I've been in one of my working moods lately. Wake up. Work. Eat. Work. Sleep. Next weekend, though, we're plotting an adventure. The idea is to go to visit Liechtenstein (it's a monarchy! and tiny!) and then hit up the fest in Zurich.

Today my detector, the pixel detector, descended the 100 m into the ATLAS cavern, safely. It was quite an exciting event because they had to get it across the parking lot in the the 30 minute break in the rainstorm. The rest of the week will be spent inserting it into the centre of the SCT.



(Picture thanks to Jens Dopke)

Food-wise I've had a pretty good week. On Wednesday I headed in to Geneva with some friends from my days at LBL. They are Spanish so we went to a purported tapas bar. It decidedly wasn't tapas, or at least not the Spanish interpretation of tapas, but the food was excellent. I had my first foie gras - deepfried - with caramelised onions. The highlight of the meal were these little steaks (from somewhere on the back of the pig that I didn't quite understand) wrapped in jamon. Dessert was chocolate and apricot tart. Delicious!

I've also been experimenting my with latest cookbook: The Soul of a New Cuisine. rachel_paula and I cooked up a batch of harissa (one CUP of red chile peppers) and turned it into red penne with roasted almonds. It was fiendishly spicy but provided me with fabulous lunches for the week. My favourite recipe thus far is a simple one for egg sandwiches made with baguette, spicy mayonnaise (with almonds & garlic) and scrambled eggs. The combination of flavours is truly magical.

Today the Caltech house had a barbecue so I made ginger beer (rather spicy) and cumin braai bread. toyoko_o made tasty Indian food (she's vegan, so meat isn't quite her style) and guacamole for a truly international evening.

Hopefully next week has even more exciting food in store. Tomorrow I'm taking in my first French movie, en francais, without any sub-titles. I hope that I understand more than 10% of it!

My former office at LBL makes it into PhdComics: http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=872

I've always heard the windows machines were trivial to hack, but, I didn't expect it to be quite to easy. Silly old me forgot her administrator password. A trivial google search lead me to an ISO, which I burnt and booted and all my passwords were gone in under 20 minutes. Wow!

Exam. Passed. I shall henceforth be referred to as "candidate". Also, I'm applying for my Masters.
The exam itself was something of an anti-climax. I've spent weeks preparing for the damn thing, giving multiple rehearsals and trying to think of every question my slides could possibly evoke. The reality? I went through each slide, making some wording errors to be sure, but watching as each of my nasty questions went by unasked. My scheduling was definitely smart though - 10:30 am for a 2 hour exam. Two of my professors had meeting/class just afterwards so they were itching to leave the room around noon. This meant no additional nasty questions :)

The rest of my time in California has been flying by. I've been eating my way through the required food in each city. Berkeley its: sushi at Tako Sushi (needs repeat!), burgers at Barneys, Naan 'n Curry, good Thai food (a few choices). In LA it has been In 'n Out, PresidenTwo, Zankou, Europane (a damn good sandwich shop near Caltech), my friend Tim's home-cooking (homemade pasta with meat-juice & truffle sauce), dessert from Daphne (cream puffs) and, finally, Chicken and Waffles last night. I've been wanting to try Chicken and Waffles ever since I stopped being vegetarian, but I was somewhat disappointed by the fried chicken. I much prefer what we call fried chicken at home - it is more juicy and a lot less greasy. The combination of the sweet waffles with chicken, that was actually rather sublime.

I spent yesterday wandering around Caltech reminiscing. nibot showed me around mini-LIGO and we used his laser to burn holes in business cards. The laser protection goggles are some of the most stylish sunglasses I've seen for a while. We're in Culver City today (more tasty food from Tim!) before heading up to Malibu for a night. Sunday we're taking the 1 all the way back to San Francisco, to conclude the official holiday portion of the trip.

I managed to miss my first flight! I was merrily picked up at 7:20 am this morning to head to the airport. As I was standing in line waiting for my flight, I realised that I'd forgotten my cancelled passport containing my American visa. A mad dash back to France (couldn't find it!), back to CERN (not there), back to the apartment and finally we found it but only 15 minutes before take-off. I called Continental. Initially they told me my flight was non-refundable, non-exchangeable (i.e. I'd lose the entire ticket), but after my roommate called they agreed to let me on the flight tomorrow provided I pay the difference in price. $400 later and I'm heading to California tomorrow. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid!

