Budapest ("I'm Hungary")

Budapest ("Jacqui, it's actually pronounced Budapescht" corrects Adrienn), actually used to be 2 different cities: Buda and Pest (talk about originality...I wonder how they decided which city name got to be first, did Pestbuda just sound too crazy?). Me, Adrienn, Vance, Shane and Evan went there last weekend. It was sweet, especially since Adrienn's family is Hungarian. This means 2 things: she speaks Hungarian (really nice, since not many people there speak English), and her Grandma let us stay at her apartment in the city (she lives in the country during the summer). And as a total bonus: she cooked us a whole bunch of traditional Hungarian food and stored it in the fridge...mmm, we had some wicked breakfasts.

Since there were no picture-fiends on this trip, I had to step it up and actually use my camera. The result: I discovered that I have a strange obsession with taking pictures of people eating, and people taking pictures (I'll refrain from posting most of these though, in favour of real pictures). Some of these pics are courtesy of Adrienn, Shane and Evan (after much harassment, lol, thanks again guys).





Shane, Vance, Evan, Adrienn and me in front of the Budapest "Castle" (I don't think it should be called a castle...)





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We arrived at the airport, and were supposed to meet Adrienn at 7:15 at one of the train stations (she had taken an earlier flight to spend some time with her Grandma). This was a completely impossible meeting time, however, since we didn't even leave the airport until about 7:15...after that is was an adventure of horribly confusing Budapest transportation (it makes no logical sense!) and unpronounceable street names until we finally met her at about 9:30. On the journey the first inevitable joke about being hungry in Hungary was made (by me of course, mwah ha ha). We made a rule right away that everybody only got a limit of 2 lame Hungary puns for the weekend...otherwise things surely would have gotten out of hand. Anyways, we took the bus to Adrienn's Grandma's house, had some food, set up our sleeping bags (there was only one bed...I had a pretty sweet set-up of couch cushions though) and headed out on the town.

We headed towards the river, and were greeted with the beautiful view of the parliament buildings lit up at night (the pics of that didn't turn out). We bought some liquor and just chillaxed by the river for a while, enjoying the view. Then we walked around the city a little bit and ended up at a club. Nothing too special, it was a pretty fun time though. The highlight was when we somehow found our way upstairs to an area that wasn't being used. We explored up there a bit, and had a shot at the bar. I would feel bad about stealing, but the cover charge was such highway robbery that I'm sure it should have included a free drink ;) We managed to get home without any fiascos (I refuse to use the word hijinks, even though the berg is causing it to infiltrate into my mind.....never!).





Hanging out by the river (you can see a little bit of the parliament building in the background).








The next day (Hungarian National Day!) we got up around 11, ate some goulash (yummy), showered (I was second last = cold shower, booerns) and headed out to see some sights.

Trying to figure out what series of c-trains and metros we need to take to get to our destination. Vance is clearly involved in the plan, even though he was determined to "back seat" this trip (aka, follow the group without worrying about where we are going or how to get there). Of course, this is impossible for Vance, mwah ha ha. Notice I am behind the camera instead of helping, double mwah ha ha.








Me and Adrienn in front of the Liberty Bridge.













14m tall Freedom Statue on top of Gellert Hill in Buda (Buda is the hilly side of the river).










We walked up Gellert Hill to check out the view. On the way we went into some little church cut into the side of the mountain. I don't know what it was, but it was pretty cool. At the top of the mountain there was a really nice view, and a bunch of toursity stands. I bought a Budapest sticker...my goal for the year was to buy a sticker from each place I visited to stick on my travel journal. Unfortunately I only have Prague and Budapest...so if anybody goes to Paris, Barcelona and Rome bring me back a sticker!!! Vance bought a really cool box that has a series of things you have to press and unlock to open it. Unfortunately, it got lost during the events of the rest of the day...more about that later though.








Freedom Statue
















View from Gellert Hill. Looking out over Pest (the flat side of the river).












On top of Gellert Hill.









We walked back down the hill and headed towards the Castle. Because of the holiday there was an airshow going on down by the river. It was so cool watching the planes do stunts up in the sky. Unfortunately, we couldn't get a really good view of the whole show, but we managed to see some of it.




Stunt flying at the air show.











