La Dôle

I just realized another two weeks have past since I last posted. It's crazy how quickly time flies by.

Last weekend, a church friend and I went for small hike to "La Dôle" in the Swiss Jura mountain chain. La Dôle has an altitude of 1,677 m (5500 feet) and from up there you can degust a gorgeous view of the lac plateau extending from Geneva on the far right side to Lausanne on the left side and on a cloudless day you can also see the Alps mountain chain.
The weather is pretty unpredictable on the mountain. Just when we started to hike the sky was spotless and just as we reached the top rain started pouring. At the top, I realized I did not wear hiking shoes. Great, I can either stay and wait until the grass dries or basically slide down on my butt! Luckily, it was not the Alps!

Since I've mentioning unpredictability, I should mention I've been victimized by the store opening hours in Geneva, supposedly my hometown (I think I've gotten too used to CVS and 7-Elevens). Yesterday, for once I finished work before 7 pm so I decided to go grab a bite in Geneva with a friend. To our surprise, all the streets were empty and supermarkets and stores closed. I forgot that Swiss stores close at 7 pm during weekdays except for Thursday when some can open until 9 pm. Sunday shopping are obviously VERBOTEN!

Before I go off, I've a quick question. Is anyone also interested in going to taking a tour of CERN and possibly going 100 m underground to seeing the particle accelerators?

Settling into Switzerland

Hello ThinkSwiss Community,

I have now been in Switzerland for almost two weeks and absolutely love it here. In this post I am going to talk about my adventures to date involving housing. Where to begin though....

A driving factor for my time here has been housing. My apartment lease did not begin until the middle of June and I arrived at the beginning of June. Through a mutual acquaintance I had arranged housing during this void. Then, one day before my flight my housing plans fell through! After many phone calls and much scrambling around, it appeared I was going to be sleeping underneath the bridges of Lausanne or pay 200 Sfr for a hotel. About 3 hours before I left for my flight I recalled reading an article on "Couchsurfing." It is a group of individuals who make their couches available to travelers and often show them around the city so that visitors get a more authentic feel for the city than by doing the typical hotel and tourist activities.

I was skeptical of this arrangement: should I be concerned about what kind of couch I'll be sleeping on? Are these people going to end up being weirdos? Well, I didn't have any other options so I did it!

Before my flight left I had already had someone agree to host me for the first few days! It was a group of students at EPFL in housing near the lake.

Upon arriving in Switzerland I headed over to their flat. They were four guys and a girl, a mix of masters and bachelor students, all studying computer science. They turned out to be incredible poeple and it was the best thing for me to have done. They made a traditional Swiss meal, Rosti, the first night and we sat around and chatted. It was wonderful to learn so much about Switzerland first-hand and also try to learn a bit of French, too. The next night we went for a jog by Lake Geneva... it was perfect.

Then I switched couches. The new group to host me lived near the city center, near Flon. They were three PhD students at EPFL in physics and bio-engineering. Again, these were fabulous individuals. We ate good food, talked, watched Italy beat the U.S. in soccer (two of them are from Italy so they were happy). Also, we went out a few times to pubs and a music festival.

So now I am done with Couchsurfing and have my own apartment, but I am very glad I had this experience. I have only had great experiences with the people I have met here. In the upcoming weekends I hope to do more jogging and go hiking with my new couchsurfing friends.

JB

Of Labs and Mountains

Hello again from Lausanne! This past week should prove to be more typical now that I am finally settled in here (I think). It's really quite incredible to leave work and immediately be greeted by the alps and Lac Léman, and I'm already starting to dread my eventual departure. Fortunately, I will not have to do that for a while! The pictures this week are, except one, of my weekend trip to Rochers-de-Naye and Montreux, which I'll talk about later in this blog.

