fairly early with check out planned for 9:15am with a tour of the old town starting at 10am at the Rathaus; a gorgeous red sandstone building dating from the 16th century, with lovely colourful roof tiling and beautifully decorated with frescos.
Next door to the building was the TALLY WEiJL main store which had a huge poster starting "We make Basel totally sexy" with an appropriately dressed girl, which kind of spoiled the view a little. Though that was the only piece of tacky advertising in the old town, which was such a nice contrast to Geneva with all its lit signs along the lakefront advertising banks and watch brands.
Actually, the whole old town of Basel had more character than Geneva, with its history of guilds which the streets are named after in the lower areas, and the grander buildings on the hills with colourful shutters and flowering creepers, with what seemed like more restaurants and cafes with outdoor sitting.
After the tour, it was time for another couple of museums, the first of which was the Kunstmuseum during what was planned to be our lunchtime, but they had a rare Van Gogh exhibition opening which most of us wanted to see. It was titled "Between Earth and Heaven, the Landscapes" and I really enjoyed it. They bought Van Gogh paintings from all over North America and Europe on this theme together and displayed them in chronological order. Starting with his time in Nuenen, where he returned to live with his parents after failed attempts as an art dealer and a preacher, and where he attended the Art Academy in Antwerp. His pieces from this time period were so different from what people associate with him, in a different style with tight brushtrokes using a darker colour palette. The exhibition then followed him around France, starting in Paris where he was influenced by the Impressionists there, using brighter colours and freer brushstrokes. After two years in the city, he decided to move to the countryside for his health and went to Arles, where he painted his sunflower series (not part of the exhibition) and where he mutilated his left ear. After which he admitted himself to a sanatorium in Saint-Remy, where his paintings are pervaded with coils and swirls, which can be seen in his magnum opus, The Starry Night (also not part of the exhibition), a painting I remember on the title screen of an old game, I think it was Hocus Pocus. The last room of the exhibition was of paintings from his time in Auvers, which was his most prolific period, but also where he ended his life.
Anyway, the last museum we went to, Foundation Beyeler, is one that I wouldn't have gone to on my own, and was kind of interesting, with a fairly small collection of Western artwork ranging from impressionism to pop art, which was displayed in time order with collections of artifacts from Africa and Oceania. It made for a strange juxaposition, with the information booklet trying to draw the parallels between them. Most of the group spent a short time in the museum and rested outside in the gardens, which were quite pretty with a pretty view of the surrounding countryside, since the museum wasn't in the centre of the city.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
End of the ski season...
Today I returned my rented ski equipment to Intersport (which for future reference isn't open at lunch time, those slack French). The skis have really served me well this season - Val Thorens, La Faucille, Crozet, Crozet x 2, Avoriaz, Morzine, Beatenberg, Grindelwald, Contamines, Morzine x 2, Avoriaz x 2, Argentière. Twelve outings! And that's not including the six days of skiing I did on the Engelberg ski camp using borrowed equipment. That's eighteen skiing days over the winter! Not bad for my first season... I'm quite happy about my progress over that time as well, I reckon I could now probably safely make my way down any groomed slope... Note I say safely, not elegantly... I'm nowhere near an expert skier and still freak out when faced with a steep or bumpy slope.
The ski gear definitely paid off the 112 euros I paid to rent it all. (For my piece of mind, I'm not going to add up all the money I've spent on skiing over the past few months since I know it's defintely in the vicinity of 1-2k). I was quite worried when I forked out that first set of money for the gear and the clothes at the end of October since I had only ever skiied once before a few years ago (in California of all places!) and it was only for a couple of hours. My fears weren't alleviated by my first outing to Val Thorens back in November, which was quite a painful adventure. But things improved from there and I've really come to enjoy the sport and already miss it and the beauty of all the mountain resorts, though I'm quite happy about the arrival of spring and all that it brings with it... warm weather, leaves and blossoms on trees, flowers in the fields, more of my research group at CERN (though this last one has mean I had to give up the CERN van and am now riding into work)...
Here's hoping that I'll be back for the end of winter next year, preferably in time for ski camp... (I don't want to come back any earlier than March since winter in Geneva really is miserable with skiing being its only redeeming factor and I don't know if I'll have the time for it next year with the LHC actually being on and needing to write my thesis and all.)
The ski gear definitely paid off the 112 euros I paid to rent it all. (For my piece of mind, I'm not going to add up all the money I've spent on skiing over the past few months since I know it's defintely in the vicinity of 1-2k). I was quite worried when I forked out that first set of money for the gear and the clothes at the end of October since I had only ever skiied once before a few years ago (in California of all places!) and it was only for a couple of hours. My fears weren't alleviated by my first outing to Val Thorens back in November, which was quite a painful adventure. But things improved from there and I've really come to enjoy the sport and already miss it and the beauty of all the mountain resorts, though I'm quite happy about the arrival of spring and all that it brings with it... warm weather, leaves and blossoms on trees, flowers in the fields, more of my research group at CERN (though this last one has mean I had to give up the CERN van and am now riding into work)...
Here's hoping that I'll be back for the end of winter next year, preferably in time for ski camp... (I don't want to come back any earlier than March since winter in Geneva really is miserable with skiing being its only redeeming factor and I don't know if I'll have the time for it next year with the LHC actually being on and needing to write my thesis and all.)
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Post Easter Chocolate
So back home after Easter every year, they discount all the Easter chocolate to get rid of it all, and I went to the supermarket earlier this week in anticipation of lots of cheap chocolate... only to find that they had just replaced the display with the usual specials of the week. Where did all the chocolate eggs go? Did they go to a larger supermarket to get sold? Or back to the factory to get melted down?
