Day 2 started nice and early, which was a mixed blessing. It gave me a new chance to try to adapt to being 7 hours ahead of myself, but at the cost of getting like three hours of sleep. Well, a bit more than that, but at some point in the middle of the night that little circadian clock in my brain ticked over and said "Why are you still sleeping? It’s 7 o’clock at night!", while I grumpily told it Shut up, it’s 2 a.m.
Circadian clocks are notoriously deaf to such logic.
Anyway, I woke up in time to meet Gia’s lovely son Michael. I had brought along a meteorite to give him as a sort of house guest gift (the least I could do for eating their food and sleeping on their sofa was giving them a chunk of iron that fell from space) and he was pretty excited about it. I heard he showed it to his science teacher, and I’ll have to find out how that went. 
The morning was spent doing the usual ablutions, and when Gia, Brian and I were ready it was off to the London City airport, a smaller airport on the east side of town. We took the train, which went right past Canary Wharf. This, for the hopelessly uncool, is where the Cybermen and Daleks had their final battle, and Rose was trapped in the parallel Universe. As we passed that site, I shed a silent tear for The Doctor’s loss.
Anyway, we were headed to the airport to take the short hop to Geneva. The flight was fun (Swiss Air planes have loads more room than United); we talked science and gravity and geekiness, which passes the time admirably. Unfortunately, a totally opaque cloud cover blocked my view of Europe the whole way, and when we landed in Switzerland it was pretty gray. Still, Europe! Geneva! Chocolate!
Admission time. Dork that I am, right before flying to the UK I went to Target to fill up on some things I needed for the trip, and realized I needed a snack for the flight. What did I buy? A Toblerone bar!
Idiot. I was flying to Geneva. Toblerone flows like water there. I think you get a 100 gram bar free simply for existing there. Oh well. I did get some private satisfaction that Toblerone was more expensive at the Geneva airport gift shop than it was in Target.
We rented a car (the rental garage was filled with oddly blocky and square cars with long funny license plates, which was yet another jarring reminder I was not in the US) and drove the short distance to CERN. I expected it to take a while, but it’s really only like 3 kilometers away. We stopped there long enough to visit the cafe and get some (incredible rich wonderful yum yum European) coffee and to chat, and then we drove across the border into France and our hotel. That was funny too; the border is a sort of no-man’s land (I referred to it as the DMZ) because, as Brian told me, Switzerland is not a member of the EU, but France is. There was an empty guard booth there, which made me chuckle: we were entering the EU, and no one seemed to care. The last time I drove from Canada into the US I had everything but a proctologist examine me, a reminder of the current state of affairs.
We met up with Julian, who will be running the podcast of us while we visit CERN, and then Nick Graham showed up. Brian and Gia met him at TED, and invited him to CERN as well. Nick is the founder of Joe Boxer, and is a very funny and delightful man. His son Chris is along as well. The six of us then went to the nearby village of Saint Genis Pouilly (pronounced "mrph mrph mrph")to eat dinner at Le Coq Rouge, a wonderful restaurant. We ate and drank and had a wonderful time (though the cheese table, wheeled over to us by the waiter, nearly blew my hypernosmic head off). My French, it turns out, is beyond rusty (I have a hard time saying even my stock phrase, "Je suis desole, Madam, mais nous n’avons pas du jambon aujord hui"). Luckily, the waiter understood the universal point-at-the-menu-and-horribly-pronounce-the-fish-dinner-name of speaking French.
When we finally made it back to the hotel, and after some excitement with my electrical current converter — did you know that in France, sparks are blue as well? — I fired up the Mac to write all this down, and found a peculiar thing: the BA website is blocked to me here! I cannot access it from the hotel (I borrowed Brian’s computer at CERN to post this). I’m not sure why, but it means it may be a few hours or even tomorrow before I can post again, so your patience is begged.
And that’s it. It’s now Saturday morning, and we’ll soon be touring the largest, most complicated experiment ever built: the Large Hadron Collider. I’m very excited, and you’ll be hearing lots more soon! Assuming that I can access my own ^#%*$(@!^ site.
April 19th, 2008 at 7:26 am
Ha!
It’s cool to read your posts in “real time”… X-)
Waiting for more from the LHC (never been there and probably will never make it)!