As I said in my last blog, I was invited out to a little Swiss village to visit my mentor from the lab. It's only about 20 minutes by bus, but it's an entirely different world. It's a place where you can buy milk from the guy across the street, the presence of whose children in the yard tells you whether or not he's still open for the day; a place for growing your own vegetables in the yard, mushrooms in your cellar, and parsley in your window; and finally, a place to just get away from it all for a day. Probably most I learned about Swiss milk and its uniqueness. It all derives from the richness of the alpine plants which flavor the milk. I was told that you can "taste the difference" in the fresh milk when cows are let out from the barn after a long winter. Unfortunately, there are no pictures, as it was truly a kind of rainy afternoon. There's always the imagination, though!

Doing laundry is very different here. Many people in apartment complexes have "laundry day", where it is their day (or half day) to do laundry. Fortunately where I am it's only a sign-up sheet, but still, this is unusual for me.

Let me first say that it is incredibly challenging to pick out appropriate laundry detergent and softener when all your choices have labels in 3 languages, only one of which you are somewhat capable of understanding. I got through the buying stage, just to be briefly confused by this washing machine. The washing machine speaks in 4 languages, which you can switch between using a singular button. The construction of this machine, I am told, is the same as my Grandmother's very first...take a look at the picture of the closing tub on this top-loader for a trip down memory lane!

The work in the lab is interesting, and I am already noting so many differences between US and Swiss lab work. For instance, starting lab work in the US means going through endless safety classes and lab tours, regardless of your previous experience. In Switzerland, a general understanding of lab safety is passed along by those who supervise you, and there are no forms or "red tape items" to complete. However, working with lab animals, like mice, is much more time consuming in Switzerland. In the US, it is simply one more of the overviews you must listen to before starting work. Here, it is a week long set of classes with both theory and practical elements. The quality of work in both places seems totally unaffected by the difference, though! I am also getting used to changing the way I write the date on things, day first, then month, not the other way around!

While sitting at lunch one day, I was discussing with other Tschoppies (people in my lab, given our PI, Professor Tschopp) ideas for places to visit while I am here. One place that came up was Rochers-de-Naye, a beautiful mountaintop less than 2 hours by train from Lausanne. Up there, I was told, there was a "marmot reserve". After figuring out that US marmots are termed "groundhogs", I immediately followed with "Oh, in the US they are considered pests and we generally try to shoot them." Response from a Swiss-French: "Why do you Americans always want to shoot things?" Answers, anyone?

Another fantastic lab tradition is the annual soccer (football) tournament. All the biology related labs from UNIL and the CHUV (the area hospital) gathered at a field by the lake to play football together. For the most part, my lab was not that serious about this - we just wanted to have fun. Unfortunately, some other teams were not of a similar persuasion, as they came in cleats and jerseys. The first team we played was particularly serious, and when I asked why, I was told "Well, they're Italian". Guess that little bit of cultural knowledge has been lost on us Americans. But, it was a great opportunity to talk to others from all over the world about football in their country. So far, the tally of people calling it "soccer" are the US, Australia, and Japan. The Australians have their own special flavor of football, which is more similar to rugby from what I can tell. The Japanese, however use "football" to refer to American football. I thought all other countries called soccer "football", but I am lucky enough to be in a lab with people from 2 countries who don't!

For my little travel trip of the weekend, Ishita (also a ThinkSwiss Scholarship recipient, you can read her blog!), her flatmate Nasreen (from Pakistan), and I teamed up to go to Rochers-de-Naye and Montreux. I really wanted to see these famous marmots, and the statue of Freddy Mercury of Queen in Montreux. The trip up the mountain was absolutely stunning. You ride up in this little train with cogwheels in between the two typical tracks for the steep climb. Very quickly the view of Lac Léman appears in unusual splendor as it ducks in and out of the trees. After a 2km climb, ears popping through the last bit, we finally arrived at the top. The view was just outstanding. We all took so many pictures, but agreed that none of them really did justice to this place. The setup is a series of ridges you climb around, with an alpine garden on one side and a marmot reserve on the other.