Ah well, this just meant that in the midst of a sugar craving today, I decided it was time for the bunny I won from the ski race camp to die. He was so cute that I did have the heart to smash him any earlier than today. But after opening the package and smelling the chocolate, I had no more qualms about eating him. After all, he was made to be eaten...
Ah well, this just meant that in the midst of a sugar craving today, I decided it was time for the bunny I won from the ski race camp to die. He was so cute that I did have the heart to smash him any earlier than today. But after opening the package and smelling the chocolate, I had no more qualms about eating him. After all, he was made to be eaten...
Thursday, April 16, 2009
LHC Repairs
...have reached a milestone with the 53rd and final repaired dipole magnet being lowered today into the LHC tunnel and is probably now in place.
I wonder if it was one of the ones where they used the blue dipole casings which were dotted around the LHC countryside for CERN Open Day last year and then mysteriously disappeared after the incident...
I wonder if it was one of the ones where they used the blue dipole casings which were dotted around the LHC countryside for CERN Open Day last year and then mysteriously disappeared after the incident...
Monday, April 13, 2009
Cité Day
All of today's attractions were situated on the Ile de la Cité, one of the two islands in the Seine and the site of the first human settlement in Paris.
First on the list was Notre Dame, which I'm sure needs no introduction, supposedly being Paris' most visited attraction. I think it being free to walk around the church might have something to do with that, though I did wait over an hour to go up the towers which you do have to pay for.
It is a beautiful church, both inside and outside, though I do like the outside better with all the sculptures on the facade, particularly the gargoyles and chimeras, though the rse windows inside are amazing.
I had seen the church on my previous visit to Paris, but never went inside, deterred by the line, which snaked all the way across the square in front of the church. I am now glad that I left it until now, as the gardens around the church were full of colour, which they weren't in winter, and I was able to take a couple of really nice photos, my favourite of which is this one, where it looks like its floating on a sea of blossoms.
I want to add that it was around here that my camera almost reached the end of it's usefulness, the memory card only had space for around thirty more photos and I wasn't too sure that the battery was going to last that long as the low battery indicator started flashing at me. Note to self for next trip, either buy a larger memory card or redce the quality of the photos, and charge the batterties overnight and carry the spare around. Or be less happy snappy. But that's the least favoured option. I like all my photos. *smiles*
From Notre Dame it was a hop skip and jump to Sainte-Chapelle, my next destination. A chapel built by Louis IX to house the relics of the Passion of Christ which he bought, The lower chapel is pretty, but the upper chapel is absolutely breath taking, whith it's 15 stained glass windows, supposedly 600 square meters in area, all depicting a different religious tale, not that I know any of them well enough to follow the depictions. Well, at least the ones which were well lit by the sun.
Combined with my tickets to Sainte-Chapelle was one to the Conciergerie, which is part of the current Palais de Justice, which was where the Revolutionary Tribunal was held during the Reign of Terror and the Conciergerie was used as a prison where most of the captives ended up on the guillotine. There was a room full of boards which contained a list titled "liste generale et tres extacte des 2780 condamnes a mort a paris" where each person was listed with their occupation. The most famous immate, Marie Antoinette wasn't on the list, but there was a chapel there dedicated to her and a reconstruction of the cell she would have lived in for the two to three months she was there. It was an informative visit, but a little underwhelming, I don't think the displays really gave a sense of what it was like that the time, probably needed more background, since most visitors are from overseas and don't know all that much about the French Revolution.
Actually, with that ends my break to Paris, the last couple of hours were spent walking back to my hostel and grabbing my bags and walking to the train station. I've really enjoyed myself this weekend. I was worried about it being lonely by myself and not having anything to do in the evenings when all the sights were closed, but this wasn't a problem as I always found something to do, even if it was sit down for a couple of hours and write while resting my feet. I'd forgotten what it is like to be in a big city, with lots of people and lots of cheap take away food. Mmmm... I really like the city, there is so much to it, and I think the fact that I know about it from books and films really helps, though knowing more would have obviously been better. Also, because I've been living in Geneva for so many months now, being in a French speaking city doesn't feel foreign anymore.
Paris, je t'aime.
As a postscript though, I want to add that while it is a lovely city to visit when it's sunny and warm, I didn't really enjoy my time there in the dead of winter with cold and the sleet and slush; and I can see how living there might not be all that pleasant, particularly if you can't afford to live near the centre.
Paris tu paries Paris que je te quitte
Que je change
De cap de capitale
Paris tu paries Paris que je te quitte
Que je te plaque
Sur tes trottoirs sales
First on the list was Notre Dame, which I'm sure needs no introduction, supposedly being Paris' most visited attraction. I think it being free to walk around the church might have something to do with that, though I did wait over an hour to go up the towers which you do have to pay for.
It is a beautiful church, both inside and outside, though I do like the outside better with all the sculptures on the facade, particularly the gargoyles and chimeras, though the rse windows inside are amazing.
I had seen the church on my previous visit to Paris, but never went inside, deterred by the line, which snaked all the way across the square in front of the church. I am now glad that I left it until now, as the gardens around the church were full of colour, which they weren't in winter, and I was able to take a couple of really nice photos, my favourite of which is this one, where it looks like its floating on a sea of blossoms.
I want to add that it was around here that my camera almost reached the end of it's usefulness, the memory card only had space for around thirty more photos and I wasn't too sure that the battery was going to last that long as the low battery indicator started flashing at me. Note to self for next trip, either buy a larger memory card or redce the quality of the photos, and charge the batterties overnight and carry the spare around. Or be less happy snappy. But that's the least favoured option. I like all my photos. *smiles*
From Notre Dame it was a hop skip and jump to Sainte-Chapelle, my next destination. A chapel built by Louis IX to house the relics of the Passion of Christ which he bought, The lower chapel is pretty, but the upper chapel is absolutely breath taking, whith it's 15 stained glass windows, supposedly 600 square meters in area, all depicting a different religious tale, not that I know any of them well enough to follow the depictions. Well, at least the ones which were well lit by the sun.
