egu

random pictures

2006-11-29T17:26:00.000-06:00

Wanted - Dead or Alive
seen in the Chicago metro

YUMMY

Thanksgiving and the bean

2006-11-22T16:52:00.000-06:00

It's been a long time since my last post, sorry for that to my fangroup (-->family).

I will celebrate Thanksgiving for the first time tomorrow! How exciting. But not with beans, I hope there will be a big turkey. The bean is something else... check out the pictures. I'm gonna get kicked out of my dorm room in about one hour, it's closing for five days. I pay a rent here but they just close it down for Thanksgiving. Kind of funny. But I found a nice place to stay with a very nice person, so I don't have to sleep in the streets of Chicago.

Chicago and "The Bean":

The bean and company are located in the "Millennium Park" downtown Chicago. A really fascinating object!

a 360° and 3D Mirror... invites tourists to play with their cameras.

Ice skating...

... or relaxing in the park.

Drive-thru

2006-11-08T19:10:00.000-06:00

Yes, we've got that in Europe. Already for DECADES! McDonalds Drive-through, but not just that one, even other fast food chains offer it!

However, what I've seen here so far is definetly not expected for a little Swiss once-in-a-year drive-thru user. There's drive thru for everything that you can think of. DRIVE THRU ATMs, not just to withdraw, they also have drive thru banking with differen services. Moreover, DRIVE THRU PHARMACIES make it possible to stay in your car and get what you need for your health. This prevents being exposed to the physical risks that occur during the time you'd need to walk from a parking lot to the classical store pharmacy. In other words, drive thru pharmacies save money and lifes.

I've never seen a drive thru classroom but I'm pretty sure it exists out there.

It looks good up to now!

2006-11-07T22:45:00.000-06:00

Chicago II

2006-11-05T14:30:00.000-06:00

Another one day trip, this time I went to the planetarium and up the sears tower:

Andi ond Esthi would like it here, there are sooo many shops. Usually half a floor for men and 4-5 floors for women.

Halloween...

2006-10-31T21:37:00.000-06:00

... is a huge event here. It's actually just the 31st, but the parties started already last Friday. On Saturday I went to Madison because that's the place to be for the weekend before Halloween. There's a big street festival, but I spent all evening with AIESECers, who invited me to their AIESEC-house party. That was so hilarious!!

Beer-Pong, probably the most popular board game :-)

New Glarus

2006-10-29T21:16:00.000-06:00

New Glarus, about one hour from Whitewater, is a small town founded by Swiss settlers in 1845. They got here because there was not enough land in Glarus, and people suffered from hunger. So the Glarner government supported the over 100 emigrants with money to buy land in Wisconsin. The journey took 4 months, and several people were dying during this time. Very poor in the first years, the settlers worked hard and the town grew remarkably.

Today, New Glarus is famous as "Swiss Village" and has a broad offer of restaurants, and a nice museum. We enjoyed the cheese fondue in a chalet...

The first church, rebuildt.

Flip Flops

2006-10-25T19:54:00.000-05:00

I thought this would stop with the first below-zero-degrees-days. I was wrong. They still wear flip flops anytime, everywhere.

Milwaukee Zoo

2006-10-14T17:31:00.000-05:00

Wheelchair basketball

2006-10-12T15:20:00.000-05:00

Very challenging - a lot of fun - exhausting - cool!

Milwaukee

2006-10-11T13:05:00.000-05:00

Last weekend I've been to Milwaukee for the second time. It's the closest bigger city with about 600'000 inhabitants.

Paintings on a wall without windows, looks quite real. At least from this perspective.

The wings on the top of Milwaukee Art Museum. Interesting museum, with a lot I liked and a lot I disliked... The Building itself is amazing!

The best Japanese restaurant I know! Don't have that many to compare, but this one rocks!

Indian Summer

2006-10-02T23:09:00.000-05:00

Indian Summer is a term for the last warm days before winter takes control. The last two days were incredibly warm and sunny here, followed by impressive lightnings and thunderstorms in the evenings.

I hope it lasts very long like that!

My room

2006-09-28T14:09:00.000-05:00

I'm still alive. Just took a blog-break. There are still exciting things going on here, I meet a lot of people, still do a lot of sports (tennis, soccer, etc. - no real american yet).

Here two pictures of my room, because it's difficult to make it fit in one. This is my half of the room, the other half looks exactly the same. Can't take a pic of that now, because it is 2 pm and my roommate is sleeping :-)

I'm living in the "White Hall", that's the residence hall where most of the internationals live. Good place to be.

Before I leave, got a quiz for all the Swiss: Try to figure out who the guy on my screen is. (hint: it's definetly NOT my desktop)

cleaned up for you!!!

Hopp FCL!

2006-09-18T14:50:00.000-05:00

Juhee, Basel gschlage!

Touchdown!

2006-09-17T15:59:00.000-05:00

What an amazing event! This day was great. Thousands of people barbeque in the streets, hours before the game (start 2.30 pm). And the ambience in the Camp Randall Stadium was just stunning. I still don't understand a lot about Football, but I was never bored within the 3.5 hours. The only problem was that I didn't have any sunscreen...