We first climbed across the ridge to the alpine garden, set into the side of the ridge. All these delicate little flowers had signs beside them giving the name (often in many languages). I was told to watch for the Edelweiss, of Austrian and Sound of Music fame. I looked all over for it and finally found it - although a rather different sight than I thought! Little flowers were all over the place, though, not just in the garden. We took pictures among them, and the most prevalent was this little white flower, the picture of which I have posted here.

The marmots are divided into 7 parks (or enclosures) by area of origin. They even have a little tunnel you can go through to get a sight of them underground, although I didn't see any that way. They're not too active or too outgoing, these marmots, but it was a very novel thing to see! After walking past the marmots, you get to walk along to the very last ridge. It seems to be a European tradition to mark the top of mountains (especially the highest point) and maps of the surrounding region, so you know what you're looking at from each direction. Overall, it is hard to describe, the pictures are your best guide.

Even though we never really wanted to come down from the mountain, we did, and went to Montreux. It is a very beautiful city just about 14 mi east of Lausanne, with an incredibly well-manicured lakefront dotted with palm trees, flowers, and docks. The "jewel of the Swiss riviera" is also home to the Freddy Mercury statue. He recorded his last album here, and so this is the home of his now immortalized figure. It seems to be a tourist magnet, as people pop out of the crowd to take their picture with Freddy. It's a 45 minute walk from Freddy to the Chateau de Chillon, one of the best-preserved 14th century castles in all of Europe. This, again, is hard to describe in words, so the pictures will be your guide here. The castle sits right on the water, and so getting to the top of the highest tower is rewarded by an astounding view. Another bit of trivia - loopholes are little round windows through which archers can shoot. One of the pictures is of this strucutre. Gives a little more clarity to the meaning of the term, now doesn't it?

Another note, if you ever intend to come here (which by now you should), it is very worthwhile to look into rail passes before your arrival. I paid 150 CHF for a railpass, which gives me half off every Swiss rail fare for a year. They also have rail passes for shorter periods of time, but given the reliability and flexibility of the trains here, it's definitely worth the money. So on that note, au revoir! I will post again after this next week, when I take a little break from lab work for a trip to Paris.

Zurich Arrival

I landed in Zurich a couple of weeks ago after taking a direct flight from JFK that was about 8 hours. Overall the flight wasn't too bad - food and drinks on international flights are free, apparently, which was a pleasant surprise. On the morning of Saturday, May 30th I arrived at my room at the Oase, a student house with close to ideal location as far as I can tell. I am but a 2 minute walk to the office at the University of Zurich where I will be working for the summer, and less than a 10 minute walk to the "old town" here in Zurich where there are many cafes, shops, etc. I was so lucky to have the secretary at the Swiss Banking Institute at the University arrange all the necessary accommodations for the summer, as I've heard finding an apartment here can be a pain.

A few days after arriving, I met with the Phd finance student who I will be working a lot with over the course of the summer. The aim of the project I'll be assisting with is to examine how an individual employed by high-profile investment bank can engage in behavior that is detrimental to the bank's reputation, yet increases the individual's payoff. This issue is clearly very relevant today, and I look forward to contributing to the project. After getting some logistics squared away last week, I was able so start working this week by pulling data on past litigation against investment banks.

Other than that, I've been able to check out some of the attractions in the city. The picture to the left was taken from the top of the Grossmunster, one of the cathedrals in the city. For the most part, everything is within walking distance from me, although taking the tram is quite convenient as well. Overall the weather has been great, basically 65 and sunny every day. I was also able to meet up with Katie Peige, who is studying at the University of Zurich as well. Finally, I got to check out some of the clubs one night. They were all very posh and laid back, as I've found the city and it's people as a whole are all pretty easy going. Everyone here also speaks pretty good English, which was a relief since I don't know any German at all. Another thing I quickly realized is that nothing in this city is cheap whatsoever. A Big Mac meal here was something like 13 chf. I've been doing my best to buy groceries to avoid eating out too much. I hope to do some traveling on the weekends in the next couple of weeks and really start to dig in to the work I'll be doing for the summer.

