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).
While in Bern, I went inside this amazing looking church, The Münster of Bern. It really looked amazing inside, and was just so huge.
It took me a while to work out how to get up the tower - you had to pay 4CHF then there was a little tiny door that lead up a really skinny staircase that took you to the top - but there was an amazing view of the city from the top.
Time to update this blog.
After my big night in Zurich, I stayed home most of Saturday, but went to the next town north in the afternoon (Brugg).
It was a lot bigger than I expected, certainly bigger than Turgi. Had a lot more shops and stuff, but nothing too exciting. There were some cool houses along the river.
Whilst aimlessly walking around the city, I saw in tiny writing on the door that one building was a museum, so had a mosey inside.
There wasn’t anything particularly special in it, but was definitely worth looking around. It was mostly filled with life-like animal displays, which looked like they were stuffed versions of the real thing, but I’m not sure if they all were. It also made it hard to understand what I was looking at sometimes, when all the information was in German.
So after work on Friday I thought I would see what the closest town (Baden) is like. It is much bigger than Turgi, with a lot of shops and stuff, it even had a McDonalds and Burger King. The buildings there are all look amazing though, and all the streets are cobblestone.
The river passes through here as well, and there was three guys jumping into it then swimming across into a calm section (before being taken away by the current).
After Baden, I headed into Zürich for Zürifäscht, which I had no idea what it was but was something to do. Basically it was like Fire in the Sky in Rockhampton, but much, much better.
I heard about it through IAESTE (International Association for the Exchange of Students for Technical Experience ) who organised my visa, and put on trips and stuff for everyone over here on a placement.
On the train I met three people in IAESTE by chance, one guy from England had even done German lessons with Quinny back when he was over here.
