Exkursionen

"Endlich wieder mal in Deutsch" sagt die älteste Leserin meines Blogs wahrscheinlich in diesem Moment - mit 90 Jahren schwebt meine Grosi auf der Web2.0 Cloud: surfin USA.

Mir geht's nach wie vor wundertüten-gut in Seattle. Nächsten Donnerstag ist bei mir das erste Quarter vorbei. Warum Donnerstag? Warum nicht? Noch verbleiben jedoch vier intensive Tage hinter den Büchern und dem Laptop.
Trotz des intensiven Studiums konnte ich einige Exkursionen unternehmen, es gibt ja schliesslich einen ganzen Kontinent zu entdecken...

• Seattle Underground Tour
  Auf Exursion im Untergrund von Seattle; auf dieser Tour steigt man unter die Strassen um die Strassen im 18. Jahrhundert zu begutachten. Weil die Städtebauer von Seattle den ewigen Schlamm satt hatten haben Sie beschlossen alle Strassen mit Dreck aufzufüllen und das Strassenniveau um ein Stockwerk zu erhöhen. Wenn man also untertags schreitet besteigt man die ursprünglichen Strassen in Seattle (mehr Infos).


• Rollerskating
  Jeden Freitag hat man die Möglichkeit auf "the original Rollerskates" durch die Turnhallen unseres Sportkomplexes zu düsen. Eine ganz spezielle Art von Tanz. Ich als alter Eishockeyaner dachte das Ganze sei überhaupt kein Klaks, aber mit vier Rädern fühlt sichs schon ein bisschen anders als auf dem Eis an.


• Bainbridge Island
  An Line's Geburtstag haben wir mit der Fähre einen Ausflug auf die Hausinsel von Seattle gemacht: Bainbridge Island. Wunderschöner Trip, Wind im Haar, heisser Tee in den Händen, Sonne im Gesicht - hat gut getan.


• Houseparty
  Wir hatten gleich zwei Geburtstage in Folge zu feiern, darum haben wir eine kleine Fete in unserem Haus geschmissen. Die Fotos dazu sind selbsterklärend und nicht vollständig.


• Ballard & Discovery Park - the Scandinavian neighborhood
  Mit meinem schwedischen Büro-Kumpadre hab ich einen kleinen Nachmittagsausflug ins skandinavische Quartier in Seattle gemacht. Schlussendlich haben wir einen wahrhaften Marsch hingelegt, aber Martin's Skandinavien-Heimweh konnten wir garantiert stillen. Er hat überteuerte Import Waren gekauft :)


• Vancouver B.C.
  Unter lautem Truthahn-Gekreische und ums Leben rennen habe ich für das Thanksgiving Wochenende die USA verlassen. Thanksgiving, weil die Amerikaner sich für die grosszügige Ernte bedanken: Erntedankfest mit religiösen Wurzeln, heute gehts aber nur ums Truthahnschlachten (Sarah Palin gibt ein Interview während ein Truthahn im Hintergrund geköpft wird) und fein schlemmen. Meine Destination war Vancouver B.C., wo mich meine Tante an der Busstation herzlich in Empfang nahm. Der Nissan Altima hat uns zu ihrem wunderschönen Haus gebrach, wo ich dann einige Tage entspannen konnte. Ben hat uns ein himmlisches Thanksgiving Meal hingezaubert, Grappa gabs dann auch noch.
  Am nächsten Tag sind dann auch noch ein paar Mitstudenten von Seattle in Vancouver dazugestossen und wir haben die Stadt unsicher gemacht.

Wie gesagt, am Donnerstag ist Schluss für mich und ich werde die ersten Ferientage wohl erstmal mit Auspannen - von morgens bis abends - verbringen. Dann gehts schon bald in die Skiferien nach Whistler, Weihnachten in Vancouver, San Diego, mit dem Auto nach Las Vegas entlang der mexikanischen Grenze und dann per Auto von Las Vegas zurück nach Seattle. Ich werde Utah mit seinem Mormonenhauptquartier, Idaho und Washington durchfahren. Ich werde diese Fahrt mit einem amerikanischen Freund namens Christian unternehmen.
So, jetzt wünsche Euch allen eine gute Advents- und Weihnachtszeit. Viel Glück bei den Prüfungen. Man hört sich bestimmt noch einmal vor Weihnachten. Mal im Skype nach meinen Prüfungen.