We arrived at the Castle and discovered that there was a festival going on inside. There was lots of Hungarian food, music and handmade items that people were selling. We spend the afternoon exploring and stuffing ourselves full of food (Vance especially, lol).





Part of the festival at the Budapest Castle











Really cool dessert that was being sold everywhere. They make a roll of dough, bake it, and then roll it in sugar, cinnamon or nuts.









Vance and Shane enjoying some doughy dessert. (Man, I wish I knew what they were called instead of making up lame descriptions)











Dinner, yummm!


















The parliament building at sunset.










Once it got towards the evening, we decided to go and try and stake out a good spot for the fireworks show. We stopped at a supermarket where me and Adrienn got some Hungarian liquor (can't remember the name) that she ensured me was really good. I found out later that this meant "It's so good, it just burns down your throat when you drink it!". Haha....it did, but was good when mixed. The guys decided to split 3 bottles of wine and a bottle of champagne, haha, interesting...

We made our way through the massive crowds of people and attempted to find a good firework viewing area. This was really hard, but eventually we found a decent spot along the water near one of the bridges (the fireworks were going to be launched off 3 separate bridges...don't remember which ones). We found some cardboard and newspapers to sit on, and settled down onto the (closed) road to watch the show. It turned out to be really good, possibly on of the best firework presentations I have ever seen (tied with the international fireworks competition we saw in Vancouver last summer). There was music, and they played the Hungarian national anthem at the end of the show (Adrienn doesn't know it! wtf...).





The guys drinking champagne













Fireworks (good thing I put a caption on this pic, eh?)











More fireworks (insert sarcastic comment from previous pic).












After the fireworks show, we grew tired of waiting for slow-moving crowds, so we (us and some random guy) used some awesome teamwork to climb up the wall instead.
















The opening of "Clarice" (the guys next bottle of wine that they decided to name). Since when can you buy 2L bottles of wine from beer stands?!?!











Bottle number 5: "Marigold"
(We're at 8L if anybody's counting)









Regardless to say, the night got kind of crazy from there. We lost Evan on the way to some outdoor club, turns out he had a run-in with some Hungarians, and then ended up with some other Hungarians having intellectual conversations by the river. Me and Vance got separated from Adrienn and Shane at the club, and decided to head home. This proved somewhat difficult, since we didn't know where we were and didn't know exactly where we lived. To make matters worse, Vance lost the map on our travels (how, how?!?!? That's the last time you get map privileges Vance). Anyways, 3 hours of bus/c-train/taxi/walking later, we finally made it home to find Evan struggling with the lock on the door. Of course Adrienn usually opened the door, and none of us knew the trick to getting it unlocked. Somehow it magically happened and we got to go to sleep.

Sunday morning was pretty much the same as Saturday except we had cabbage rolls for breakfast and also discovered that there was absolutely no hot water in the shower. It made for an interesting shower: attempting to immerse your body in the icy cold shower for the absolute minimal amount of time. At least we all were awake afterwards...

Our plans for the day included seeing the Cathedral of St. Matthias, and then the Budapest History Museum (what Vance would call "smart things"). Both were pretty cool, especially the bottom level of the museum that was all dungeony and you ended up outside.

Our next stop was one of the coolest parts of the trip (in my opinion): the Labyrinths. There are these bit underground caves that were naturally formed, and then modified to be used for shelters, military bases and various other things. Now they are basically a tourist attraction, with a weird new-age spiritual quest vibe (I didn't really get that). At 6:00 they turn off all the lights inside, and give you lanterns to walk around in the dark. We did this for a bit, and then decided it would be more fun without the lanterns. Let me tell you, it was absolutely pitch black in some parts. They play this quite, creepy music and all you can hear are the footsteps of the person ahead of you. It was kinda scary, so fun! Adrienn and I freaked ourselves out pretty good after the guys locked us in this one area (meanies), she clicked on a lighter and there was a big statue right in front of us and we both screamed...hahahaha. There were lots of statues and monuments around, and a strange fountain of wine down this one hallway....wtf? We decided that it wouldn't kill us if we drank from it, so Adrienn and I both had a sip (the guys were too wussy).





Evan and Adrienn with a strange horse statue.














Us setting off with our lanterns before ditching them.