Combined with my tickets to Sainte-Chapelle was one to the Conciergerie, which is part of the current Palais de Justice, which was where the Revolutionary Tribunal was held during the Reign of Terror and the Conciergerie was used as a prison where most of the captives ended up on the guillotine. There was a room full of boards which contained a list titled "liste generale et tres extacte des 2780 condamnes a mort a paris" where each person was listed with their occupation. The most famous immate, Marie Antoinette wasn't on the list, but there was a chapel there dedicated to her and a reconstruction of the cell she would have lived in for the two to three months she was there. It was an informative visit, but a little underwhelming, I don't think the displays really gave a sense of what it was like that the time, probably needed more background, since most visitors are from overseas and don't know all that much about the French Revolution.
Actually, with that ends my break to Paris, the last couple of hours were spent walking back to my hostel and grabbing my bags and walking to the train station. I've really enjoyed myself this weekend. I was worried about it being lonely by myself and not having anything to do in the evenings when all the sights were closed, but this wasn't a problem as I always found something to do, even if it was sit down for a couple of hours and write while resting my feet. I'd forgotten what it is like to be in a big city, with lots of people and lots of cheap take away food. Mmmm... I really like the city, there is so much to it, and I think the fact that I know about it from books and films really helps, though knowing more would have obviously been better. Also, because I've been living in Geneva for so many months now, being in a French speaking city doesn't feel foreign anymore.
Paris, je t'aime.
As a postscript though, I want to add that while it is a lovely city to visit when it's sunny and warm, I didn't really enjoy my time there in the dead of winter with cold and the sleet and slush; and I can see how living there might not be all that pleasant, particularly if you can't afford to live near the centre.
Paris tu paries Paris que je te quitte
Que je change
De cap de capitale
Paris tu paries Paris que je te quitte
Que je te plaque
Sur tes trottoirs sales
Sunday, April 12, 2009
History Day
I don't really know if that's the correct title to sum up the day, but it's the first thing that came to mind, so it'll have to do.
Actually, I just noticed, I got so caught up in describing the opera theatre and its patrons of the time; I forgot to mention it's most famous patron, namely, the Phantom of the Opera. When they were building the Palais, they had to drain a body of water underground, during which the neighbours heard voices, which is how the myth began, and any mysterious occurrences at the theatre were attributed to a ghost. In particular, the falling of one of the counter weights to the auditorium chandelier on a woman in the renters area. An incident which was embellished in the novel by Gaston Leroux, on which the musical was based, in which the ghost received his own box but luckily for the theatre, the musical has never been performed in Paris, nor the movie, so audiences sit in Box 5 which no thoughts regarding the phantom.
Oh, and the ballet I saw was a contemporary one, choreographed by John Neumeier to Gustav Mahler's Third Symphony. I didn’t a playbill until afterwards, so I didn’t know about the season theme or the love story, but I quite enjoyed it. I would have really enjoyed it if I had a seat though. It was a two hour performance with no interval, and after the first act, I was finding it hard to concentrate on the stage, and by the last act, I was fidgeting all over the place. Which was a pity, since the choreography was really interesting and the dancers very good. Note to self for the future, it is worth paying more for a seat at a theatre, though in this case I didn’t really have a choice as they were all sold out. It was an experience though, they had two doors that went to standing room seats where they had padded rail for people to lean or perch on. The more seasoned of the audience went in early and stood near the rope separating the standing audience from the seated audience in the hope that they would be allowed into any empty spots, though there weren’t any at this performance. We didn’t have that bad a position actually, an unobstructed view of the whole stage. I’ve paid much more at home for worse.
Anyway, I should stop talking about the theatre and mention what else I’ve been doing. Which has been a whole lot of walking. Yesterday I way, very slowly, from Opera Garnier to Opera Bastille, doing some window shopping and sight seeing along the way. I breezed though Galleries Lafayette, which was very luxurious (I had a peak at the Tiffany section) and did have a very big lingerie department, though I don’t know about the largest in the world. It also had a very nice view over Paris from the terrace and a very pretty dome.
I also looked inside Le Printemps, the department store next door, but it wasn’t as pretty, so didn’t bother looking around. I also went though Passage des Panaoramas, a covered shopping arcade, which was a bit of a let down from my guide book description, not as nice as the arcades back one and away from the entrance lots of empty stores.
I also stumbled across the Eglise St-Eustache, which has a very beautiful façade with lots of arches, though the inside doesn’t really match it with lots of the paintings needing restoration work done.
And with that, I think I’ve finished describing yesterday. Today’s plan was kind of similar, I had a couple of places I wanted to go, and whatever was interesting in between or around I would decide to visit when I got there.
The first attraction was the Hôtel des Invalides, which houses the Musée de l'Armée and Napolean’s Tomb. Before I went there however, I made a slight detour to the École Militaire, from which, there is a great view of:
Le Tour Eiffel. I didn’t bother going any closer as I have plans to go up it in summer with my boyfriend, but I thought that I would at least take a photo of it since I was so close.
From there it was a short walk to the Hôtel des Invalides, which for those who have been to Paris, is the gold domed roof near the Eiffel Tower.