So jetzt ab an die Fotos. Hier die Links:

• Exkursionen


• Vancouver

Halloween, Elections & more

Yes, we can! Obama was elected as the new president of the United States of America the last week. Not a lot changed since then but Flavio can still tell a lot of new stories. The past weeks were the perfect opportunity to make real American experiences. Let me start with it.

Rain: Rubber boots can be fashionable
Seattle is probably the only place on planet earth where rubber boots are really fashionable. The rain season started here and you may wish to type "weather seattle" in google to find out what the weather is here right now. The weather forecast hasn't much to do because they can just copy the forecast of the previous day and use it for the next day. The variety of rain boots is incredible! You might want to look at this link. Aren't the colors incredible :) ?

Man on fire
No, this isn't the perfect Halloween costume: A tragic incident happened on the Campuson the day of Halloween. A man set himself on fire on the red square, which is the main square of the university (something like the Polyterasse). The brave reader can read the story here and look at pictures: Students rush to save a man who set himself on fire.

Halloween
Halloween was another American key experience! Already a month before October 31st you can start buying costumes and other Halloween utilities. Halloween is one of the biggest festivals here: For the children it is a paradise because of the trick-or-treating, where they proceed from house to house to ask for candy (treats). If they don't get any they will play tricks on the house owners. For all the older people it is the perfect opportunity to act like a child. My costume was Kellog's Tony the Tiger. I already owned a t-shirt with Tony on it so the only things I needed were a mask and Frosted Flakes ;) Plus some random golden chains which made me the hip hop version of Tony the Tiger. Look at the pictures to find out more about my dress and see how my friends dressed up.
There is one comment I want to make about the costumes of the US girls: for most of them Halloween is a great opportunity to dress up in a really slutty way. Most of them are wearing skirts that barely cover anything... it is up to you to judge if that is good or bad.
This is actually not the last comment I will make because I could be part of another really American experience: a fraternity party. A fraternity is a brotherhood with a Greek name (Pi-Kappa-Alpha or Alpha-Beta-Gamma). Membership is limited to men and the own big houses close to campus and people say that they are crazy, drink a lot and have huge house parties. So on the day before Halloween we could get into one house and I have to confirm; it is like in the movies. They have a huge house with a huge party basement. Loads of drunk people doing dirty dancing, that's probably the best description and that's were I stop.

Election Night
Wow, election night was a blast! The atmosphere was incredible - basically it felt like French revolution back in 1789. US citizens and even all the international people felt absolutely happy that Obama got elected. The alternative was simply ridiculous (Muhahahaha). After watching the election ralley at a friends place we went to Capitol Hill to a bar to watch Obama's great speech and after that every single soul started marching downtown for the manifestetion of Obama! Absolutely insane! Ten thousands of people were marching in downtown Seattle, the streets were packed and everybody huged and high-fived the next person. Great atmosphere.
What was a bit astonishing is that everybody was still so sceptic until the last minute whether Obama will win or not. Now he is there and he will move into the White House soon.

Seattle neighborhoods
Seattle has many many beautiful neighborhoods. Most of them though have a really small core. I checked out Seattle Center. This is were the world fair in 1962 took place. They built the Space Needle, a monorail and other very futuristic things. On another day I discovered to the international district to see the small Chinatown they have here. Please have a look at the pictures.

Look at the pictures

Road trip to Portland

The recipe is easy to remember:
1 car (max $30)
1 Portland
2 pumpkin
1 Frida
1 Petter
1 Ras
1 Moritz
1 Flavio
1 beautiful day

If you mix all those ingredients together you will get one of the funniest days I had so far in Seattle. Part of my house mates and me made a road trip to Portland Oregon. Portland lies South of Seattle and it is about a three hour car drive. Have a look at Google Maps

If you want to be part of it you need to look at the pictures and videos in my photo album: Portland
The pictures pretty much explain all the fun we had on our trip. In the end of October the Americans celebrate Halloween - so we went spontaneously to pick a pumpkin on the way to Portland. Portland itself is a really beautiful and relaxed city. If you ever have the chance, go there. But now let me write about an other thing.

