either supposed to put him to sleep, or keep him up depending on what he wanted it to do for him. (Has anyone else noticed this magical quality of alcohol?) We gave him a ber in the mall to keep him happy while Edith and I shopped. It seemed to work. I however, wanted to try a more natural approach to curing jet lag. (A little out of character, I know.)The worst thing about jet-lag isn't being tired all day. As I walk around the city all day like a zombie, I still feel as though I am accomplishing something. I feel like the more I suffer now, the better the relaxing will be later. Perhaps this is a little masochistic, but I actually enjoy the suffering. My best example of this is cross country skiing.
Imagine skiing all day long, eating nothing but bits of chocolate and cheese (as per Wyoming tradition). At some point you feel so incredibly hungry that you are sure your stomach will eat itself if you don't get food in it soon, but you don't want to eat the energy bar you stored back at the car because dinner is a mere 30 minutes away and you know it will taste that much more delicious if you just endure the hunger a little while longer, and so somehow, the hunger feels good. So true, am I right? No? You would have eaten the energy bar? Well poo. My analogy is wasted on you.
Not being able to sleep well at night is the worst thing about jet-lag. All day you have endured the fatigue because you've been thinking about how good sleep is going to feel, but when you finally lay your head down on the pillow you realize that sleep is out of the question, for the first time all day you feel defeated. Then of course your friend Jimmy starts snoring, and when you turn to frown at him you catch your friend Tia reaching over and closing his mouth with her fingers, and you think this is the most hysterical thing you've seen all day and so you can't help letting a little giggle out which wakes up Jimmy, thus solving the snoring problem but instead causing some intense "steam roller" type retaliation. How old are we? Doesn't matter, we're on vacation.
Actually all things considered I am feeling pretty good. After two days in Geneva, I am on my way to Paris, (or at least I was when I wrote this the first time.) and surprisingly, I would rather write in my journal than sleep. Jorge and Edith have been wonderful hosts. Not only did they allow me Jimmy, Tia, and John to sleep in their tiny European studio apartment, (no kidding, we had to move all of the furniture out onto the veranda in order for us to all be able to sleep at the same time) but Edith spent her entire day off showing us around Geneva and then cooked us a lovely dinner.
Jorge wanted to show us three specific things in the city, and these are them:
The first two are self explanatory, fire power, and strange animal pornography (sorry for the blatent teaser exageration) are of course important aspects of any city, but this???
No, it's not a fire drill, it's a giant pump that sprays lake water 140 meters into the air. A tourist trap. I would offer more of an explanation, like who designed it and for what purpose, but it really isn't all that interesting, and I refuse to spend priceless Europe time spewing facts and figures. You can learn more about it here if you want.
The rest of the city is really cute. I loved the old part of town with the little narrow streets lined with cafes and bistros, but I am told that I will be quite bored of this by the time I leave Europe.
Most of the day Thursday we spent at the particle accelerator on the French-Swiss border. (Can I get a high five from the rest of you nerds?!)
It was pretty awesome
, I mean if you like looking at grad students, their offices, and the cafeteria. Unfortunately all of the experiments were closed. We weren't even allowed to walk through the accelerator tunnel because it was a little chilly. (4K?! I 
experienced worse during most cross-country skiing adventures!) But seriously, the "retired famous physics equipment garden" was pretty cool. They had some old bubble chambers that greater physicists than I used to study electrically charged particles. They even have the famous bubble chamber Gargamelle. Gargamelle (the chamber, not the villan from the smurfs) was responsible for discovering Neutral Current, so it's kind of a big deal. You non-nerds might be able to appreciate the special place bubble chambers have in pop-culture. Remeber this 'Stokes' album cover? Yup, that's bubble chamber data. Can physics be cool now that it's art that's associated with indi-alternative-rock & roll? No? Oh well.
Next stop, Paris!
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