This is the roof of the aptly named Dome Church, in which is Napolean’s Tomb, where he lies within five successive coffins encased in a sarcophagus on a floor on which is written eight of famous victories and on the surrounding walls are ten marble sculptures of his civil achievements, one of which lists all the buildings he commissioned in Paris. Quite ostentatious really. Granted, it wasn’t planned by the emperor to be interred in such a state, all he supposedly specified was to ‘lie by the Seine, among the people he loved’ but I’m pretty sure he would approve of his final resting place:
Who wouldn’t be? 12kg of gold was used to gild the dome when it was restored in 1989!
The rest of the complex wasn’t as ornate, since that church was originally built for King Louis IV to come and hear the same mass as all the veterans of his wars for whom the complex was built, which encompassed the functions of a hospice, barracks, convent, hospital and factory. It you’re wondering, the royal church was never used for the military, they had their own plainer church, behind the royal one, currently decorated with flags and standards taken from enemies.
The Musée de l'Armée is split into three sections, one of which was closed for renovations. I only went through one of the remaining two, The Antique Arms and Armour Deparment, knights to permanent army. The other was devoted to the First and Second World Wars, but I ran out of time and wasn't really interested in the topics, as in the past I've found it difficult to stomach exhibits on those wars. I'm fine looking at swords and muskets and chain mail and suits of armour but find it hard to look at guns and tanks. I think it's because history has romanticised knights and sword play and it is hard to identify with the individual people on the battlefield who couldn’t write and tell us about what it was really like, but there is nothing romantic about mechanised warfare, which is more recent of which there are plenty of memoirs describing the horrendousness of it all.
I also got distracted by the Musée des Plans-Reliefs. As some of you know, I have a thing for maps, I like seeing how things are organised on a larger scale and maps made in times past are even more interesting as you can compare them to today and see the development. Oh, as anybody who has travelled with me probably knows, I also have a thing for miniature models; I always look at them and take photos of them if there are any around. So the relief maps were the combination of these, scale models of fortified towns and surrounding countryside all along the French border made from 1668 to 1870. They were pretty cool, but I didn’t find them that interesting since I hadn’t been to any of the places except one and all the descriptions were in French. Though, the thing that interested me about most of the models was the star-like shape of the town defences:
which I had never seen before, supposedly built in this shape as round towers have blind spots. You can see how the town could go in hold out in a siege until they ran out of supplies. They had a cool set of models showing the stages of a battle from as the advancing army comes in from the distance to breaking the walls and entering the town.
From the Hôtel des Invalides, I headed, again very slowly, east toward my second attraction, the Panthéon, going past the Eglise St-Sulpice whose name you may recognise from Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code, which he places a meridian line he calls ‘The Rose Line’ and is the setting of a murder. For those who have seen the movie, there really is a meridian line marked on the floor of the church
but as a sign in the church states, this was placed there for a scientific study conducted by the Paris Observatory, directly south of the church, and the P and S symbols in the windows don’t stand for the Priory of Sion, but Peter and Sulpice.
Anyway, I finally made it to the Panthéon, which I was looking forward to for numerous reasons. The geekiest of which is:
it is where Foucault set up his first pendulum back in 1851, demonstrating the rotation of the Earth. Now the last time I saw one was at the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles last August, after which I said I was going to find out how it worked. I remember looking at the Wikipedia page, and I can’t remember how it differs from an ordinary pendulum. I’m it has something to do with the length of the strong and the weight of the ball and I know the angle through which it rotates changes with latitude, and at the poles (or was it the equator?), it would act as an ordinary pendulum (or rotate though the full 360 degrees), but I can’t remember why.
The building is magnificent and has a very interesting history, which I won’t bother to go into here, because I will probably wrong and I want to mention the other reasons I wanted to go there, namely that Victor Hugo and Alexander Dumas and Pierre and Maris Curie are all interred in the crypt along with lots of other French people, most of whom I don’t know, though I did recognise some of the names, like Voltaire and Rousseau, though these don’t interest me as much as Nobel Prize winning scientists and novelists whose books I know and love.
From these, I headed to the Jarin du Luxembourg, where I am currently writing this very long entry and in which there is a multitude of flowerbeds in bloom
and grass you can’t walk on with guards posted to blow whistles at people who try. Oh, they are also there to tell everybody to leave the park when it closes…
Actually, I just noticed, I got so caught up in describing the opera theatre and its patrons of the time; I forgot to mention it's most famous patron, namely, the Phantom of the Opera. When they were building the Palais, they had to drain a body of water underground, during which the neighbours heard voices, which is how the myth began, and any mysterious occurrences at the theatre were attributed to a ghost. In particular, the falling of one of the counter weights to the auditorium chandelier on a woman in the renters area. An incident which was embellished in the novel by Gaston Leroux, on which the musical was based, in which the ghost received his own box but luckily for the theatre, the musical has never been performed in Paris, nor the movie, so audiences sit in Box 5 which no thoughts regarding the phantom.
Oh, and the ballet I saw was a contemporary one, choreographed by John Neumeier to Gustav Mahler's Third Symphony. I didn’t a playbill until afterwards, so I didn’t know about the season theme or the love story, but I quite enjoyed it. I would have really enjoyed it if I had a seat though. It was a two hour performance with no interval, and after the first act, I was finding it hard to concentrate on the stage, and by the last act, I was fidgeting all over the place. Which was a pity, since the choreography was really interesting and the dancers very good. Note to self for the future, it is worth paying more for a seat at a theatre, though in this case I didn’t really have a choice as they were all sold out. It was an experience though, they had two doors that went to standing room seats where they had padded rail for people to lean or perch on. The more seasoned of the audience went in early and stood near the rope separating the standing audience from the seated audience in the hope that they would be allowed into any empty spots, though there weren’t any at this performance. We didn’t have that bad a position actually, an unobstructed view of the whole stage. I’ve paid much more at home for worse.
