Brussels and Ghent

August is the month of vacations in Western Europe, when all the local vanish and the train stations are packed with people carrying suitcases and speaking every language but the native one.  While I don't teach and do not get a summer vacation of that sort, my university closed for a couple weeks in July and I took the chance to see some sights with my family.  Some I'd seen and shared before, but I did get to a few Belgian ones that were new to me.

Brussels: The Manneken Pis

There are many varied stories about the origins of this statue.  Some hold that it was the gift of a father to the city when the townsfolk helped him find his lost son.  Others say it commemorates a boy who helped stopped enemies by peeing on their bombs.  The Manneken Pis (or little pee man) is one of Brussels' most famous sights.  The statue even has costumes for different seasons of the year and is decorated for city events.

That being said, it is a tiny statue, maybe two feet tall, on a fountain in the middle of an otherwise nondescript neighborhood in central Brussels.  The area looks like this:

 

The Manneken Pis is hidden just barely by the chocolate shop on the right in the photo above.  There are three chocolate shops visible in that photo, two of them being Godiva and Leonidas.  Neuhaus has a location just up the street, as do a few others.  There are also several waffle and ice cream places.  I found it an interesting cross-section of tourist interests in Belgium.

Brussels: Atomium

The Atomium was built to be the centerpiece of the World's Fair(?) in 19**.  The name is a mash-up of "atom" and "aluminum," as the main theme of the fair was progressing into the future through new technology.  At the time, it contained the fastest elevator and long escalators in the world.

 

The Atomium is a striking tower in Brussels' skyline, and it contains exhibits on the fair it was built for and a few temporary modern art installations.  That's all.  I wasn't overwhelmed with it.  The story of the exhibits didn't flow well, and the audio guide was difficult to understand.  In fact, some of the audio guide monologues were matched to the wrong parts of the exhibit.  The best part of the visit was taking visits of its exterior, and seeing Brussels from the highest dome, as shown below.

Ghent: Clock Tower

Ghent is a university town and one of Flanders biggest cities.  Its skyline noted for the three main towers, two churches and a bell tower all lined up in the central square.  I was able to visit the bell tower, and it was a lovely short trip.  The main attraction is climbing the tower itself, starting at the base with a room that originally stored important civil documents and now stores the remaining original of four guardians statues on the bell tower (accompanied by three reconstructions of the others).  As you climb, the higher floors hold displays about how the tower was remodeled over the years and the dragon statuette that used to crown it.  The dragons were built to breath fire on major holidays.  My favorite part was the bells, as the tower both has some of the original bells founded centuries ago and information on how the bells are founded.  You can also see the machinery that plays the carillon each hour and walk around a very narrow walkway at the top to get a view of the city.

Taking the stairs, though, is for people with strong calves and no fear of enclosed spaces.  The hallways are extremely narrow.  Most of the floors are also accessible by elevator.  My favorite part, though, was that I was lucky enough to be at the top when the bells rang the hour.  I felt surrounded by the sound, and it was amazing.

Chateau de Chillon

No, Romania did not satisfy my craving for castles.

Chateau de Chillon, near Montreux and on the far side of Lac Leman from Geneva, was touted to me as Switzerland's best castle. It's built on a little island just off the lake shore, and it is a honestly, truly, wouldn't be out of place in a fairy tale medieval style castle.

It still took me almost twenty months of living in Switzerland to go visit. My bad. But a couple weeks ago I had a friend visiting and the desire to be a silly tourist, and so hopping on the train and chatting two-thirds of the way around the lake sounded like a lovely way to spend the day. It helped that it was a totally gorgeous fall day. Switzerland is a beautiful country.

ESHEP and Romania

Particle physics is a very, very international field. If you don't consider travel a perk, you will have struggles with this field. CERN's experiments involve physicists from hundreds of countries. So, when it comes time to have a conference or school or something, it isn't too difficult to find a colleague from a very interesting place to host said conference or school. Our conferences can turn up in some cool places to visit.

Oh, and in Paris, because judging from the posters around CERN, Paris hosts a disproportionate number of conferences. But who's complaining about that? To share my current favorite quote about the city of lights, "Paris is always a good idea" (Audrey Hepburn).

CERN also hosts schools for students throughout the year, some based at CERN and some that migrate around a bit. I had the awesome opportunity to be part of the European School of High Energy Physics this year, held in Romania. So I with many other CERN physicists flew out to Romania in September for two weeks of physics lectures, mountains, castles, potatoes, and limited internet access. It was awesome. We were at a resort in the Carpathian mountains in Transylvania. I could see why vampire legends would flourish here The country was wrinkled with little valleys and crevices that you could miss walking over some plateau you thought was the lowest land. It would be easy to miss something there.

Berlin

After France, Germany was second on my list of European countries I wanted to visit. I had intended to check that off last fall, but for various reasons my travel plans had to change. The first time I made it Germany was shortly before New Year's, when a certain large storm rearranged all travel plans in the northeastern United States and after more than eight hours of nail-biting in the airport and another eight hours of sleep deprivation on the plane, I made it back to Europe by way of the Frankfurt airport instead of going straight to Geneva.

I was in no mood to appreciate any part of Germany that day, and declared that the Frankfurt airport could not be representative of the country. My introduction to Germany must be better than that.

That better introduction was completed by way of Berlin this past August. This is why I needed to get my hair cut.

A Year After Arrival

On February 4 2010, I arrived to a gray, cold morning at the Geneva airport to start my residence in Europe while working at CERN. I spent the next month hunting for a decent apartment. Finding housing in Geneva is a pain for everyone right now, with how expensive the city is and stiff competition for any and all housing. Luckily for me, CERN isn't in Geneva, and it is much more practical to live just across the border into France.