Drinking from the wine fountain (still alive













Me and Adrienn being scared. Vance things we are losers.












Grrrrrr!!!!
Evan's face is really freaky....reminds me of The Ring






After fun times in the Labyrinth, we took the metro over to Hero's Square. It looked really cool all lit up at night. We hung out there for awhile, and then decided to go for crepes ("Palacsinta") for dessert. After much walking around and rejecting expensive places, we found a nice restaurant and sat on the patio.




The Millenary Monument at the center of Hero's Square.




















Evan, Vance and Shane all taking pictures of Hero's Square (jackpot!)












Adrienn enjoying her cottage cheese palacsinta (I had the same kind, it was really good)














Sleeping Vance (he takes random power naps, haha)










Pretty much the second we left the restaurant it started raining. Wasn't too bad at first, so we figured we could just walk in the rain, but then it started to really pour. We were frantically running across the bridge looking for shelter, and found some under an overpass. We waited a long time for a bus (stupid Budapest transit) and then had major fiasco's trying to catch the next bus home...at one point we were standing right at the bus stop and the bus just drove by! Eventually though, we made it back and had a semi-earlish sleep (2am).




Soaking wet from the downpour, sheltered under an overpass.









The next morning Adrienn left to visit some other relatives (but not before finding out how to fix the hot water, yay!) so we were left without our translator. We checked out the parliament building, but unfortunately missed the tour, which was a bit disappointing. Instead we went to St. Stephen's Basillica, which was cool. The highlight was that they have St. Stephen's mummified hand there, and you can put in a coin to make it light up (I'm not even joking). So I of course had to take part in the cheesyest tourist scam ever invented...it was totally worth it.

After that we headed to the airport and flew home. Overall, I have to say that Budapest was way cooler than I thought it was going to be. A lot like Prague, but way less touristy. It was especially cool that our trip happened to fall on Hungarian National Day, that definitely was a bonus.

Guitar update

Despite my short attention span, I haven't given up on the guitar yet, woot! Getting pretty into it actually, bought some new strings a couple of weekends ago and now it is tunable to the right pitches.

Been getting recommendations and mini-lessons from Ed, so I guess I'll have to dedicate my first album to him, lol, thanks dude! Started learning some bar chords, still lacking the finger strength (and size) to make them sound good consistently. Learnt some bending, slides, hammers, etc. too, fun stuff. I need to buy a capo...

Here's a list of what I'm currently working on:
Pink Floyd - I Wish You Were Here: mastered the intro solo, woot!
Led Zeppelin - Stairway to Heaven: just started this one, sounds alright, tires out my fingers
Led Zeppelin - Babe I'm Gonna Leave You: really fun, I have the beginning down pretty well
Led Zeppelin - Tangerine: just started
Goo Goo Dolls - Acoustic #3: suddenly clicked and now it is easy
Goo Goo Dolls - Slide: cool sounding chords, coming along nicely
The Eagles - Hotel California: can play this pretty well now, just need to get it to flow

Hedwig - Origin of Love: only a few picking parts that are not too hard, nothing too exciting during the main portion of the song. Using my new bar chords though!
Damien Rice - Cannonball: such a pretty song...need a capo...and some skills
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Under the Bridge: not very good at this yet
Dashboard Confessionals - Places You Have Come to Fear the Most: doesn't really sound right, needs lots of work

I wish more Goo Goo Dolls songs had regular tuning...damn you Johnny...

In other news, going to Budapest this weekend! Should be fun, and we have Adrienn's Hungarian skills to benefit from, mwah ha ha.

More Street Parade pics

9 people with cameras + crazy costumes + funny poses + scantily clad people + beer = 2Gb of street parade pics.

Holgar (German praktikant) collected everybody's Street Parade pics/videos and burned them on a dvd that is getting passed around (thanks Holgar!). There are so many hilarious pics, but damn, too many to manage! Sigh, this is one of those sitatuations where less is more. I'm posting a random sampleing of the best ones for your enjoyment.

On a side note: I've noticed that everything I own has at least some amount piece of glitter on it. I've done my best but I just can't rid my room of it. Oh well, nothing wrong with having some sparkle in my day :)

Alright picture time. Thanks to Anthony, Devon, George, Henry, Holgar, Richard Robert and Travis for the awesome pics. Be warned, some of the pictures have an 18A rating, please present some id before you view this post.