Anyway, I should stop talking about the theatre and mention what else I’ve been doing. Which has been a whole lot of walking. Yesterday I way, very slowly, from Opera Garnier to Opera Bastille, doing some window shopping and sight seeing along the way. I breezed though Galleries Lafayette, which was very luxurious (I had a peak at the Tiffany section) and did have a very big lingerie department, though I don’t know about the largest in the world. It also had a very nice view over Paris from the terrace and a very pretty dome.
I also looked inside Le Printemps, the department store next door, but it wasn’t as pretty, so didn’t bother looking around. I also went though Passage des Panaoramas, a covered shopping arcade, which was a bit of a let down from my guide book description, not as nice as the arcades back one and away from the entrance lots of empty stores.
I also stumbled across the Eglise St-Eustache, which has a very beautiful façade with lots of arches, though the inside doesn’t really match it with lots of the paintings needing restoration work done.
And with that, I think I’ve finished describing yesterday. Today’s plan was kind of similar, I had a couple of places I wanted to go, and whatever was interesting in between or around I would decide to visit when I got there.
The first attraction was the Hôtel des Invalides, which houses the Musée de l'Armée and Napolean’s Tomb. Before I went there however, I made a slight detour to the École Militaire, from which, there is a great view of:
Le Tour Eiffel. I didn’t bother going any closer as I have plans to go up it in summer with my boyfriend, but I thought that I would at least take a photo of it since I was so close.
From there it was a short walk to the Hôtel des Invalides, which for those who have been to Paris, is the gold domed roof near the Eiffel Tower.
This is the roof of the aptly named Dome Church, in which is Napolean’s Tomb, where he lies within five successive coffins encased in a sarcophagus on a floor on which is written eight of famous victories and on the surrounding walls are ten marble sculptures of his civil achievements, one of which lists all the buildings he commissioned in Paris. Quite ostentatious really. Granted, it wasn’t planned by the emperor to be interred in such a state, all he supposedly specified was to ‘lie by the Seine, among the people he loved’ but I’m pretty sure he would approve of his final resting place:
Who wouldn’t be? 12kg of gold was used to gild the dome when it was restored in 1989!
The rest of the complex wasn’t as ornate, since that church was originally built for King Louis IV to come and hear the same mass as all the veterans of his wars for whom the complex was built, which encompassed the functions of a hospice, barracks, convent, hospital and factory. It you’re wondering, the royal church was never used for the military, they had their own plainer church, behind the royal one, currently decorated with flags and standards taken from enemies.
The Musée de l'Armée is split into three sections, one of which was closed for renovations. I only went through one of the remaining two, The Antique Arms and Armour Deparment, knights to permanent army. The other was devoted to the First and Second World Wars, but I ran out of time and wasn't really interested in the topics, as in the past I've found it difficult to stomach exhibits on those wars. I'm fine looking at swords and muskets and chain mail and suits of armour but find it hard to look at guns and tanks. I think it's because history has romanticised knights and sword play and it is hard to identify with the individual people on the battlefield who couldn’t write and tell us about what it was really like, but there is nothing romantic about mechanised warfare, which is more recent of which there are plenty of memoirs describing the horrendousness of it all.
I also got distracted by the Musée des Plans-Reliefs. As some of you know, I have a thing for maps, I like seeing how things are organised on a larger scale and maps made in times past are even more interesting as you can compare them to today and see the development. Oh, as anybody who has travelled with me probably knows, I also have a thing for miniature models; I always look at them and take photos of them if there are any around. So the relief maps were the combination of these, scale models of fortified towns and surrounding countryside all along the French border made from 1668 to 1870. They were pretty cool, but I didn’t find them that interesting since I hadn’t been to any of the places except one and all the descriptions were in French. Though, the thing that interested me about most of the models was the star-like shape of the town defences:
which I had never seen before, supposedly built in this shape as round towers have blind spots. You can see how the town could go in hold out in a siege until they ran out of supplies. They had a cool set of models showing the stages of a battle from as the advancing army comes in from the distance to breaking the walls and entering the town.
From the Hôtel des Invalides, I headed, again very slowly, east toward my second attraction, the Panthéon, going past the Eglise St-Sulpice whose name you may recognise from Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code, which he places a meridian line he calls ‘The Rose Line’ and is the setting of a murder. For those who have seen the movie, there really is a meridian line marked on the floor of the church
but as a sign in the church states, this was placed there for a scientific study conducted by the Paris Observatory, directly south of the church, and the P and S symbols in the windows don’t stand for the Priory of Sion, but Peter and Sulpice.
Anyway, I finally made it to the Panthéon, which I was looking forward to for numerous reasons. The geekiest of which is:
it is where Foucault set up his first pendulum back in 1851, demonstrating the rotation of the Earth. Now the last time I saw one was at the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles last August, after which I said I was going to find out how it worked. I remember looking at the Wikipedia page, and I can’t remember how it differs from an ordinary pendulum. I’m it has something to do with the length of the strong and the weight of the ball and I know the angle through which it rotates changes with latitude, and at the poles (or was it the equator?), it would act as an ordinary pendulum (or rotate though the full 360 degrees), but I can’t remember why.
The building is magnificent and has a very interesting history, which I won’t bother to go into here, because I will probably wrong and I want to mention the other reasons I wanted to go there, namely that Victor Hugo and Alexander Dumas and Pierre and Maris Curie are all interred in the crypt along with lots of other French people, most of whom I don’t know, though I did recognise some of the names, like Voltaire and Rousseau, though these don’t interest me as much as Nobel Prize winning scientists and novelists whose books I know and love.
