HTL Hallein students visit the LHC in CERN and as well Zurich - Geneva – Paris!

 

Monday the 20th September 2010 we, the 5AHWIM students, started our trip to Zurich at 2 o‘clock a.m. We met our teachers Josef Kronreif and Paul Fleischmann at the train station in Salzburg and took the couchette coach to Zurich. We arrived there at 8 a.m. and walked from the train station to the ETH Zurich. The ETH is ranked among the top universities in the world. In the morning we had the opportunity to attend the introductory lecture of the Mechanical Engineering students. This was really exciting because we saw how the first day of a student at the ETH Zurich begins. Thereafter we saw some very interesting projects like the balancing cube and little flying objects wich are called Quatro-copter. Finally Prof. Dr. Roger Gassert guided us through his Rehabilitation Engineering Lab. In the afternoon we went to the train station again and travelled about 3 hours to Geneva. The next day we got up very early and went to CERN by bus. It was really interesting to hear and see everything involving the large hadron collider (LHC). After the visit at CERN we took the train again. Our next stop Paris we reached in short time using the TGV(train à grande vitesse). The TGV was the first regular train in Europe which ran at more than 300 km/h. After 4 hours we arrived in Paris by night. We went to our hotel in Montmartre and tried to relax while we were very excited about our next day. Wednesday morning we got up very early and first we visited the Eiffel Tower. It was nice to see what is possible to build out of steel. But Paris also had other very interesting sights. We also visited the Arc de Triomphe, Les Invalides and the Notre Dame Cathedral. In the evening we visited Montmartre and admired the Sacré-Cœur Basilica. Thursday morning we were informed there was a strike in Paris. Only 50% of the metro trains and 25% of the RER trains circulated compared to usual traffic. We visited the Louvre and admired the famous painting of the Mona Lisa and also had a stop at the apple store near the Louvre’s entrance. In the afternoon we had free time to go shopping.  In the evening we started our way to the train station (Gare de l’Est). When we arrived there, we were shocked because our night train was cancelled (due to the strike). The next train back to Austria left the next morning. The SNCF offered us a TGV train car to spend the night at the train station.  The next morning we took an ICE Train back to Germany and then further back to Salzburg where we were glad to be back and see our beloved ones again.

Further information:    http://www.htl-hallein.at/2913.html