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Travis, Evan, Adrienn, and me at the Baden train station with our shopping bags of discount beer (50cents for half a litre!!!)














Liisa, Prabs, Mike, Kevin, Nate and Ula at the Baden train station











Lindsey and me on the train















I'd be scared too Liisa...














Travis, Olivier, Shane, Kyle and Devon looking kind of freaky













"I'll get you next time Evil Mr. Sparkle Pants!"













Be careful with those things Evan, somebody's going to lose an eye!


















Is that a beer in your pocket Anthony, or are you just happy to see me?














Renactment of the cartoon that I drew (see "Pickwicks, soccer, costumes" post)

Evil Mr. Sparkle Pants vs. Star Power Gal, Linscredible and Tommy Tug










Work it Shane! I think she wants you.

















Charles and me in action, showing off some moves











George, Ed and Anthony, after being glittered-up. (Street parade with no costume, tsk tsk, totally unacceptable...)













George, Holgar, Charles and Robert showing off their muscles










Ed in paradise.

Devon (not Shane, sorry for not giving you credit Devon) found this picture posted online! Hahaha...go Ed.














Charles and me posing














Check out those wicked capes! Nice work Tommy and Lindsey












Ed being strangled? Devon is a menace on the dance floor...haha...

















Ed being a monkey






















Hahaha....
Missing something Evan?














Yay, shoulder rides! Let the short people see over the crowd!

Zurich Street Parade

So, last Saturday we all spent the day dancing our faces off at the Zurich Street Parade. For those who don't know, the Street Parade is Zurich's biggest party of the year. It's basically a huge, all-day, outdoor techno/trance show. There's a whole various stages, lots of awesome dj's and also a parade of "love mobiles" (aka, themed floats with lots of scantily-clad dancers on them). Lots and lots of people show up for this thing, many of them dressed in outrageous costumes to enjoy the free party.

Thanks to Richard, Travis, Devon and Kyle for the pictures.



At the train station, ready to party! Check out our wicked costumes (well, most of us...cough, cough, lazy KSB people, cough).











Another group pic. I'm not going to bother trying to name everyone.









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Alright, but let's start at the beginning. The previous Saturday, we had gone to buy fabric and other costume-making supplies. So on Thursday we got together to create our masterpieces. It was fun times, and I even taught the guys to sew (though they never really mastered the knot-tying, but I was still impressed). Thursday was also the day that Vance discovered a store in town that sold body glitter, body paint and spray-on hair colour (jackpot!). Between all of us praktikants I think we pretty much cleaned them out, lol.





Lindsey, me, Vance and Tommy hard at work on our costumes.










Tommy ironing on his logo, it was really nice! I wish I had a pic of Lindsey's logo too, it was like the Incredibles logo and looked really sweet.



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Saturday morning! Everybody met at Kehl around 9:30 to get ready in their costumes. The balcony was the designated hair-spraying zone, and pretty much every inch of our place was covered in glitter by the end of the morning, haha. Here's some pics of how everyone's costumes turned out, I was really impressed!




Tommy and Travis. Kudos to Tommy for having the nerve to go out in public like that (it took a couple beers, lol). Travis shaved a mohawk into his hair!














Devon and Shane...hands down the most frightening costumes of the group (I think it was the black eyeliner that did it, though they don't have it on yet in this pic.) Looking pretty sexy in their boas though, lol.














Ula, with her awesome home-made wings!


















Me doing Evans make-up. He went in full drag, complete with tie-on breasts, it was hilarious! I had to include a few pics to give his costume justice.















Very pretty...













Check out that thong!














All costumed up, waiting at the bus stop!










So we loaded ourselves up with shopping bags of discount beer and met up with everybody else at the train station. And realized in the process that we were pretty much the only people in Baden dressing up to go to street parade (at that point in the day at least, it was only noon). Haha, we got some pretty crazy looks, it was fun though.

Arriving at the Zurich train station, we took some group pictures (see above) and then went and checked out the party. We didn't have to go far, there was a dj spinning right there in the train station!




Me and Adrienn!














Richard, Kevin, Liisa and Vance.