Going to the gym in the US
If you were wondering why students pay a hell lot of tuition here in the US, I have the answer: To build amazing sport complexes (like this one). You have pretty much everything in there: Swimming pool, many basketball courts, many indoor tennis courts, many indoor squash courts, indoor climbing... you won't believe that you can fit all of this in one building - somehow they manage. The nice thing is that every student can get a locker for free in the locker rooms. Towels & soap to shower are for free too: so no need to carry around your towel all the time! I signed up for Squash classes and go regularly to the gym to do some weightlifting. The weight lifting room is a world for itself. Huge guys and a lot of equipment: Hammer Strength, the real stuff. Most of the guys that are serious about weight lifting drink their protein shakes after the training to build up their muscles (So the stereotype has been proofed correctly). There is actually a place right by the exit of the gym where you can get smoothies and shakes. All in all: it is a lot of moaning and a huge show off. I actually go and show off too with my new purple Husky outfit :)

I am looking forward to write more stories!

Purple and Gold - colors of a Husky

I am safe and sound in Seattle! I am actually already since about twenty days here: I got settled and I started my studies at the Computer Science & Engineering department of the University of Washington in Seattle. So it is about time to please your minds with some new stories!

7th heaven
I am living in a house with six other international students in Capitol Hill (Click here for map). The location is great because the house is nicely situated between Downtown Seattle and the University District. Our neighbors have huge houses, and nice cars - it seems to be a pretty safe area.
I was totally frustrated when I arrived in Seattle and found out that I got a spot in the university residence hall in a triple room! That means three people in one tiny room! I had a look at it and decided to find another place to live in. The dorm just looked awful and all the other people living there are freshmen (18 years old)!
By happy coincidence I ran into other international students having the same problem and I joined them to look together for a house to share... and a few days later we found this amazing house I am living in now with the coolest people. That's why I want to shortly introduce each and everyone of them: Click here for picture.

• Frida (Denmark)
  Tall, blond and good-looking Frida is studying architecture. She has a great style, dresses really cool and likes to fool around. She talks about houses as if they were living creatures that interact: it sounds terrific and you can see her passion about it burning in her eyes! What I really liked was how she climbed on a dumping side digging for useful stuff for our house: a rocking chair for our porch! She is a great entertainer, "maker" and seems super independent. It is great to look at her when she is excited about something.


• Line (Denmark)
  Line is the Danish princess - because she has such nice skin (that's what an Asian guy thought ;D). She married the man of her life shortly before she came here to Seattle. She likes as well to fool around, to dance and sing. She has great skills when it comes to second hand shopping and when she smiles she looks really cute!


• Katy (England)
  Katy is a little bit more shy than the other ladies and moved in just lately. The first thing she brought was this awesome hat stand. So we can actually throw our hats on it as soon as we enter the house. She is a great actress with the greatest British accent and she should show us some more of it :).


• Ras (Denmark)
  Ras is an incredibly nice guy. You can feel that he is happy and that he somehow understood what is important in life. He is tall and slim, just like me (and has the same problems when buying clothes). Other great characteristics: generous, helpful, great mediator and absolutely funny! He built a tennis court with his dad and thinks about marrying! That's mature.


• Petter (Sweden)
  Petter is another Scandinavian. He is the chef of our house - he pleasures our senses with great food! He is a real gourmet. Looks good all the time and is a little bit vain. He's style is very cool and he sometimes looks like he owns IKEA - I though never figured that out. And finally: he is my tennis teacher!


• Moritz (Germany)
  The German! He is football player and beer trinker. He actually just made it in the university soccer team! We actually manage to not talk German - which is quite magnificent. A very funny guy - he especially likes to joke about Scandinavians. He is here to party and meet girls :P... and he likes the attention.

University Life
People at University of Washington (UW) are really welcoming. I am now a grad student in the Computer Science and Engineering department. I have a desk and a computer in an office that I share with three other people! Infrastructure is pretty good here, actually just as good as back at ETH. The main reason is Microsoft which provides my department with pretty descent funding!
The campus in general is absolutely beautiful. There is a gorgeous fountain and buildings that remind you of Harry Potters school. It feels absolutely awesome to go to school here.

Purple and Gold
The colors of the University of Washington (UW) are gold and purple -the mascot is a husky. So everybody is supposed to dress in those colors and act like a husky! Go Huskies go! For me it is really impressive to feel the school spirit they have here at UW - there is nothing like that at ETH Zurich. Everybody is proud to go to school here, walks around with UW t-shirts and cheers for the college football team! I bought tickets for the whole season to watch all the games! Every game is a big festival with more than 50'000 fans that go crazy! It is insane! So check out my pictures from the football game to get an idea!

