We caught a train from Zurich to Airolo, which took a few hours. Along the way we played Chinese Whist (what we just called hearts at Ergon) whilst going though the Swiss Alps. Some of the views were pretty cool, but there was lots of tunnels, and tunnels are boring. In Airolo we got rental bikes and started a 40km (something like that) bike ride to Biasca. It was mostly downhill through the Swiss Alps but was still tiring by the end.

So I had planned to do uni work this weekend, got next to nothing done. Here’s some of the photos that were taken in the name of procrastination. I went for a walk up the mountain on the opposite side of Turgi this time. The photo of me standing over a sheer cliff below looks a bit lame when you can’t see the cliff…

Went out to some pubs in Zürich last night. Had a very expensive rum cocktail which was nothing on just normal plain rum, some relatively cheap beers, and found some Famous Grouss, but was talked into buying a rum and orange juice thing which was okay. But I took a photo of the grous for Mr Hooper and Tommy P. The drinks were real expensive but, even for clubs. The pub where we got the beers was really cool, had lightbulbs everywhere on the roof, played good music (Little Yellow Spider for example) and had a cool vibe.

Whitewater rafting was really fun, but I must say it would have to be better in Australia purely because the river we rafted down consisted of 4 degree glacial water. After wet-suiting up, we caught a bus up into the mountains where we were told about all the safety rules and told what to do for each of the commands from our guide. Our guide “Dougie” was from NZ and quite a funny lad.

I was in Baden and noticed a cool castle-y looking thing on the top of the hill near the train station. I think it’s the ruins of an old castle, or maybe just a lookout tower or something.

One thing that is interesting (was to me anyway) that Trevor told me is that a lot of watches here are synchronized to a pulse transmitted over the radio. He bought one and was going to try and replicate it in Australia by generating a radio signal. But the cool thing was that he claimed that the clocks at the train station have the second hand speed up for the last 5 seconds, then wait at the top of the minute until the pulse, before they move again.

When I was introduced to everyone around the office and told them I was from Australia, they all wanted to know if I knew Trevor, because he was from Australia too. He was the very first co-op from CQU to work at ABB in Turgi, and came back after graduating, having been here for the last 9 years. But he moves back to Australia next week to work for QR, so he had farewell drinks on Thursday night.

I’ve seen enough signs since being here to work out that Wanderweg means that there is a walking path this way, or the yellow diamond painted on to a tree like in the next photo. Just used google translate and the word actually translates to “trail” but I got the idea. So next weekend I am doing a Rafting/Hiking weekend and it said that you need to bring hiking shoes, so yesterday I went in to the closest big shopping centre in Spreitenbach to buy some.

So some people weren’t sure if I’d actually started work yet, so thought I would do a post about where I’m working. I started on Thursday 1 July and finish on the 31 December. So far I have mostly been reading about Simulink and the project I will be working on and settling in. Tomorrow and Friday I am doing a training course. Work itself seems like it will be very interesting and should be fun.

On Sunday, I got a train to Bern, which is the capital city of Switzerland. It took about an hour to get there, and cost 17.50CHF for a ticket. Although that was one way, and half price. That’s because I bought a Half-Fare card for 150CHF, which gives you 50% off train tickets, and a Gleis7 card for 99CHF that gives people under 25 free trains after 7 at night. (So I waited until 7 to get a train back).