The good news (I guess) is that I make a training session that I would have otherwise missed and get to play with some hardware down in the pit: "(1st task: find our equipment in the pit!)"

I recently took the whole learning French thing in hand and found myself a conversation partner: Christelle from Paris. We meet for lunch/dinner once a week and spend half the time speaking English and the other half French. The first time was rather difficult as I've never spoken French for 30 minutes in row ever. Luckily I managed to be funny even when I muddled my words horribly.

This week we're doing something different. Some people from the site where we met, GenevaOnline, are organising a language exchange dinner. This time it will be in French and the English speakers are required to bring a dish from their country of origin. I've hauled out my South African cookbook which features such useful recipes as "How to build a pizza oven out of a termite mound in under two hours", "A poacher's roast by the light of the silvery moon" and "Rangers breakfast on a spade". Luckily the recipes are really tasty and I'm debating between bobotie (mince curry with egg custard, mmm) or green lentil and banana salad and couscous with caramelised onions and raisins. Or perhaps a Cape Malay curry?

Trans-continental living always has its little quirks, but non irk me quite so much as the troubles I've had with Bank of America. To start with, they seem to put a hold on my account about once a month, because I actually seem to use it. This always happens when I'm travelling and really need money. Wouldn't it be convenient if they emailed me about it? One skype call to customer service later in which none of their default options are ever what I want and I'm feeling happy. Next I need to get money out every month to pay rent, buy food, etc. The options are great: a wire transfer with a $30 charge, hm, take it out the ATM: $5 flat charge and then 2%, hm, or use the one ATM in a 100 km radius that Bank of America has an agreement with and doesn't charge me anything. (Incidentally, watch those sneaky 2-3% charges: they sneak them into the exchange rate so that you don't notice.)

That BNP Paribas ATM is a little quirky. The first time I tried it, it went out of service immediately. The next time I asked for 500 euro, and it spat out the receipt and went out of service. The next day I went to another bank and couldn't seem to withdraw any money. Eventually I figured out that I'd been charged those 500 euro that I hadn't got. I raced back to the bank and found out that a number of people had had money stolen, but that they couldn't give me my money because they hadn't got it yet. A week later I finally got the money, paid my tardy rent, and received an email asking whether I'd be interested in a bank account in France.

The latest iniquity is the most irritating. As much as I enjoy driving to Ferney-Voltaire to get my money, I'd really like to only have to do that once a month. Two weeks ago I called Bank of America and got them to raise my limit. I was told to call back in 2 weeks to make it a permanent. Today I called back and was informed that it is impossible to permanently raise it above $700 for any Bank of America account (do the rich people really put up with such things??). I can skype them every two weeks, wade through the menu options, and get it temporarily raised, but after two weeks it reverts, every time. Perhaps I should write a bot to deal with them?

The forecast for Avoriaz tomorrow afternoon is -15 C (-21 with wind chill). That would be the ski resort that I'm heading to tomorrow courtesy of the CERN ski club. To make matters worse, my Swedish roommate returned from the shops today with a new face mask. This poor little African is wondering whether she'll return with her nose and ears intact (sorry Rachel)...

p.s. N refuses to acknowledge -15 C as cold. Apparently the cut-off in Minnesota is -10 F, a paltry few degrees away.

Clearly the weather gods heard my bitching far too clearly. We have snow and snow with a vengeance. I drove slowly to CERN today after entering my car through the boot as all the locks were frozen solid. Thankfully the car started. Downtown Geneva was reportedly chaotic with buses running at random times and car accidents all over the place. The South African in me is very excited and I'm tempted to send a mail to CERN.all and schedule an ATLAS-CMS snowball fight. Problem is, I bet that people would be far more interested in taking on people in their own experiment. The outlook for the rest of the week is solidly negative temperatures and more snow. Skiing on Sunday will be fabulous! We're debating on attempting to ski down the Jura on Saturday.

It's snowing at CERN right now. I'm about to have my first experience of driving in the snow...