Greets from D, Ansgar
April 19th, 2008 at 7:36 am
I absolutely LOVE how you write these – they’re so humorous! Keep it up. I envy you beyond words, for going to the LHC. (And *ahem* seeing Brian Cox.)
April 19th, 2008 at 7:37 am
So jealous. Haven’t been to Helvetia for soooo long.
We had two visitors from Switzerland some time ago. I drove them from Louisville to Indianapolis – a distance roughly equivalent to driving the long way across Switzerland. I then showed them a US map with our drive marked on it.
They were suitably impressed.
I was impressed with how everything there is so close. It wasn’t more than a few minutes drive to some place else with the most exquisite food it had ever been my pleasure to partake. I do love the place.
JC
April 19th, 2008 at 8:00 am
Yay! Chocolate! Cheese! Bread! Wine! Black Hole Generators!
April 19th, 2008 at 8:12 am
April 19th, 2008 at 8:13 am
Whoops! Only the first part of that was supposed to be in quotes.
Oh, and great post, BA.
April 19th, 2008 at 8:18 am
Toblerone
Yummy!
April 19th, 2008 at 8:18 am
Enjoy Europe ^_^
cheers
April 19th, 2008 at 9:02 am
Hey, Phil, I remember a year or so ago you didn’t have access to Safari. When did you switch to the Light Side and get a Mac?
April 19th, 2008 at 9:20 am
Enjoy Europe, BA!
And by the way, the reason no one seemed to care when you entered France from Switzerland is because — though not part of the EU — Switzerland is in fact part of “Schengenland” (check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_Agreement for more info). And curiously enough, though part of the EU, the United Kingdom is not part of Schengen, which means you’ll need a passport and submit to border controls when traveling there. (Yes, Europe can be confusing…)
April 19th, 2008 at 9:33 am
Welcome to Europe, Mr Plait!
).
this one was funny and amazing as always!
Enjoy your time here – and your right, the weather is all but good.
But I hope it stays dry…. I am about to go to Dortmund to the “public viewing” of the soccer game Borussia Dortmund vs. Bayern München (german people know what I am talking about
But, Phil, you should have come to Germany – I would have done everything what I could to meet you. Bummer!
I look forward for your next episodes of “Phil Plate’s European Tour”
April 19th, 2008 at 10:27 am
What do you mean your site was blocked?!
April 19th, 2008 at 10:32 am
Actually, Switzerland is not currently participating in the Schengen Agreement. They are set to join in November of this year. So in principle there should be border guards.
April 19th, 2008 at 10:38 am
Could you please ask Brain what he thinks of Garret Lisi’s unification model using the E8 symmetry group?
Enjoy your trip!
Thanks
April 19th, 2008 at 10:39 am
You could just use a proxy server to access any website from anywhere
try this one :
http://www.stupidcensorship.com/cgi-bin/nph-surf.cgi
April 19th, 2008 at 10:48 am
Doesn’t CERN pass into France? Do the protons have to pass through immigration each time? That would really slow things down!
Seriously, though. I just got back from Europe (France and Romania, mostly business, part vacation) and the most difficult border to cross? Coming back into the USA.
I worked at Fermilab and have toured RHIC at Brookhaven and SLAC at Stanford, so I would love to add CERN to my list someday also. I have been to some meetings on how to use GRID computing in education with the people who work on the ATLAS detector…now just have to convince someone it would be good for me to go there!
April 19th, 2008 at 11:39 am
Plait Orbiter (recently launched from Colorado) has crossed the orbit of Switzerland and is currently passing through Planet France, on its way to photograph the CERN phenomenon. We’re hopeful that further data and images will be retrieved!
April 19th, 2008 at 11:49 am
“Canary Wharf. This, for the hopelessly uncool, is where the Cybermen and Daleks had their final battle, and Rose was trapped in the parallel Universe. As we passed that site, I shed a silent tear for The Doctor’s loss.”
You fan-boy, you!
April 19th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
Forget Toblerone! What you want is Lindt’s dark Chilli Chocolate – that’s chocolate with teeth.
The only drawback is that it’s totally addictive.
–
April 19th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
Toblerone? You’ve got try all the types of Cailler, esp. Frigor.
http://cailler.ch/
–Jim
April 19th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
I hope you’re having a great time in Europe!