Photos
Click here to browse all the new pictures!
Seattle
Baseball
Football

Beautiful San Francisco!

San Francisco - I guess the prettiest big city in California (go there!). The whole bay area has actually a lot of charming things to offer. Honking while driving over the Golden Gate Bridge or the Bay Bridge is a fantastical experience! It definitely feels like being in a movie. San Francisco has other characteristics that make the place really special: It is hilly, it has cable cars, it is multicultural, you will find a beautiful Chinatown and many things more.

In San Francisco I met four Swiss girls that flew with me from Zurich to New York in the very beginning of my road trip. They seemed to be okay so we decided to see each other in S.F. - actually we already had a really fun time in the airplane. First of all because they were planning out their entire trip whereas I didn't have a plan at all: The first time I read my lonlyplanet traveller guides was on the airplane. They already knew at which hotel they will spend each and every night... So I contrasted the girls pretty well.
In San Francisco we then met on Union Square and that's where the whole story started off. We went shopping together, we rented bikes together and went out together. It was an awesome time!

Have a look at the pictures! 

Sick of stones, rocks and trees

It was in Moab (Utah) where I had a sudden change of heart: I am sick of all the stones, rocks and trees: Back to civilisation! I mean I have really seen every shape of a stone by now, it is about time to see human beings again. I am sick of little boys showing me their hats with pins from all the national park they have been to :) It's high time to head to San Francisco and meet Fabienne, Laurence, Adrienne and Nadja that I met on the airplane to New York. We decided to meet in San Francisco. But now let me tell you some stories that happened on the way to S.F.

Riverrafting  on the Colorado
In Moab I went riverrafting with the Germans I met in Grand Canyon. I didn't raft in a red river before - the water was all red from the stones and the sand! We expected a really dangerous time on the river but oh my god the river was not even moving. The most dramatic thing was that we got blocked by a stone because the water was so low :) 10 minutes of pure panic and drama!

I almost froze to death aka. 33° F in Yosemite National Park
Arriving at Yosemite National Park I was stunned by its beauty: So I decided to spend a night there in my car. That was a really spontaneous action. I had no clue how cold it would get, I didn't even have a blanket, sleeping bag or any equipment that was needed. At sunset I hiked up to Elizabeth Lake to lie in the sun and that's where I met a family from the Bay Area. We got into a conversation and I told them about my adeventurous plan to spend the night in the car - I was still laughing when I told them the story - well... they were not! They invited me for dinner on their campground. I enjoyed a really nice evening at their fireplace and, hey, thank you for saving my life! They gave me a blanket and even with that I almost froze to death. It was so freaking cold - Zero degrees Celsius. At 4 o'clock in the morning I felt so cold that I simply started the car and moved on to warmer places :)

Click here to see the pictures!

Wild Wild West

There is much more in Arizona than the Grand Canyon: Let me share all the other nice places with you. There are actually not too many of them! And you don't go to Arizona for experiences with human beings, you come here for the nature. If you go to Arizona you will find a lot of really small places: Population 100, Population 3000, maybe... well Phoenix is big but it is by far the ugliest thing I have ever seen so far (It even outperformed Calgary in ugliness). The funniest thing on the way to Phoenix was a girl in a car flirting with a train driver: They were honking at each other for the longest time; the train driver had this ear smashing huge horn!

The city I liked the most in Arizona was Flagstaff. I only spent one night there and arrived late but this place was crowded; people just came back to school at Northern Arizona University. So I kept asking people about a concert that will be in town but none of them could really help me because they have just arrived like me. It was very easy to get together with other people (..."I am a cute guy, looking for cute company"...). They had awesome bars there and breweries with fine food! Unfortunately a lot of those students there can't even get into the bars: "We are not legal yet"!

Another funny thing happened in Sedona. My friend Arno knows a hair-dresser there that I should go and visit. Her name was Marji and she was just doing Nita's hair when I arrived. She is actually a Russian woman but changed her last name so peole would actually be able to pronounce it correctly. That was a really fun conversation I had there: really friendly people.

Later I headed to Page which was my basis to discover Lake Powell, Antelope Canyon and the Horseshoe Bend. Check out the pictures to see how amazing those things look like!

Here you can look at the pictures