Rob

1st week at EPFL

I've arrived in Switzerland for less than a week and boy it feels good to be back among my mountains and cows! After engorging myself one year of college take-away fast food, I have regained my degustation sense of fine délicatesse Vaudois and Jurassien: Wine, Cheese and Saucisson! I still considering myself a mountain boy!

VOILÀ! This is where I will be staying all summer! Indeed, EPFL (Lausanne Federal Institute of Technology) can boast its idyllic location. It is situated right on the shore of Lake Léman and lies in the foothills of the Alps mountain chain.

The Swartz and Hubbell bioengineering laboratory in which I work is composed of more than 60 scientists and literally takes up an entire building floor! I am amazed at how my laboratory integrates people with various expertise into research. My post-doc mentor, Susan, is a chemical engineer by training. Physiologists, Medical physicists, Biomedical engineers, Biochemists, Histologists are also among the team. We even have a dentist researcher! It is truly an amalgamation of interdisciplinary and multicutural scientists.
This first week, I have been familiarizing with the kind of research my lab undertakes by reading tons of papers and reviews on immunity and lymphatic systems, nano-particles… My first experiment will be to determine the kinetics of serum opsonin uptake by nano-particles. It's really exciting because once we know the kinetics we can determine the duration of exposure of the nano-particles in serum for various purposes.

The weather around the Lake Geneva is comfortable yearlong. During the summer, you don't sweat like crazy when standing outside for 5 minutes and the temperature will rarely exceed 100˚F, so people here often do not understand how air conditioning is paramount in the US.
The winter is mild and is coldest in January and February. Almost everyone here loves skiing, so snow is not a big issue.

As many have pointed out, Swiss possess one of the best railroad network in the World; such is the advantage of a relatively small country. In fact, in the winter, a lot of people hop on train to go ski in the Alps and return on the same day. The trains are very convenient, comfortable, efficient and PUNCTUAL!
Latecomers, you better adhere to being on time!

Here are a few tips if you are considering traveling around Swiss a lot:
- Look out for supersave tickets on CFF (you can save up to 60%)
- I strongly urge you to buy a Half-price season ticket "Demi-tarif abonnement," you will save a lot with that.
- If you can afford it and depending your amount of traveling you can a Monthly General Pass "Carte Mensuelle." With this pass you can travel anywhere using any type of transportation in Switzerland freely.

CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) is another hub for scientists from all over the world to share and gather ideas and advance science. It is one of the must-visits while you're in Geneva.
They offer free tour visits to the particle detectors 100 meters underground.
Geneva houses so many international organizations that you'd find strange to find someone who does not speak at least 2 languages.

My 1st weekend in Lausanne:

I arrived here on june02 and since then its been an enriching experience for me. An Indian by heart, lived in Chicago for almost 3 years and now in Europe – its quite an experience switching from one culture to the other, the culture here however being closer to my roots. My lab at EPFL is awesome and proved to be above my expectations. I start to work in the real sense from Monday though. The first week was a bit tough for me as I do not speak any French, however it was fun making people at the stores understand what I wanted and getting directions from people. The weekend trips to downtown Lausanne , the Olympic Museum and the lake front were simply refreshing and enjoyable. In fact I met Erin and we have plans of going to the beach today. I tasted the pizza here which was a pleasant treat to my taste buds that were almost numbed by the American pizza (a popular free food). The metro service is excellent which connects almost every part of the city. I am posting some of the pictures that I clicked over the weekend.

Bonjour de Lausanne!

This blog comes to you from beautiful Lausanne in the Canton of Vaud. Switzerland has completely surprised and enthralled me. It is a beautiful place, full of very interesting and diverse people. The views are just picture-perfect...I feel like I'm living in a postcard! This picture to the left is the view from my bedroom window!