I wasn't looking for a particularly nice or fancy apartment. I really only had one criteria: I wanted one with an oven. It turns out that that can actually be a fairly specific request around here. In the realm of tiny single bedroom or studio apartments, a stove-top is considered necessary for a kitchen, not an oven.

A Year After Departure

On February 3 2010, one year ago today, I boarded an airplane bound for Geneva, Switzerland with only a one-way ticket in hand. I have now spent a year living outside my native country. When I left, everyone called it an adventure, this experience I was about to have, and they were right. It has been an adventure, as long as one keeps in mind that often the heroes of adventures spend a lot of time tired and confused and working like mad.

So as I sit in my cozy apartment and reflect on what I've learned in the last year, I thought I would record a few of the lessons I've learned on living in on the Franco-Swiss border.

0. French survival phrases
S'il vous plait = please
Merci = thank you
Je ne parle pas francais. = I don't speak French.
Parlez-vous anglais? = Do you speak English?

1. Dress up for any and all business dealings with other people.
It is hard enough to ask for help in a foreign country, where you know you are about to slaughter someone's native language and probably need to ask for someone who speaks yours. Holey jeans and worn out shoes make it much harder to stand your ground, make your request, and not feel like an idiot. So dress up. The confidence boost is well worth the extra time it takes, and you will probably be taken more seriously, too.

2. Be agreeable, but don't always agree.
I believe it is the natural tendency for Americans to agree rapidly when we want to avoid a possible confrontation and make whoever is trying to speak to us go away. The desire to quickly kill conversation only grows when it is happening in languages and accents one doesn't comprehend well. I would recommend fighting the inclination to automatically agree unless you are positive you know what the person is talking about. So smile, be pleasant, and say no. He's probably just trying to get your phone number, anyway.

Along those same lines, sometimes playing dumb and a strong American accent work wonders at ending conversations. So does not having a phone number at all.

3. On opening doors
The two most useful verbs in the French language are not "etre" or "avoir" or anything like that. They are "pousser" and "tirer." Pousser means to push, and tirer means to pull. Since roughly half of the doors around here open the opposite way of what an American seems to expect them to do, you can spare yourself some embarrassment by scanning the door for forms of these words. If it says pousser or poussez, push; tirer or tirez, trying pulling. It will make your entrances and exits a little easier and more graceful.

That being said, it is still preferable to try both pushing and pulling just to be sure that a door is really locked, to tugging at the thing for five minutes in the cold and giving up only to have someone walk past you and push it open without a hitch.

Chamonix and Mont Blanc

The people here love their mountains. When I was apartment-hunting shortly after arriving in Geneva, I quickly learned to expect a brief geography lesson when looking at a new place. From every window and balcony, I would be shown the Jura mountains to the west, or the Saleve to the east across Geneva. The east-facing views received the extra prominence of being toward the Alps. There, they would say, on a clear day you can see Mont Blanc.

Mont Blanc is the highest mountain peak in the Alps and the Western Europe. It is close to 5000 meters high, and is apparently a very popular destination for alpiners and others who like to clamber over mountains in the snow. For those of us less adventurous who simply want to admire the peak, there are simpler ways to visit.

I visited a couple weeks ago with some friends. We drove from Geneva to Chamonix, a little French town in a valley close to the base of the mountain. Once there, you can take two cable cars up to l'Aiguille du Midi, a peak about 1000 meters lower than Mont Blanc where a tower observatory has been built. It really makes you wonder how they got the heavy equipment up there to build it; it reminded me of a castle tower somehow perched precisely on the mountain peak, but with snow tunnels. From there you can take another little cable car to the Italian side, or another elevator up to the tip-top of the needle and the observation deck closest to the white mountain.

It was a beautiful day when I was there, clear and sunny. I could see down into the valley holding Chamonix and across layer after layer of rugged peaks that surround. The mountains all seem to be named with the French words for teeth or needles, and aptly named at that. I watched the alpiners heading out across the ridges of snow that just seemed too impossibly narrow to walk on in the Vallee Blanche. And there, rising proudly above all the rest with a pristine cap of snow, was Mont Blanc.

I grew up with mountains, and then went to grad school in a place that didn't have them. It is lovely to be back in a place that has and appreciates their mountains.

In Paris Again, part 2

Wait, you say, there's more wonderfulness to be told of this trip? Ah, I must confess that while the happy recollections are all made, the story is not yet fully told. The full story must include the arriving at and departing from the fair city.

I have two methods by which I can travel between Geneva and Paris, by plane or by train. The train is noted for it's consistency; SNCF runs trains with varying speeds and numbers of stops between Paris and Geneva daily, regular as clockwork and with prices equally independent of the convenience of the train. Regardless of the day of the week or the time of the day, the train costs about 80 euros (~$105) and will take four hours to get between the cities. Traveling by air is shorter in time and more variable in price. In particularly, a Friday morning flight to Paris on EasyJet cost about $60 when booked in advance, while the return flight on Sunday night cost about $100. So I opted to fly, thinking at least then I would spend less time confined in a seat for the same amount of money.

Paris!

Europe is small. It just seems that all the major cities of Europe are really close together. My home state is five times the area of Switzerland. Flying home for Christmas from grad school takes four hours; I think a four hour flight here would carry me across most of this continent. Europe just does not seem very big to me.

And that is a beautiful, beautiful thing, because even a grad student with little time or money can manage to visit a lot of famous places. I started by going to Paris.

Paris Highlights