Prabs...haha, I love the "To: Woman, From: God" costumes that he, Mike and Kevin all wore.












We decided to head to the Bellevue stage, since it seemed to have the biggest events going on (laser show later, and mystery surprise dj!). The journey was a constant battle not lost anybody while everyone wandered off randomly to dance, use the bathroom, buy food, take pictures, pose for pictures, etc...somehow we (eventually) made it to the stage area with our whole group. It was really cool to see all the crazy costumes that people had, check out this site if you want to see some: http://ch.tilllate.com/EN/partydetails.php?gid=204881




Walking down the river to Bellevue.












Olivier and Liisa













Devon's friend Kyle, who was visiting from Canada.

















Me, Tommy, Lindsey and Vance.

















Me and Richard being hardcore













There was this big foam pit where some people went to go dance (I opted not to). It looks like it was pretty fun!















At 3:00 the parade started, so we fought our way through the crowd to watch some of the float, and then join in the groups of people walking/dancing along with the parade. Naturally, our giant group did not last even 5 minutes, and we were all pretty much split up for the rest of the day. We (me and a few others) watched a bunch of the parade, and then went to chill for a bit.





One of the "Love Mobiles"













Chillaxing on the bridge.















At 8: 00 we headed back over the the Bellevue stage to watch the show. There was lots of awesome music, crazy dancing...all in all a fun time. At 10: 30 the laser show started, it was pretty impressive, a nice compliment to the music. At 11:00 the announced the surprise DJ: Armin Van Buuren! He had an awesome set, and then the music winded up around midnight (impressively late for Switzerland actually).





A glimpse of the laser show (hard to capture on camera)












Armin Van Buuren spinning.










After the outdoor show the party pretty much moved on to various nightclubs around the city. We decided that our day was finished though (over 12 hours of partying is sufficient, plus, the clubs were really expensive) so headed to the train station. On the way Ed and Devon decided to wrestle, and it ended up with Ed and then Devon going into a (not so clean) fountain. Crazy guys... We took the 2:08 train (last train) back to Baden and then pretty much just headed home. I managed to find the energy to take a shower before going to bed...best decision ever, otherwise I would have woken up in pink sparkley sheets, lol. All in all it was a really fun day, and everyone who went had an awesome time!




The aftermath...so un-Swiss


















Ed and Devon wrestling. Look how nice and clean that fountain is...it smelled pretty nasty too.

Quote of the Week

"Skirts...they're just like, capes for legs!"
-Tommy

Pickwicks, soccer, costumes

So, I guess I should update everybody about what I have been doing the past week. I spent the last weekend in Baden (a weekend without travelling, it's been awhile!), just chillaxing.

On friday we all went out to Pickwicks (the local pub where most of the english-speaking people in Baden hang out) had some beer, played some foosball...I need to keep my skills up so I don't make a fool of myself in 4th year (for foosball, not beer)! After the bar we headed back to Kehl and kept the party going well into the morning.

Saturday, after a few hours of sleep I was woken up by Vance in the typical Vance manner (over-excited to the point of frantic) to go costume shopping for the Zurich Street Parade (more about that later). After shopping I ran into Antonio, Holgar and George on the bus. They were on their way over to Antonio's new apartment (somebody with a Ph.D should certainly not be living KSB) to put together all the Ikea furnature they had bought that morning. I joined them, and had the satisfaction of creating some rolling side tables with nothing more than a screwdriver...it really makes you feel skilled, haha, yay for Ikea.

Went home for a nap. Back to Pickwicks that night, and then afterparty at KSB. Crazy fun times, bit of a different group of people, lots of Ed's English (and non-English) friends from the bar: Cat, Andy, Chris, other Andy, Britta, Olivia, and then of course the KSB crowd. Oh ya, and Dan, this random american guy that is in Baden for a couple days that we met at the bar. Wicked night, left pretty late.

On tuesday a whole bunch of us praktikants got together to play some soccer (or should I say football, since I'm in Europe). While walking on to the field, I realized that I hadn't played soccer since grade 10. I also realized that my left contact was lost somewhere in my eye. These two factors combined into me not playing very well...but it was alright because there were so many people that it wasn't a very hardcore game anyways. At one point Tommy gave the ball a good kick into my face (by accident....or was it?!?!) so I sat out for little bit, just out of shock. I was fine, but poor Tommy felt so bad. Anyways, while I was sitting on the side making sure nothing was broken I managed to fix my contact...woot, depth perception! After that I played a little better, got a couple good kicks on the ball in the general direction of the net. It was a fun evening, we played for like 2 hours. I think we are going to play next week too.

