getting settled at CERN

[nibot]

Feeling extremely clever, Kenny₂, Chan, Shannon, and I biked out this afternoon to S:t Genis in search of the mythical grocery store there. Silly us, it turns out that the entire country (by which I mean Switzerland and France) suffers from the UPS Paradox (c.f. Kuczenski, 1998. The UPS Paradox is the observation that UPS only delivers packages during business hours and requires that you're home in order to receive a package, ergo you will never be home to receive a package; thus it must be that no packages are delivered). Not only is the grocery store closed from noon to 2:30pm, but it seems that even the cafes and restaurants close for the lunch! Geeze. The Swedes were right.

Speaking of Swedes, Kenny₂ and I bravely marched on over from our table of NEU students over to what we believed to be a table of European summer students. Our hypothesis proved correct and we quickly infiltrated their ranks. There was even a Swedish guy (from Lund noless!) with whom I was able to have a fully legitimate conversation in Swedish, which was a big relief since it's been feeling like the language has been evaporating from my brain.

My room is right here on the CERN campus in Building 38. Astonishingly it is the super-deluxe style room which is basically like a hotel room [it's pretty much just like a standard Swedish dorm room, only with slightly fancier-looking furniture]. Unfortunately this means that Kenny₂ and I are supposed to collectively pay CHF 73 ($54.80) per night in rent when the other, regular dorm-style rooms cost only CHF 26 per night. (Out of a salary of CHF 76 per workday.) It's hard to complain considering that they treat us so nicely, but the cheaper rooms are quite appealing, and I would actually rather prefer just a regular dorm room. Anyway, we'll see how our various schemes work out. We talked to the front desk people and they said they might be able to work out a scheme by which we would be nomadic, moving from place to place each week. Considering it would save us each more than $1000, it's probably worthwhile.... other than that, I have a pretty nice tent we're itching to try out... As another scheme, it looks like Kenny and I are also taking in an additional roommate, his friend Martina from MIT (?).

We were outfitted with brand new, deluxe, official Experimental Physics Division bicycles today, so we have the run of the place. With Brasilian citizenship and a Swiss bank account I feel like I'm ready to sieze a third-world country! We'll start with the Swiss canton of Geneva!

Comments

[janviere.livejournal.com]

Hmm, never saw that. What time did you try to go to the restaurants? If it was nearing 2, I can imagine they'd be closed for the period between lunch and dinner. (Which is less amusing...) Or else it was some Monday thing.

Careful about trying to take Geneva, they've been known to dump large pots of soup on invaders...

Spain was worse

[ankaerith.livejournal.com]

Every day we would go to school from 9:30am till 1:30pm. Most places did not open in the morning till 9:30 or 10. A few would open at 9 but that was just not going to happen after being out at the bars and clubs all night. Every store in the city would close down at 1:30pm for siesta. (Most often actually closed a bit earlier, like 1:10.) The stores would reopen at about 5pm for a few hours. Of course, after we'd get out of class we'd be awake for lunch and then go to bed and sleep till about 9 or 10pm when we'd have dinner. We'd then get ready to head out for the night again. Basically, it was impossible to make travel reservations or do any shopping. Did I mention everything is closed on Sunday too and we were usually on weekend trips on Saturday.

[easwaran.livejournal.com]

The UPS paradox (along with the other versions of it that no longer really exist in the US, like grocery stores only being open in business hours, and banks having their ridiculously short hours, which is still the case except that ATMs exist now) is apparently a holdover from when men used to work and women would stay at home. By doing things like that, all men were able to work the same hours, and women were able to go to the store, go to the bank, and receive packages, and so on. Of course, it doesn't help if you're not married, or if both members of the couple work. But that's why most of those things have ended now. In the US at least.

[probablevacancy.livejournal.com]

I had to skip work yesterday so I could go to the bank. It was lame.