back to the mountains

summer seems to be well and truly here.

friday afternoon at the bistro turned into a spontaneous (always the best type) bbq party at mario's place, and we happily whiled away the fresh summer evening with gossip, happy swiss-cow sausages, beers, and a bit of drunken bravado about how good it would be to go walking in the mountains on sunday.

unbelievably, some people actually turned up as planned at zürich main station at 8am sunday morning, and we headed off down to brunnen at the south end of the rigi. the only complaint that could have been made about the day was that it was too hot and sunny. in switzerland? please don't make me laugh.

we really made a fun day trip of it, with the train to brunnen, gondola up to the top of the hill, strolling along the ridge for 5 hours or so, down the cog-railway to vierwaldstättersee, boat across to luzern, and back to zürich on a speedy swiss train.

i'm all keen for more!

vadim, laura, farnoush, random swiss lady's head, and kristina


'if only we had an orienteer with us!'


i think those mountains are calling me...

the world's worst music

the eurovision song contest was on last night, and martin and i sat up late in horror watching every bouncy breast and cheesey dance move. of course the quality of the music was just as sensationally apalling. it just goes to show you can have all the implants in the world and still be flat.

switzerland was doing amazingly well early in the voting too, in the lead with a third of the votes counted! it was short-lived, but luckily no one will feel too sad, since the vanilla ninja girls can always just be disowned. in their own words:

eurovision.tv: You are this year’s Swiss entry. What is your connection to Switzerland?

Vanilla Ninja: Well, there is no direct link between us and Switzerland. It’s a country where we have given a lot of concerts and it has become our second home. Representing Switzerland is a task we’re taking very seriously.

the commentators on the different national tv coverages really make the night, and it was great to be able to switch between the swiss, austrian, french and bbc coverage. the austrians were a bit boring and nice, the french almost more annoying than the entrants, the swiss a bit embarrassed about being there, and i had the most difficulty understanding the bbc (i don't even speak french).

the greek winner


my current favourite norwegian


greece may have won in the end, but the most important positions in any contest is of course the battle for the wooden spoon. 4th spain, 3rd uk, 2nd france and 1st germany. i guess donald rumsfeld was right about old europe.

mostly recovered

i had my second progress report friday morning, which went surprisingly well. going through my last 5 months of lab notebooks on thursday i was pleasently surprised at how much work i'd actually done, and how much of it could actually be coaxed into something resembling a logical workflow. i would really never have guessed. there were also more constructive comments than confused criticism from the assembled crowd of gipfeli eaters, which is always useful.

i spent the rest of the day enjoying the sun, siting on the roof having coffee and enjoying the crystal clear views south to the alps, and hanging out a bit too long at the bistro in the evening. it was rather fun though.

it's all completely legal

so it seems fredrik is just as strong in his google credentials.

and with the exciting new development of itunes switzerland (finally), i made my first foray into the world of mainstream legal online music. ubs was keen to get young swiss into the act, and so has given every swiss citizen (or denizen with a ubs account) 1.50 CHF of credit (1 free song). how was i going to use that, when i'm a bit of a stuck-up elitist and would never stoop to owning less than a full album, as the artist intended? thank goodness for sell-out 'best of' albums, with the obligatory new track. so now i'm the proud owner of 'twenty years', without needing to buy all those other placebo tracks once more.

i am the king!

google me

4 of the first 10!

;)

it's a bit sad when an (albeit quite succesful) ego search is the highlight of my day.

oh and hiren is quitting psl and coming to europe to do a phd. clearly the man has style.

without me

after a busy day of sleeping in, mountain biking, checking out pleasant share house options and even a spot of lab work, what other option was there but to go karaoke? none.

martin, the karaoke meister, was chief instigator, and managed to convince a good crew of aebians to converge on a not so awful karaoke option.

with our central position and supercheesy stylings, i think you could say we lent the evening a rather special feel. my personal highlights were mario's 'just a gigalo' encore, the random guy from the other group's 'dreadlock holiday' (he was a true master of the groove), and my own humble gasps through some eminem. i don't think i'll be able to live happily again in a place where i'm not special in having the advantage of native english skills.

italia

venice



bologna




cinque terre

coffee

was playing around with my camera at morning tea today, and took this cute little snap of martin enjoying himself.

ahhh spring

vadim, mario and friends decided to make the most of the simply gorgeous spring day by heading down to werdinsel on the limmat for a lazy afternoon bbq. the sun was almost too hot for us (and definitely too much for vadim the siberian), but what a perfect way to spend a sunday afternoon. toasting up some tasties, a few beers, some badminton, and lieing on the grass with friends. the ride back up the hill to höngg was also made a bit easier by some helpful bastards who relieved my bike of my pump and headlight. i'm obviously just way too trusting.

diana and mario cooking up some argentinian caffeination for us


christina partaking


and vadim being all sporty