Alright: Zurich Street Parade
This is one or Zurich's biggest parties, and everybody wears crazy, colourful, glittery costumes. So, naturally we had to create crazy, colourful, glittery costumes too. On Saturday me and the Berg (aka, the people that live at Martinsberg) (aka, Vance, Tommy and Lindsey) went shopping for fabric and other random craft stuff. Last night we had an intense costume-making session (Adrienn came too) at Kehl, it was pretty sucessful. Man, did I ever miss the abundance of resources I have at home for doing this kind of thing: sewing machine, serger, random fabric, ribbons, paint, glitter, mom to help me do things. Lol, we managed though...we all made capes, and I created a skirt using only staples, iron-on glue and a little bit of sewing. For shirts, me and Lindsey just bought cheap tank tops and then attacked them with scissors. Vance opted for renting pants, and let me tell you, I have never seen pants so flashy and sparkley (not even in my 8 years of buying lame dance costumes for recitals). I'm not sure who's going to create more of a scene, him or Tommy in his yellow/green briefs, haha. Anyways, you will all have to wait in suspense to see pictures. It's tomorrow afternoon, and we are all meeting early to get dressed up and coat our hair and skin with glitter....mwah ha ha. To keep you entertained until then, here's an illustration of our costumes:


(Me, Tommy and Lindsey all shared bring fabric, so are naturally a superhero gang fighting the evil Vance, who's costume doesn's match ours)

Work

Everybody keeps asking me what I do at work, and how work is going, so here's your answer people:

Work is going really well. For those that don't know (or have forgotten) I work at ETH/University of Zurich in the bioelectronics group (there's a pic of me on the staff page, woot!). I have been continuing with my main job of scanning mouse femurs and processing the images for analysis. Basiclly that means putting little mouse bones into a holder, putting that into the x-ray machine and then pressing some buttons. Then when the scans are done I rotate the images to the right alignment, and then cut out 3d sections so that density analysis can be done.

Some other projects that I have worked with are mouse mandibles(see left), mouse vertebrates(see below), human bone biopsies , snail poison (strange one...), and silicon samples. A couple weeks ago I got to dissect some mouse legs that were sent frozen to us (something that I wasn't expecting in my electrical engineering career, lol) and then scan them, that was really cool.


















Everyone I work with is really nice. There is a new guy sharing my office now, he's from Vancouver (yay, a fellow Canadian), it's nice having an office buddy. In September I am going to a conference in Lausanne, and am apparently presenting a poster...I need to find out more about that.

Some of us eating lunch by the River
from left: Philipp, Jess, me, Romain, Tom, Martin, Stefan, Phil, Harry







And to answer my 3 most commenly asked questions:
1) Do you work at Alstom or ABB? Neither, I work at in Zurich at ETH/University of Zurich
2) Zurich, why do you live in Baden then? Because all the other Calgarian interns live in Baden and I am a sheep
3) So if you're an electrical engineer, why are you working in a bio lab? I'm really interested in bioengeering, and because it's a bio-electronics lab, so they mostly do programming, not dissections and such. Actually almost everybody I work with is a electrical or mechanical engineer. Besides, I was offered a job in Switzerland, as if I'm going to turn it down for any reason

Swiss National Day

Happy Swiss Day!




Pre-firework kabobs

from left: Jay, Robin, Vance, Ed, Olivier, me, Warren







A bunch of us went to Zurich to celebrate Swiss National Day on August 1. Actually, Adrienn and I went straight there after the plane home from Prague. We checked our bags in lockers, had a picnic lunch, and then met people coming form baden. We all sat on a dock by the lake, and were surrounded by people with amature fireworks. I think it's lucky that none of us got hit actually, the people shooting the fireworks really didn't know what they were doing. We were waiting for the officail firework show, but it never happened (no idea why). It was still a really fun night though, just chillaxing by the lake.




Adrienn making her picnic sandwich, yummy!













