4-1!

*** New Link - PHOTOS ***

I was recruited this evening (ie. Friday) by the Dutch to go to Bern and support their country! What an atmosphere!! Yes, I have finally met some fellow PSI people who are here on traineeships - friends, woo! So we travelled to el Capitale and amidst the sea of Orange we soaked up the glory of a 4-1 win against France. The photo here shows the crowd after the first goal :)

Train travel in Switzerland is expensive. It rivals the UK. I didn't have time today but I will definitely get the Halbtax-Abo card sorted (It costs 150 CHF but with that card all travel is half price. To put it in perspective, a return to Bern without the Halbtax is 64 CHF. I'll be traveling to Zurich and thereabouts quite a bit I expect so it'll be a worthwhile purchase. There is also a further card, the Gleis7 - for people under 26, this card along with the Halbtax makes train travel free after 7pm! Done deal.

It is the weekend, and the cSAXS surely have beamtime for a whopping three weeks. I have now met the entire team - super people - and the latest update from the beamline is that they've got some nice diffraction patterns from their test samples. Work today was spent in meetings - the content of which was mostly over my head. I still maintain that it's great to be a part of it though. I haven't really mentioned before.. but PSI is actually a bit special in terms of research institutions, and the things I am getting the opportunity to see, not a lot of people get that chance - and I mean a lot of people in the industry don't get the chance. What these things are will become clear over the next few weeks - but there are some pretty awesome things in store.

I have also managed to get a bike for a few days - a week and a half. PSI loan bikes for a maximum of two weeks. It has cut down my commute to 5 minutes. There are dedicated cycle lanes here - 2 laned cycle lanes at that - which make the whole process relatively stress free.

I shan't be back at work until Monday, so I have the weekend to cycle about a bit, relax, meet up with people. What a week this has been! I am finally getting to see what life outside work is like. Work is of course very amazing, but I have been told by the nice people I work with to make sure I take some time off to see Switzerland. No problems there then! Hope you who are reading these posts are enjoying them, I see the time ahead becoming busier as my social life lives up but I still aim to update you with the daily haps.

I saw a large and marvelously stripey snail today.