From these, I headed to the Jarin du Luxembourg, where I am currently writing this very long entry and in which there is a multitude of flowerbeds in bloom
and grass you can’t walk on with guards posted to blow whistles at people who try. Oh, they are also there to tell everybody to leave the park when it closes…
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Ballet Day
I'm currently waiting in line at the Opéra Bastille to buy ballet tickets for a performance tonight, hence the title of the post, though most of the things I've done today have revolved around the Opéra National de Paris and its two opera houses, Opéra Bastille and Opéra Garnier.
My first stop this morning was Opéra Garnier, to buy a ticket for a guided tour, which was in an hour. I spent that time taking photos of the exterior of the Palais:
and walking randomly around the area, ending up at the Place Vendôme as I saw Napoleon's column, celebrating the victory of Austerlitz for afar and decided to find it:
I guess the fact that I walked past Tiffany and Cartier and quite a few other luxury jewellery stores on the way should have been a hint, but I was very surprised by the range of stores and hotels in the square. There was Chanel and Dior and others, all with very sparkly jewllery in the windows with no price tags.
Anyway, back to the Opéra Garnier, for which I warn you, I will go into way too much detail, since I went on a tour and it is a topic I'm interested in. I was looking forward to seeing the Palais, and it didn't disappoint, despite the fact that the auditorium wasn't open for visits due to a rehearsal.
The theatre was commissioned by Napolean III during a period when going to see a performance meant something very difference from nowadays. The audience was split up into two categories, those with season tickets who bought a box for every night for the entire season, and those with single tickets, degradingly called renters. As you can probably guess, upper class people were season subscribers and lower class people or foreigners bought single tickets. Now if you were a subscriber, and went to the theatre every night, you would end up watching the same show many times over. So it wasn't for the performances that these people came every night, but for the social interaction, and the theatre was designed with this in mind.
There are three difference entrances to the building, One fr the renters, one for the subscribers and one for royalty. Inside the theatre, the areas for each were laid out such that there was minimal to no interaction between them, and each was decorated very differently. The renter's area was very plain, while the subscribers area was very sumptuous, with a marvellous staircase with lots of overlooking balconiesand two foyers full of gold and art:
You would think that the imperial entrances would be just as grand, but they are surprisingly plain, with just raw stone walls. This is because Napolean want to war with Prussia during the construction, and lost, after which France became a republic whose government wouldn’t pay for the building. So Garnier completed his opera house with very little funds, leaving the imperial entrances unfinished, since nobody would be using them.
Theatregoers still flocked to the performances, despite the royal boxes being empty, and their priority if been seen and seeing others meant a very different type of dynamic inside the auditorium. After the entrance parade on the staircase, people would go to their boxes and look at each other until the curtain went up, after which they would go to the back of their box, draw their curtains and talk, have dinner, sleep or whatever. The performers performed to half empty theatres most of the time! In fact, the auditorium always had some light throughout the performances for the audience.
Due to this audience dynamic, the boxes right next to the stage were the most desirable, since they are the most visible and also were lit by the stage. The stalls seating was the least desirable of the subscriber areas and only males bought those seats, supposedly for the view of the ballerinas and because females at the time couldn’t manoeuvre their skirts through the rows of seats.
Subscribers also had keys to their boxes and the opera house and were allowed to go anywhere they wanted in the theatre, including all backstage areas, like the dressing and rehearsal rooms, which is quite a strange concept, since that would distract the performers immensely. However, as you can probably guess, performers back then weren’t very respected by French audiences, particularly the ballerinas, who according to the tour guide were selected more for their looks rather than their dancing abilities. Most of them also came from poorer families and needed the money since wealthier girls would never show their lets in public like that. Supposedly, a status symbol of the time, if you were male, was dating a ballerina, since they were known to be very greedy and wanted clothes and jewellery and apartments with servants from their suitors.
Anyway, it obviously isn’t like that nowadays, mainly due to foreign influences on the French theatre from countries where the performers were respected, like Russia, Italy and Germany. I wish I could see a performance in the palais, but nothing is showing there for the nights that I’m here, which is why I’m lining up here for last minute, standing tickets…
My first stop this morning was Opéra Garnier, to buy a ticket for a guided tour, which was in an hour. I spent that time taking photos of the exterior of the Palais:
and walking randomly around the area, ending up at the Place Vendôme as I saw Napoleon's column, celebrating the victory of Austerlitz for afar and decided to find it:
I guess the fact that I walked past Tiffany and Cartier and quite a few other luxury jewellery stores on the way should have been a hint, but I was very surprised by the range of stores and hotels in the square. There was Chanel and Dior and others, all with very sparkly jewllery in the windows with no price tags.
Anyway, back to the Opéra Garnier, for which I warn you, I will go into way too much detail, since I went on a tour and it is a topic I'm interested in. I was looking forward to seeing the Palais, and it didn't disappoint, despite the fact that the auditorium wasn't open for visits due to a rehearsal.
The theatre was commissioned by Napolean III during a period when going to see a performance meant something very difference from nowadays. The audience was split up into two categories, those with season tickets who bought a box for every night for the entire season, and those with single tickets, degradingly called renters. As you can probably guess, upper class people were season subscribers and lower class people or foreigners bought single tickets. Now if you were a subscriber, and went to the theatre every night, you would end up watching the same show many times over. So it wasn't for the performances that these people came every night, but for the social interaction, and the theatre was designed with this in mind.
