today i took my camera with me to university. here are some impressions.

and yes, ducks walking on ice can slip and fall down:

while complaining last week that all snow was gone, when i had to produce a photo for project 52, i got snow this week while staying in zürich. here are some snowy impressions from around noon:

later, it started snowing again, continuing until the evening. on my way back from my current quest, i took some more pictures (and already lamented about the absense of my big camera, which is much better suited for low-light photography). the interaction of snowflakes with beams of light is just a perfect thing to photograph!

walking through falling snow is just great!

last week, i was in zürich, visiting my phd advisor, as well as my friends there. on friday, the math institute did an excursion to the rheinau abbey. here are some impressions from the abbey (not from inside though, as photographing was forbidden in there) and the walk afterwards at the rhine knee.

on december 8, 2008, i did another trip which i never wrote about so far. this time, i visited switzerland’s jungfraujoch, featuring europe’s highest train station at 3.454 meters above sea level. i did that trip on a monday to avoid the hordes of tourists wich invade the jungfraujoch in particular on weekends.

eigernordwand station.

the first stop of the train inside the mountain is the eigernordwand station.

eismeer station.

the second stop of the train inside the mountain is the eismeer station, giving a wonderful view on the lower grindelwald glacier.

note that the windows were steamy, which adds a neat glow to the scenery:

the top of europe.

at the final station, jungfraujoch station, one enters a huge station. here are some views from one outside part of the station:

two panoramas; the first gives another view from the station, similar to the one above, and the second one shows in detail a metal rope which survived an ice storm:

art & ice.

inside the station, one can find several pieces of art, including an ice palace consisting completely of ice:

outside, again.

this time, on the other side of the station, where one can walk on snow:

another panoramic view:

the way back.

finally, some views from the trip back to zürich:

today, a friend of mine gave me and some other people a guided tour through zürich. here, you can see some impressions.

in the last two weeks, i attended three concerts:

• the first one was by the norwegian prog black metallers enslaved in the z-7. the concert was really good, even though enslaved could have played longer in my opinion. unfortunately, the place was pretty empty, which is something enslaved does not deserves.
• the second concert was by the swedish prog death metallers opeth in the rohstofflager, with the ocean and cynic as support. the guys in the ocean apparently have an urge to move around. i’ve had it so often that stupid kids constantly jump you in the back if you’re standing in the front, but so far i never had it that band members constantly jump in front of you from the front. pretty annoying, somehow. anyway. they were ok. after them, cynic entered the stage. i never heard anything from them, but i heard some people praise them a lot, so i was really looking forward to hear them. well, i’m not sure yet how much i like them, i guess i should listen to their music intensively. but at least they sounded pretty cool. well, then, finally, opeth began to play. as usual, they were simply fantastic. here’s the playlist:
  1. heir apparent;
  2. the grand conjuration;
  3. godhead’s lament;
  4. the lotus eater;
  5. hope leaves;
  6. deliverance;
  7. demon of the fall;
  8. the drapery falls (encore).

  it’s nice to finally have heard godhead’s lament live.

• finally, i saw the german medieval metal band in extremo. the support was the cologne based alternative rock band the black sheep, consisting of four girls, who did a good job opening the gig. then, finally, i was experiencing in extremo. as a lot of famous bands, the concert was also attended by a lot of annoying kids who gave their best to chase people away from good places. anyway, after losing my very good place in the very front, i found a still good one a bit farer away. i don’t know too many albums of in extremo, mainly older stuff, so i didn’t knew at least half of the material, but i still enjoyed it. (they were also the first band i saw who used pyrotechnics.) but there were also lot of songs which i knew, for example vollmond, wind, spielmannsfluch and ave maria.

yesterday, i did a snow hike in engadine. first, i walked from guarda to lavin, and after that, i continued by train to saint moritz, and afterwards i returned home. the weather was awesome in the beginning, but after some time the sun hid behind some clouds, making it impossible to make good photos of the snow. too bad. the sight was still great, though.

today i went for a short walk to the irchelpark next to the campus where i’m working on. here are some impressions:

another panoramic view on the lake:

a panorama of most of the scenes in the previous pictures:

two weeks ago, i did a small round trip through switzerland. first, i took a train to bern:

then, i continued the old lötschberg trail to brig, and then continued to realp, where i did a small stop to wander around in the snow. finally, i continued over andermatt back to zurich.

today, the first flakes of snow came floating down in a first attempt to paint the landscape white. a failed one, though, as it’s still too warm. but it is so beautiful to see the flakes, slowly swaying downwards. in particular, in the evening, while strolling through the streets, watching the flakes in the street lights, next to the trees. such a gorgeous, adorable view.