I suspected that you had been here already, by the odd timing of your previous posts.
April 19th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
Btw, LHC is a Big ^#%*$(@!^ing Accelerator.
April 19th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
“Forget Toblerone! What you want is Lindt’s dark Chilli Chocolate – that’s chocolate with teeth.”
Chili chocolate — absolute yum. My favorite chocolate ever is Dagoba Xocolatl.
April 19th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
?!? … get’im !!!.. he’s a Mac user !!!!
jks
April 19th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
Bah – there’s no such thing as electricity. As any electrician knows, everything is powered by smoke. That why, when the smoke starts pouring out, things stop working.
April 19th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
I recently picked up (for real cheap) a book titled “The Big Bang Never Happened” by Eric Lerner. Reading a bit into it, the author makes claims that the microwave background radiation information that we received (this was in ’93 I think) was showing that the Big Bang theory was in trouble. This seems like woo to me, especially since he was pushing forward his own theory, but I know that there have been some physicists/cosmologists with serious issues with the current theory. Granted, this was around 15 years ago, but I was curious if anyone has heard of this fellow and his ideas (ie, is it worth my limited time to read this, or should I set it aside until I have time to read woo)?
Thanks for any advice.
April 19th, 2008 at 4:44 pm
Sorry – wanted to add that I read the wikipedia, and saw that Paul Davies and Victor Stenger both argue against his ideas, but I am still curious as to others opinions.
April 19th, 2008 at 6:41 pm
Badger3k: try posting on the BAUT forum, linked from the top banner:
http://www.bautforum.com
It looks like there Lerner’s ideas were discussed in a number of threads there already.
April 19th, 2008 at 6:42 pm
J’ai oublie mes pantalons a la biblioteque!
April 19th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
Be sure to give some helicopters cancer when you get to see the LHC.
April 20th, 2008 at 7:22 am
I wish you a great and enjoyable time in Europe and of course at the LHC. I hope you can access your site soon so that we can read some cool things about the LHC.
Greets
April 20th, 2008 at 8:32 am
Wow, Phil…a European vacation without the Missus? How did you manage that?
April 20th, 2008 at 8:34 am
J’ai trouvé votre pantalon en dehors de la bibliothèque!
April 20th, 2008 at 9:26 am
I note you’re only 500 km from one of my favorite cities, Amsterdam.
I have visited it a half dozen times(hack, cough,,,).
It reminds me quite a bit of San Francisco. Similar architecture and broad streets and such a liberal atmosphere.
Only three km from Geneva? Can you take pictures of the city from the LHC site? T’would be a cool video post.
Anticipating your future posts.
GAry 7
April 20th, 2008 at 10:43 am
I am just getting into the wonders of backyard astronomy. I look forward to your posts and the experience that you share. Thanks.
April 20th, 2008 at 11:15 am
Phil, when you’re at CERN and you see a nice, big, red button labeled “DO NOT PRESS” or “NICHT DRÜCKEN” or “MRPH MRPH MRPH” — please do not press that thing.
Just an advice, and a bit late, I know. But watching the southern horizon here from Nuremberg, I see neither a mushroom cloud nor any growing all-encompassing blackness, so there’s hope.
April 20th, 2008 at 6:50 pm
Having been from early childhood fascinated by lighter-than-air aviation, If I were in Europe, I would try to get to Fredrickshaven to see or even take a flight in a NT Zeppelin. Each to his own obsession, I suppose.
April 21st, 2008 at 10:00 am
Forget Toblerone! What you want is Lindt’s dark Chilli Chocolate – that’s chocolate with teeth.
Damn straight – Toblerone is kids chocolate.
April 21st, 2008 at 11:32 am
Hí
I loved the report about UK and Arriving to CERN : )
In a humorous side, if you want some laugh, take a look at the latest, wonderfull, funny and awesome entry from Jeremy Clarkson:
http://driving.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/driving/jeremy_clarkson/article3768858.ece
I dunno if you know him….i think almost everyone in the world knows him, it´s like the greatest car journalist, known even in Greenland : )
Top Gear from BBC…..you know…
Well, it has some facts the way around from BA, how an european “lives” the US experience : )
best regards
Gonçalo