There are three difference entrances to the building, One fr the renters, one for the subscribers and one for royalty. Inside the theatre, the areas for each were laid out such that there was minimal to no interaction between them, and each was decorated very differently. The renter's area was very plain, while the subscribers area was very sumptuous, with a marvellous staircase with lots of overlooking balconiesand two foyers full of gold and art:
You would think that the imperial entrances would be just as grand, but they are surprisingly plain, with just raw stone walls. This is because Napolean want to war with Prussia during the construction, and lost, after which France became a republic whose government wouldn’t pay for the building. So Garnier completed his opera house with very little funds, leaving the imperial entrances unfinished, since nobody would be using them.
Theatregoers still flocked to the performances, despite the royal boxes being empty, and their priority if been seen and seeing others meant a very different type of dynamic inside the auditorium. After the entrance parade on the staircase, people would go to their boxes and look at each other until the curtain went up, after which they would go to the back of their box, draw their curtains and talk, have dinner, sleep or whatever. The performers performed to half empty theatres most of the time! In fact, the auditorium always had some light throughout the performances for the audience.
Due to this audience dynamic, the boxes right next to the stage were the most desirable, since they are the most visible and also were lit by the stage. The stalls seating was the least desirable of the subscriber areas and only males bought those seats, supposedly for the view of the ballerinas and because females at the time couldn’t manoeuvre their skirts through the rows of seats.
Subscribers also had keys to their boxes and the opera house and were allowed to go anywhere they wanted in the theatre, including all backstage areas, like the dressing and rehearsal rooms, which is quite a strange concept, since that would distract the performers immensely. However, as you can probably guess, performers back then weren’t very respected by French audiences, particularly the ballerinas, who according to the tour guide were selected more for their looks rather than their dancing abilities. Most of them also came from poorer families and needed the money since wealthier girls would never show their lets in public like that. Supposedly, a status symbol of the time, if you were male, was dating a ballerina, since they were known to be very greedy and wanted clothes and jewellery and apartments with servants from their suitors.
Anyway, it obviously isn’t like that nowadays, mainly due to foreign influences on the French theatre from countries where the performers were respected, like Russia, Italy and Germany. I wish I could see a performance in the palais, but nothing is showing there for the nights that I’m here, which is why I’m lining up here for last minute, standing tickets…
Friday, April 10, 2009
Museum Day
I’m in Paris for the Easter long weekend, and so far it’s going fairly well. I had wanted to go somewhere warmer for the break, but couldn’t find any cheap flights anywhere. So I decided on Paris, it’s only a four train ride from Geneva and while I’ve been here before, there is still plenty of things I want to see and do.
One of which was to spend more time in the museums here. So today, I spent 2.5ish hours in the Museé d’Orsay, 0.5ish hours in the Museé de l’Orangerie and another 2.5ish hours in the Museé du Louvre. If you’re wondering how I managed to fit that all in today as well the train ride here and checking into my hostel, the answer is that I took a very early train here this morning and the Louvre is open until 10pm on Fridays with a reduced entrance fee.
Anyway, now my feet are aching and I’m a little over art, not being that interested in or knowledgeable about it in the first place. I enjoyed the 5th floor of the Orsay where their Impressionist collection is displayed, absolutely loved of the Waterlily rooms in the Orangerie, was awed by the Napolean III rooms in the Louvre, but by the end, I was decided to do the tourist thing and run around taking photos of famous pieces.
Here is a selection of the paintings I saw today (sculptures and furnishings don’t collage together that well). You’ll probably recognise most of them, or at least be able to guess the artist.
One of which was to spend more time in the museums here. So today, I spent 2.5ish hours in the Museé d’Orsay, 0.5ish hours in the Museé de l’Orangerie and another 2.5ish hours in the Museé du Louvre. If you’re wondering how I managed to fit that all in today as well the train ride here and checking into my hostel, the answer is that I took a very early train here this morning and the Louvre is open until 10pm on Fridays with a reduced entrance fee.
Anyway, now my feet are aching and I’m a little over art, not being that interested in or knowledgeable about it in the first place. I enjoyed the 5th floor of the Orsay where their Impressionist collection is displayed, absolutely loved of the Waterlily rooms in the Orangerie, was awed by the Napolean III rooms in the Louvre, but by the end, I was decided to do the tourist thing and run around taking photos of famous pieces.
Here is a selection of the paintings I saw today (sculptures and furnishings don’t collage together that well). You’ll probably recognise most of them, or at least be able to guess the artist.
Monday, April 6, 2009
Cleaning
Today was apartment cleaning day. Not by us, but by professionals organised by the Bureau des Lodgements. *grins* All we had to do was remove everything from the counters and shelves in the kitchen, bathroom and toilet. Oh, and all the food from the freezer so they could remove the ice. So it was nice to come home today with everything all shiny, though the residual fumes from all the cleaning products isn't very pleasant.
This apartment is such a good deal for students at the university. The rent is only 355CHF a month and we don't have to pay for electricity, water or internet. I was so lucky to be offered a room here. It is a little far from the centre of town, around 20 minutes by bus in good traffic, but it's only a 20 bike ride or 10 minute drive to CERN, which is fine by me, since that is where I spend most of my time, and I had possession of my research group's CERN van for the winter.
This apartment is such a good deal for students at the university. The rent is only 355CHF a month and we don't have to pay for electricity, water or internet. I was so lucky to be offered a room here. It is a little far from the centre of town, around 20 minutes by bus in good traffic, but it's only a 20 bike ride or 10 minute drive to CERN, which is fine by me, since that is where I spend most of my time, and I had possession of my research group's CERN van for the winter.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Argentière
Although I had planed for last week to be my last skiing for the season, I thought I would go one last time this weekend, and spent a fair bit of the week looking up ski buses and conditions at resorts. Skiing this late in the season is fraught with issues as it is getting warm, meaning snow conditions aren't very good, particularly at the lower resorts. And some smaller resorts, like the ones on the nearby Jura are closed completely, while the larger resorts have closed their lower areas.