The UW Madison University Team, the "Badgers", won 14 to 0 vs. San Diego State University. It's incredible for me that these are non-professional teams, and the big stadium is always sold out... Imagine Uni Bern plays vs. Uni Basel and there would be more than 20 spectators :-)

Marching music, national anthemn.

Touchdown! View to the crazy students sector.

Canoeing

2006-09-15T14:03:00.000-05:00

On Thursday we paddled on the lake for the first time. My canoeing course is really a lot of fun! I'm so glad we capsize because the water was disgusting... more seagrass than the Sempachersee!

Tripp Lake, Whitewater

Fast Food

2006-09-14T14:20:00.000-05:00

Altough this is a very small town, we've got all the fast food chains represented here... Don't worry, I do enough sports. Though it would be very funny to see a fat Chris :-) Who could imagine that???

Pizza Hut, McDonald's, KFC... just one of the streets.

Madison - Capital of Wisconsin

2006-09-14T00:21:00.000-05:00

Last Saturday we went to Madison, that's about 45 minutes from Whitewater... we'll go there again this Saturday to see a football game of the UW Badgers. That's an university team... 80'000 spectators are expected to be there. Crazy.

The State Capitol Building, Madison, WI

Studying...

2006-09-10T17:03:00.000-05:00

... starts here in the first week, not only before exams. This is really new to me, gotta get used to it first :-)
The lecturers expect a lot of participation, and preparation is a must. Papers to read, assignments and tasks to fulfill, presentations, etc.
The classes (it's really called like that, and that says a lot) are much smaller, from 10-35 students. Professors know the names of us. There's no place to hide.

But I actually like that more than in Bern, because there's no interaction at all in the auditorium in Bern, and therefore no motivation to do more than the mandatory things.

Gotta go back to my books now :-)

My (brand new) car

2006-09-09T23:40:00.000-05:00

A bike is nice to ride around the campus, to the sports center or to the town... but in a country with NO PUBLIC TRANSPORT you just have to have a car. That's what the Swiss delegation in Whitewater was planning from the very beginning, so we share this car now:

Ford Escort, 1996, 96k miles, 1 broken AC, 1 weird tachometer. We love it!

Lots of fun fixing the license plate...

The three car owners Denise, Christian and Lukas in a yummy backery.

My brand new bike

2006-09-08T21:10:00.000-05:00

To get around on the campus, I bought a veeery funky bike! I'm so proud of it!

Start of the semester

2006-09-04T23:44:00.001-05:00

Tomorrow (Tuesday), the fall semester will start! I changed some courses, added some sports. My courses are:

- Advertising and Promotion Management (3 credits)
- International Business (3)
- Ethics in the Marketplace (2)
- English (Writing) (2)
- Tennis (0.5)
- Weight lifting (0.5)
- Bowling (0.5)

Friday off, Mondays start at 1pm... thats a long weekend!

More pictures following soon!

Football

2006-09-03T19:23:00.000-05:00

The UW Whitewater Warhawks won (about) 75 to 14!! How exciting!!

Parties...

2006-09-03T19:11:00.000-05:00

Even though Whitewater is a very small town, it has some bars, and these are really ok up to now.

The guy in the middle is Conall, my Irish roommate.

Chicago

2006-09-03T14:49:00.000-05:00

On Saturday I went to Chicago for one day, it's about 2.5 hours away. We didn't have much time, but next time we're gonna stay there for some days and check out the nightlife! Some pictures:

Navy Pier, with Denise and Sophie

International Student Orientation

2006-08-30T19:09:00.000-05:00

Today our three-days orientation started with a lot of information and a nice campus tour. (picture)

It's about 12 degrees warmer here than in Switzerland...

more news following soon!

Huge campus... in my opinion

2006-08-29T21:51:00.000-05:00

Altough I was told it's one of the smaller ones, this campus seems really big to me. I walked around the whole area and estimates it as about 3 times Längassquartier.

The sports facilities impressed me most. They got about 4 soccer fields over here, thats two more than UniBe. And soccer is not the most popular sport here...

My Hawk Card. ID and Credit Card.

I'm still waiting for my american sim card...

Zurich - Chicago - Whitewater

2006-08-29T21:43:00.000-05:00

over Iceland.

My first evening on Campus was great. Even tough I was very tired after a long journey to Whitewater, I had to stay up some more hours. I met other students on my floor, mostly americans, and I had a really warm welcome by them!
Today and tomorrow, most of the students will move in... meet new people every hour.

Finally got internet access in my room...

Back from France

2006-08-24T09:21:00.000-05:00

I spent the last 8 days in St. Raphael, South of France... the third time I went on vacation there with Roman. It was great again, thank you!

We had a really relaxing time: a bit of swimming, sunbathing, playing cards, enjoying the wine and all the other great pleasures the French culture offers.

It was quite a shock to look out the window today... it's still raining here in Switzerland. But I'm now preparing to get ready for my stay in the US, so it does not really bother me.

4 days left

16 days to go...

2006-08-12T12:09:00.000-05:00

until my take-off to Wisconsin...

This blog is dedicated to all people who want to track my life in the US for the next four month, AND to Laura who had to wait sooo long for that moment :-)

I set two major goals for the beginning of this experience:
- fly Zurich-Chicago without stopover in the ocean
- get to know the 4$-all-you-can-eat-restaurant and let it know Chris just arrived

Hope you accompany me on this blog!