The grandchildren of today's skiers are likely to know the white peaks of Switzerland only from the wrappers of chocolate bars. A remarkable report on climate change that will be handed to European governments this week will say that the effect of rising temperatures will mean an end to snow across large areas of the Alps.The Guardian

The timing of this report is rather apt. Today I had my first outing with the CERN Ski Club and, despite taking us to a resort above 2000 m, there really wasn't much snow at all. In fact, there really isn't much snow throughout Europe right now. On the other, I hear it is freezing in Pasadena. Please, please pray to the deity of your choice that it snows before next weekend. Otherwise I fear that my pretty new skis are going to be ruined.

My madcap travels are over and I'm back in Geneva. I'm still a little tired from the 1050 mile drive from Dublin here. The little green beast behaved admirably and we had lots of fun. I didn't get arrested. I didn't get deported. N has been steadily uploading his pictures and hopefully mine will join his on flickr shortly, but for now I have a lot of work to catch up with.

Perhaps someone has cursed me? My times have been far too interesting lately. I could do with some good old-fashioned Christmas boredom.

First I managed to get stranded in a tent in the freezing weather at Heathrow for 24 hours. I know that BA don't control the weather, but they really have been handling things pretty badly. Delay all shorthaul flights but getting all the longhaul ones to leave timeously? Five attendants to rebook flights for the thousands of delayed passengers? It was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed sitting on blankets in a tent in negative temperatures holding lottery number 666 waiting to be allowed into the terminal in order to stand in another line to get tickets. Eventually I scammed my way onto a direct flight and somehow, magically, ended up in first class arriving in Cape Town 48 hours after leaving Geneva.



Last night I planned a small dinner party with my cousins and an old sailing buddy, Lisa, but the evening was rather dramatically interrupted. My brother and cousin were out trying to buy a baguette when they turned right (mirror image everything, if appropriate) at a robot (traffic light, stop light) and an oncoming BMW crashed into the rear door on the passenger side. Both cars are a complete write-off, my brother is ok but bruised and my cousin is wandering around in a neck brace after an evening in the emergency room. Thankfully the guy hit the rear door and everyone was wearing seatbelts. Somehow the guy in the BMW was completely unhurt.

After an American-style breakfast (oddly enough) we're heading down to the coast to buy a fish from the fishermen to braai (barbecue) tonight. I just hope that the rest of this "holiday" can be a little quieter.

I save what little money I have by bringing sandwiches to work each day. This morning I picked up my frozen bike and rode across the road to CERN. I hung my lunchbag next to my helmet on the handlebars. I was reading the sign about the strike when suddenly my front wheel locked and I found myself diving over the handlebars. My sandwich bag had become stuck between my wheel and frame and the apple had, quite literally, exploded. I landed on my hands with the bike flipping over my head. My laptop flew off sideways somewhere. My first thought was "oh shit, I hope I haven't smashed my laptop" and the second one was "I better get up as I'm in the middle of the road" but I was rather winded and found I couldn't move. Three very nice frenchmen picked me off the street, reclaimed my bike and dragged me off for a coffee. My MacBook case is dented and there's a little chip in the keyboard but otherwise seems to be functioning well. I'm amazingly unhurt (how did nothing hit my head?) aside from grazed hands and a stiff back.

Tonight I'm on night shift (midnight to 8 am). As I don't nap, it will be my second 24 hour day in 3 days. And I need to do all my Christmas shopping on Saturday due to that wonderful law that forbids shops from opening on Sundays. Lift your glass to conquering sleep!

I'm throwing a petite soiree this evening (in 3 hours - yikes!) and I just got back from a trip to the supermarket for supplies. The remarkable thing is that I'm not going to be making *any* of the dishes I planned. A crucial ingredient for each dish simply wasn't to be found.

1. Cupcakes. No cupcake cases. That killed that idea rather quickly.
2. Guacamole and salsa. There were avocados in the "exotic" section but they were so unbelievably unripe that I scratched that idea. Then I tried mango & black bean salsa. The exotic sections had mangoes and I managed to find a ripe one but black beans were nowhere to be found. Then I decided to have a try at bog standard salsa. Eventually I found some chili peppers but they were being sold for € 10 each!

Eventually I ended up buying some blini (tiny pancakes), taramasalata and tzatziki and of course the standard baguettes and a couple types of funky cheese.

But I shouldn't complain too much. The wine and beer are both plentiful and cheap! Keep your thumbs crossed that my grumpy French neighbours don't call the cops on us tonight.