Anyway, I had planned to take the ski bus to Flaine, but got talked into going to the Grand Montets area of the Chamonix valley, in particular to do the run from the top down, which runs along the Argentière glacier. I was told that the black slope, adaptly named Point de Vue was just a very long and wide red slope where only the first 50m was really steep.
So we go to Argentiere, which is near the end of the Chamonix valley, meaning the drive there, past Mont Blanc, the Bossons glacier and the Aiguille du Midi, is absolutely breathtaking. I have to go back later in the year for some hiking/sightseeing.
After some minor skiing, we waited in line for 45 minutes for the cable car to the Aiguille des Grands Montets. The system can supposedly carry 650 people per hour, so you can imagine how popular the ski run is. This a photo from the bottom of the lift.
Some people only go for the view though, and what a view it is! Here is a photo from the stairs walking down from the look out to the beginning of the slope. The views up there were really amazing, though the altitude made it hard to breathe and the metal grilled platforms and stairs were a little unnerving, particuarly in ski boots, which aren't all that comfortable for walking in.
For reference, the Aiguille des Grands Montets cable car station is at an altitude of 3275m, the Titlis station where I was last week is at 3000m and Jungfraujoch rail station where I went last year is at 3454m and the Mönchsjoch Hut which I hiked to from there is at 3650m. High up!
Anyway, after some photos, it was time to start the 4000m long, 1165m high slope down, which from the numbers has an average slope of 30degrees, but of course, it isn't the same steepness all the way down.
The first part, in the above photo, was the steepest, and definitely the hardest, due it being fairly narrow, and bumpy. You can just make out the bumps on the slope in the photo, but I really don't think it captures the steepness of it. I did a couple of turns on the top where it was a little flatter, but then freaked out and just slid down sideways, a trick I'd only learnt in the past month.
It then widened out, and got much easier, as most people headed off the ski run. When I say much easier, I don't mean it was easy. It was still very steep and still bumpy, but at least it was wide and clear of people, as you can see in the following photo.
I took ages getting down that first part of the slope to my two friends in the bottom left of the photo, but then one of them led the way for me to follow her and things went much faster from there. As I learnt in Engelberg last week, I have fairly good control of my skis now, I am just scared of speed and am not good at making my own way down a slope, so left alone on a steepish slope, I will stop at almost every turn.
We got to a good spot to have a break, and sat an a rock for while, waiting for the rest of the group to join us, where I took the next photo.
Glaciers are really beautiful, with all the undulations and ice, some of which seems blue from the light reflections within it. I am going to to miss beauty of the mountains and lakes and country side when I go back home...
Anyway, I had planned to take the ski bus to Flaine, but got talked into going to the Grand Montets area of the Chamonix valley, in particular to do the run from the top down, which runs along the Argentière glacier. I was told that the black slope, adaptly named Point de Vue was just a very long and wide red slope where only the first 50m was really steep.
So we go to Argentiere, which is near the end of the Chamonix valley, meaning the drive there, past Mont Blanc, the Bossons glacier and the Aiguille du Midi, is absolutely breathtaking. I have to go back later in the year for some hiking/sightseeing.
After some minor skiing, we waited in line for 45 minutes for the cable car to the Aiguille des Grands Montets. The system can supposedly carry 650 people per hour, so you can imagine how popular the ski run is. This a photo from the bottom of the lift.
Some people only go for the view though, and what a view it is! Here is a photo from the stairs walking down from the look out to the beginning of the slope. The views up there were really amazing, though the altitude made it hard to breathe and the metal grilled platforms and stairs were a little unnerving, particuarly in ski boots, which aren't all that comfortable for walking in.
For reference, the Aiguille des Grands Montets cable car station is at an altitude of 3275m, the Titlis station where I was last week is at 3000m and Jungfraujoch rail station where I went last year is at 3454m and the Mönchsjoch Hut which I hiked to from there is at 3650m. High up!
Anyway, after some photos, it was time to start the 4000m long, 1165m high slope down, which from the numbers has an average slope of 30degrees, but of course, it isn't the same steepness all the way down.
The first part, in the above photo, was the steepest, and definitely the hardest, due it being fairly narrow, and bumpy. You can just make out the bumps on the slope in the photo, but I really don't think it captures the steepness of it. I did a couple of turns on the top where it was a little flatter, but then freaked out and just slid down sideways, a trick I'd only learnt in the past month.
It then widened out, and got much easier, as most people headed off the ski run. When I say much easier, I don't mean it was easy. It was still very steep and still bumpy, but at least it was wide and clear of people, as you can see in the following photo.
I took ages getting down that first part of the slope to my two friends in the bottom left of the photo, but then one of them led the way for me to follow her and things went much faster from there. As I learnt in Engelberg last week, I have fairly good control of my skis now, I am just scared of speed and am not good at making my own way down a slope, so left alone on a steepish slope, I will stop at almost every turn.
We got to a good spot to have a break, and sat an a rock for while, waiting for the rest of the group to join us, where I took the next photo.
Glaciers are really beautiful, with all the undulations and ice, some of which seems blue from the light reflections within it. I am going to to miss beauty of the mountains and lakes and country side when I go back home...
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Hoaxes
Today is April Fools Day, a fact I forgot until I read my RSS feeds in the morning, one of which was this physics blog entry which definitely can't be true.
Other physicists also seem to have too much time on their hands:
Other physicists also seem to have too much time on their hands:
- Astrophysics and cosmology paper
- Another astrophysics and cosmology paper
- Article
- Blog entry
- Another blog entry
- CERN press release
- Matching FermiLab press release
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