Chillaxing on the dock. Check out the cool lit-up ferris wheel in the background!













George (new praktikant from Toronto) and Holgar (praktikant from Germany)

Prague

Took a trip to Prague from July30-Aug 1. It was the biggest group I have ever travelled with, there was 18 of us! The two celebrations of the trip were Jay's farewell (he's gone back to Canada now) and Evan's 21st b-day. Once again, I didn't take many photos, so these pics are courdesy of Adrienn, Vance and Tommy.


Group picture!

back row: Henry, Evan, Shane, Bernard, Robin (Jay's friend from Canada that was visiting), Warren, Vance, Travis, Richard, Jay, Tommy, Olivier
front row: Ed, Adrienn, me, Lindsey

missing: Ula and Mike (they didn't hang out with the group much)



We all arrived at differnt times, on different days, by different means. I took a plane out on Saturday afternoon with Adrienn, Vance, Ed, Olivier and Bernard. We arrived at our pre-booked hostel to discover that they had messed up our reservation and had no beds for 10 people of our group. The hostel management did nothing to make up for this, and we were pretty much on our own to find a new place. Luckily, Evan and Shane (who arrived by train that morning) had already delt with this problem, and booked us in a different hostel across town (horray Evan and Shane!)

We left our stuff at the hostel (we would check into our new hostel later) and headed downtown. We rented some paddleboats and cruised up and down the river, it was a fun way to see some sights.



Me and Vance on a paddleboat













Heading towards Charles Bridge (most famous bridge in Prague)












Me, Ed and Adrienn










After our boating fun, we got some dinner. It is amazing how cheap everything is in Prague! The currency is called the crown (wrong spelling) and 20 crown ~= 1$. You can get dinner for a few dollars, and beer for about $1.50.

Prague has some really good beer: Pilsner and Budwiser are actually good beer here (not that Pilsner isn't already awesome, woot), they taste much different than back home.









We we picked up our bags and met up with the others to go to our new hostel. It turned out to be really nice, but a bit of a walk from the downtown area. We got changed, and then went back to the other hostel to meet up with the rest of the group.

The night started out with some partying in the hostel common room. Ed, Evan and Travis shared a bottle of absinte in the true Prague spirit. We left and had an exciting journey through the pooring rain to get to a huge club. It had 5 floors, with different music on each floor (techno, trance, hip hop, rock, etc). It was a really fun night, though lots of time was spent going up and down the stairs trying to find people (good workout at least, lol). The large group was split up instantly, and people made it hoe in smaller groups throught the night. The evening ended on a bad note for me, got burned in the neck by somebody's cigerette (stupid smokers...), but I survived. We walked back to the hostel around 4, stopping for some awesome greasy cheap vendor food (Switzerland needs more all-night food stands like Prague) on the way.

The next morning we awoke to discover that we missed most of breakfast (boo), but there were still a few scraps left. The plan for the day was casual sightseeing, followed by a city tour. We wandered around downtown, enjoying the strange street art that is everywhere in Prague (I don't really know why it's there)




One of the main streets we frequently walked down











Cool pic that I can't take credit for (yay Tommy)


















Poor superman...

Seriously, what is with the strange statues?









I decided that I didn't feel like going on a 4 hour tour, and would rather spend the day shopping and wandering, so Ed and I split off from the group. We had a nice day hitting all the stores, I bought some skirts and shirts. We had lunch in an Irish pub, and watched some rugby and cricket (man, cricket is a messed up sport...I don't think that I will ever understand it) . It was a chillaxiful day, and then we met up with everyone at 6 to go out for dinner.

Now imagine this: 16 people (no Ula and Mike) trying to find a good, cheap place for dinner that has enough room for us. This is no easy task, we ended up walking around for over an hour. Luckily, I had eaten not too long before, but some of us were starving by the time we found a resturant. However, there were isseus at the resturant involving price differences, and extra fee for music...basically they were very rude to us, and we ended up walking out before ordering. The next place we found was great however, and we had a relly nice meal.

After dinner, some people went back to the hostel and a few of us went out to try and find a nice bar. This proved somewhat difficult, since it was 1am on a sunday night. We ended up walking around for awhile, and then just settleing for the hostel bar, which was open until 4am.

