Bastille Day: French Fireworks outshine Uncle Sam's
Although I have pages in my journal about Morocco that were scrawled on random buses and in airport terminals those stories might have to wait for a later date.
I left a country filled with inexpensive hand crafted souvenirs and entered an airport filled with advertisements for extremely expensive watches modeled by very attractive and rich people.
Switzerland is sparkling clean. The roads are in mint condition, the buildings beautiful and the bathrooms scrubbed down, free and fully stocked with toilet paper.
It's been great staying at Jamie's apartment because I can cook for myself and do some dishes. I know I've been eating out too much that the calm meditation of cleaning was welcome. Jamie's husband Jordan has been commenting that he wishes all woman wanted to cook and clean so desperately.
My first day we went to a American couples house for dinner who worked with Jordan at the particle accelerator at CERN.
I learned that there is a 27 kilometer ring under the ground here about 80 feet down. They use giant magnets to accelerate particles at almost the speed of light and draw conclusions about the nature of the universe by observing what happens to them when they collide with such high energy. The vast underground caverns are so big that the arc de triumph would fit inside them. Scientists from over 100 countries work at the experiment that is groundbreaking in so many ways. The 27 K tube is in position accurate to 1 cm. Other pieces of the accelerator are placed by hand to an accuracy of less than a hairs width. The magnets create a field stronger than that of the earth. The equipment is so sensitive in places that dropping a pin would break it and it felt the earthquake that caused the Tsunami in Indonesia. The materials to build the superconductors have been collected from around the globe including the brass from old soviet weapons retired after the cold war.
Jordan is trying to procure special guest passes for us but since the experiment is starting to get going it might be tough to get special privileges. The underground tunnel is big enough to ride a bike in but he promised that he wasn't important enough to grant me the privilege of riding in the giant tunnel.
They laughed about a crazy local man who was suing because he feared that a high impact collision of subatomic particles might create a black hole and suck the world in, Geneva first. This is much less likely(10 to the negative 50 power) than winning a jackpot in Vegas but the publicity has created more attention for the scientists.
After dinner we walked to a lake and watched fireworks. They started the show with the 20th century fox theme song and included more American favorites such as Indiana Jones and the Pink Panther songs. The fireworks were amazing and definitely made up for being on the side of Toubkal for my countries independence day.
Today after trying 7 ATM machines I decided that no banks in France would take my card. They also wouldn't exchange my money from Morocco and so I rode my bike across the boarder and at least convinced the Swiss to change my money. I now have 82 dollars(minus 20 for groceries) and called my bank to tell them about my predicament. They informed me that for no apparent reason it was not possible to withdraw money from the ATM. They asked if I'd tried more than one and I responded that I'd actually ridden my bike to another country to withdraw money since I didn't even have small change for bus fare at the time. Then they asked me "do you have another bank?" Maybe I will soon! They really just said, sorry there is no way to get money until you return. Luckily I'm well fed and housed at Jamie's and I convinced them to take off the overdraft fees for cash advances from my Visa. Because I lost my ATM card shortly before coming here I looked up the pin for my visa that I never use. Thank god otherwise I'd be trying to live for three weeks on 82 dollars in a country where gas is 7 dollars a gallon and a cup of coffee is 4.
Luckily I did have a great day after a morning of bank nonsense. The best part was stumbling upon a Jardin de Maths. The garden was a huge exhibit about math in nature including an entire greenhouse dedicated to Fibonacci numbers and phylotaxi. Since I'd read books on the subject in English the French made some sense. It helped that the math was a universal language and that just looking at the formulas was enough for me to understand. The math made the French more clear, not the other way around.
I wished I could take my students somewhere so fabulous and thought about how I might make a mini math garden in my classroom next year.
I left a country filled with inexpensive hand crafted souvenirs and entered an airport filled with advertisements for extremely expensive watches modeled by very attractive and rich people.
Switzerland is sparkling clean. The roads are in mint condition, the buildings beautiful and the bathrooms scrubbed down, free and fully stocked with toilet paper.
It's been great staying at Jamie's apartment because I can cook for myself and do some dishes. I know I've been eating out too much that the calm meditation of cleaning was welcome. Jamie's husband Jordan has been commenting that he wishes all woman wanted to cook and clean so desperately.
My first day we went to a American couples house for dinner who worked with Jordan at the particle accelerator at CERN.
I learned that there is a 27 kilometer ring under the ground here about 80 feet down. They use giant magnets to accelerate particles at almost the speed of light and draw conclusions about the nature of the universe by observing what happens to them when they collide with such high energy. The vast underground caverns are so big that the arc de triumph would fit inside them. Scientists from over 100 countries work at the experiment that is groundbreaking in so many ways. The 27 K tube is in position accurate to 1 cm. Other pieces of the accelerator are placed by hand to an accuracy of less than a hairs width. The magnets create a field stronger than that of the earth. The equipment is so sensitive in places that dropping a pin would break it and it felt the earthquake that caused the Tsunami in Indonesia. The materials to build the superconductors have been collected from around the globe including the brass from old soviet weapons retired after the cold war.
Jordan is trying to procure special guest passes for us but since the experiment is starting to get going it might be tough to get special privileges. The underground tunnel is big enough to ride a bike in but he promised that he wasn't important enough to grant me the privilege of riding in the giant tunnel.
They laughed about a crazy local man who was suing because he feared that a high impact collision of subatomic particles might create a black hole and suck the world in, Geneva first. This is much less likely(10 to the negative 50 power) than winning a jackpot in Vegas but the publicity has created more attention for the scientists.
After dinner we walked to a lake and watched fireworks. They started the show with the 20th century fox theme song and included more American favorites such as Indiana Jones and the Pink Panther songs. The fireworks were amazing and definitely made up for being on the side of Toubkal for my countries independence day.
Today after trying 7 ATM machines I decided that no banks in France would take my card. They also wouldn't exchange my money from Morocco and so I rode my bike across the boarder and at least convinced the Swiss to change my money. I now have 82 dollars(minus 20 for groceries) and called my bank to tell them about my predicament. They informed me that for no apparent reason it was not possible to withdraw money from the ATM. They asked if I'd tried more than one and I responded that I'd actually ridden my bike to another country to withdraw money since I didn't even have small change for bus fare at the time. Then they asked me "do you have another bank?" Maybe I will soon! They really just said, sorry there is no way to get money until you return. Luckily I'm well fed and housed at Jamie's and I convinced them to take off the overdraft fees for cash advances from my Visa. Because I lost my ATM card shortly before coming here I looked up the pin for my visa that I never use. Thank god otherwise I'd be trying to live for three weeks on 82 dollars in a country where gas is 7 dollars a gallon and a cup of coffee is 4.
Luckily I did have a great day after a morning of bank nonsense. The best part was stumbling upon a Jardin de Maths. The garden was a huge exhibit about math in nature including an entire greenhouse dedicated to Fibonacci numbers and phylotaxi. Since I'd read books on the subject in English the French made some sense. It helped that the math was a universal language and that just looking at the formulas was enough for me to understand. The math made the French more clear, not the other way around.
I wished I could take my students somewhere so fabulous and thought about how I might make a mini math garden in my classroom next year.
posted by Cammie at 3:08 PM
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