I arrived this past Monday at a groggy 8AM in Geneva. I was able to get on a train right from the airport to Lausanne, a 45 minute trip around Lac Léman (Lake Geneva). The trains are always on time here, you can set your watch by them (in fact, most of us do). The culture has come as a bit of a shock to me, as the people are much quieter here than in the US. The train was so quiet I felt that one could hear a pin drop, literally. The train itself was very clean and the people very nice.

Lausanne is on the north side of the Lac Léman and is home to two major universities: the Université de Lausanne (UNIL) and the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). As such, it is a very well-educated and sophisticated place, full of culture and activity. Both schools are actually adjacent to each other on the west side of the city. I work with the Tschopp Lab of UNIL's Department of Biochemistry. It is not, however, close to the main UNIL campus. Rather, it is farther north in a village called Epalinges. Fortunately, all of Lausanne is effectively networked by the metro (subway). Lausanne is the smallest city to have a functional metro. True to Swiss form about being on time, in the newest metro (the one I take to work, the M2), there are signs above the waiting area telling riders how long the wait is until the next train. You never wait more than 6 minutes. The town is also home to the Olympic Committee, and has an Olympic Museum, a park with many statues of olympic events. A picture of the park entrance is above.

All of Lausanne is built into a hill, so much of the city has a view of the lake. One of the great things about the two universities is that they share housing all over the city. I live in student housing La Maison de Falaises, which means "the cliffs". It's a small room, but it has a great view and is close to work (5 metro stops). I live by the city's hospital (CHUV), and have an amazing view of the city. A 15 minute walk gets me directly into downtown, termed Le Centre or Le Flon. Especially neat about the downtown is that it is about 2 stories below the streets above. It is not underground, but rather just set into the land and open to the sunshine. Most of the shops are on pedestrian cobblestone paths that cars cannot drive on. The next two pics are of Le Flon - the first gives perspective and the second a feeling for the shops and main area.

The way of life is so different, here, too, and much more French in culture. For example, every meal is "celebrated" here. There is not a lot of fast food, very few places will sell food you can just eat on the run. The food is very bread, cheese, and fruit-centered. There is a LOT of coffee and expresso around. After lunch together at the cafeteria, much of my lab came back and chatted over an expresso before going back to work; it's part of the enjoyment of life, food, and people. But people are very unassuming and quiet here, they generally do not strike up conversation with people they don't know. They also don't smile to be polite, here that would make you look, as a German friend once put it, "stupid".

I am so fortunate to be among a very international group of people. Very few people cannot speak some English, although I have very quickly become known as "the American who speaks good English". I am the only American in the lab, and the only one I have met here so far. But we have a couple of Germans, some Italian Swiss, some German Swiss, some French Swiss, 3 Australians, an Indian, two Japanese, one Chinese, and some French. People switch seamlessly between languages, depending on who they're around. It's so very unusual to hear, but awesome all at once.

These last couple of days I went to Les Rasses, a little village in the Jura mountains. Switzerland has two mountain ranges, the Alps and the Jura. The glacially-formed Jura are north of the tectonic Alps, making them smoother and thus less desireable for skiiers. Our lab spent time walking to the top of a mountain, though, which was such a beautiful view. We passed many cows on the way up, and I had many opportunites on the couple hours hike to learn about different European cultures. At the top, you could see the French border, as the Jura run along the Swiss-French border from the Rhône to the Rhine. No big fences like in North America - that hasn't been there for many decades, so I had to keep asking people around me where the border was. This last picture is a view from the hotel, only partway up the mountain!

All in all, it has been a wonderful learning experience so far, and I certainly have not been exhaustive here. I will be going out to the Swiss countryside this weekend to enjoy village life with my mentor from the lab, a German post-doc. But for now, here are some pictures of the journey!