The next morning some people had to wake up at 7 to catch flights home. I was so happy I wasn't one of them, since we had been up until 6 the night before. The rest of us got up later (in time for a decent breakfast this time!) and then Adrienn and I went out to do some last minute shopping and sightseeing.

We watched the clock strike on the hour, which involves a cool show with lots of moving people. The clock itself is really cool too, it has parts for the different months and sun and moon phases. Hmm, I wish I could tell you more, or what it was even called, but I have no idea. Here's a pic at least:















We went to te airport to catch our 3:00 plane, and then travelled back to Switzerland. I got stung by a wasp on the bus :( Poor me...although, it didn't hurt anywhere near as much as I remember (I haven't been stung since I was a kid).

Ooo, one more highlight of the trip: bought some new shoes at the Zurich Airport. Gravis shoes (my alltime favorite brand of shoe) on sale for $40, reduced from $100.

As you can tell, this trip was not about sightseeing or history for me. But you might still want to see some of Prague, so I will pretend I was on the tour, and post some pics from all over Prague:

Rome pics - part 2

"When in Rome..."


Pictures from Rome taken by me, Bernard and Richard (thanks guys)





Group picture!
From left to rightish: Charles, Bernard, Vance Richard, Ed, Me Tommy, other people









Arrived at the hostel and was greeted by somebody: "Hey, don't worry about checking in yet, do you guys want a beer?"
It's going to be a gooood trip..










Tommy, me and Charles, ready to go out for the evening



















The Trevy Fountain at night















Fountain of the Naiads at Piazza Repubblica.
Here's where we met to take the Vatican tour.














Ed decides to relax while we wait for the tour to start



















The Bridge of Angels.













St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City is just down the road


















St. Peter's Basilica up close













Inside St. Peter's Basilica. It was hard to take very good pictures inside, so I didn't bother taking many.










Inside St. Peter's Basilica - looking up at the dome

















Vatican City - the Pope's window is second from the top right (if I remember correctly)









Inside the Vatican Museum. I would have liked to spend more time here. It was really interesting getting all the backgroud info about the Sistine Chapel ceiling, and learning the significance of all the details.










The Pantheon















Inside The Pantheon. The sun shining on the wall from the hole in the ceiling acts as a sun clock










Eating lunch (Charles, Tommy Ed). The 2 things you must must eat in Italy: Pizza....











...and Gelato !

This was our break on the Rome walking tour where we got a special deal on gelato. (Richard, 2 girls from our hostel, Ed).








Vittoriano Monument...nicknamed "The Wedding Cake"













Palatine Hill, with Circus Maximus in the foreground (not as cool looking as the name suggests, it's pretty much a big field)










Walked through the ruins on Palatine Hill. Ed, Bernard, me, Tommy.












All roads lead to Rome.


The Roman Forum (I didn't walk around through here, but some of the others did)














On our way to the Coliseum: Ed, me, Tommy, Charles












The Coliseum














Inside The Coliseum


















The beach that we spent a hour getting to, and 10 minutes actually at...so worth it!














Chaos at the airport...stupid EasyJet....












On the train home, sitting on uncomfertable seats in the narrow hallway... Tommy, Random Italian Guy (who we sort of became friends with...though he didn't speak any english and it was imossible to communicate), and Ed sleeping in the background.

Harry Potter

I finally bought the new Harry Potter book last Thursday...honestly, as a hardcore HP fan I'm pretty ashamed that it took me so long to get it. I guess that can be attributed to having so much to do over here, as well as spending all my money on all there is to do over here...is was pretty expensive, stupid Switzerland...

Anyways, bought the book before work and started it on the train to work. Wow, it's amazing how much reading I can get done on the commute too and from work. I have actually only spend about an hour reading the book at home, the rest has been on the commute to work or at lunch. Already about halfway done, and it's getting better by the page. I won't give away anything to spoil the experience for anybody else... I am actually pretty lucky that none of the other interns have bought it, so I can avoid accidentally hearing about the plot. Haha, everyone was just waiting for somebody else in the group to buy it so they didn't have to spend the money...there is already about a 4 person waiting list on who gets to read it after me.

Resisting the urge to write about the book...hopefully somebody else reads it soon so I can discuss the exciting plot developments in the series...haha, I'm a loser...