Where is Iris now?

For my BILBO bookclub - Classic British Literature book club, we had to read A Tale of Two Cities this month. As I wrote a little something on goodreads to remember it, I thought I might as well post it here, and once again breath life into the blog. I have a lot of stories to tell you, and a lot of pictures to show you. Did you know I should still update you about my trips to Japan, America (San Francisco), St Petersburg and Leeds? It's a lot to take in, I know. But let's first focus on this book, okay?

The first sentence of this book, is the epic sentence: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

And from there it goes downhill, because it gets boooooring... Luckily it's more of a parabola (instead of a linear decline), because the ending is awesome! And actually makes the book worth it.

The ending was just... wow... I'm speechless. True, you have to plough through 2/3 of the book to get to a moderately interesting last 3rd, but the last 70 pages are just absolutely worth it.

Some things I learned about the French revolution and want to remember:
- Liberty, equality, fraternity or death. That was the original motto during the Terrors after the French revolution. Leave it to the French to scratch that last part of their motto nowadays.
- There were so called knitting-women who were knitting during the guillotine executions.

Besides the mostly, quite frankly, boring stuff, there were some beautiful passages/chapters that reminded me of the Dickens that I loved in Oliver Twist and David Copperfield. Favourite passages were:
- The description of Dr Manette's trauma. It was just really powerful and well written.
( Spoilers )

I wasn't really emotionally invested in any of the characters, though. I thought Lucie was pretty bland, as she was the 'perfect lady' everyone was in love with. I guess my favourite character was Dr Manette, because his trauma was so well described.

Final verdict is that I actually liked the book, even though I thought that would be impossible during the first 300 pages.

And with that, I leave you with the hope of ever finding yourself a Sydney Carton to love. There. I said it.

I have been to London a few times already (I even visited London during the Harry Potter Holiday "Harry's Magical England" which is, indeed, as awesome as it sounds), but I had never been to the Harry Potter studios before! Can you believe it? The main reason for this is that you have to pre order your tickets online and I had never had the foresight to do this (I didn’t know this amazing place existed!) and/or I didn’t have a laptop with me, so no chance of getting tickets while I was in London, admiring the billboards…

But, now, finally I had the foresight and I made the book club come along with me! We arrived via Watford Junction and the Harry Potter bus (*screaming internally!!*) and were soon inside the premise. Tips from other Harry-Potter-fan-friends included the fact that I had to get the children’s passport at the studios, because you can collect awesome stamps and look for snitches. I was desperate to get one. Normally, I shy away from things like this, particularly asking these things, because, you know, embarrassing!, but now I was determined to get one of these passports. Shame aside and go for it! So, when I was walking into the studios absolutely giddy with anticipation/happiness/nerves-about-asking-for-this-bloody-thing I soon got a Harry Potter passport from a lovely woman walking past. Yay! Day made! Happy! But only if we would act childish and over-excited inside the tour. No problem!

The others also got a passport (some more reluctantly than others..), but soon found out, when we were actually doing the tour, that the stamps were absolutely gorgeous and so worth it! It is, however, quite hard to get the stamps in your passport nicely, as not all of them work well. The best advice I can give you is to only put one piece of paper underneath the stamps. That seemed to work best.

The tour itself is a-ma-zing! I have always loved the books and the films (although I will always stay true to the books), but I have now gained a whole new level of appreciation for the movies. There is so much detail in all the props and sets! It is absolutely incredible. Most of these details aren’t even visible on screen (or at least, I have never noticed them, and I have seen the films quite often!) and they still put in so much effort!

One of the coolest things there (according to me) were the Death Eater masks, as each Death Eater in the movie has a different, individual mask, with minuscule detailing, that is handmade and fitted to the actor. Stunning.

The set that I found most beautiful was the Ministry of Magic set: it is quite big and has these great, lively colours of red and green! It’s a shame that they put a dark filter on the movie, so that the bright colours don’t really pop out, even though they are incredible on set.


The Yule Ball sculpture/drink bar was visually stunning


Isn’t this amazing? This is an actual, real working door with slithering snakes that they made for movie 2



Hogwarts Railways! On the actual train!


Saying hello from the Knight Bus!

My finest moment was when we were talking to one of the staff members and he challenged us to guess to whom one of the wigs belonged, after hinting that it was a very difficult one. After an additional hint (it was movie 7), I correctly identified the wig as belonging to Aunt Muriel! Woohoo!

I went slightly crazy in the shop, and bought the following:
• An Edible Dark Mark for each of my office mates and myself (although I don’t think they fully appreciate the Edible Dark Mark). Of course, as you undoubtedly know, it was developed by Fred & George Weasley during the Second Wizarding War to make fun of the Death Eaters and keep up the spirits of people. I don’t think my office mates get any of the humour. I don’t even know if they know what a dark mark is. Anyhow, they each have a lollipop now!
• The Souvenir Guidebook. Did you expect me to just not buy it? Right, I didn’t think so!
• A Ravenclaw pillow, because I am a Ravenclaw, obviously. (It’s not just me that thinks so: I was sorted accordingly on Pottermore as well)
• A Pygmy Puff to help me face the lonely days and nights in Switzerland (I know it’s not real, but it does purr…)
• A gorgeous notebook, which I have yet to write in (it is so pretty! I don’t want to destroy it!)
• A snitch charm. Very expensive. I repeat: very expensive. But it is real silver with plated gold and it would just look lovely on my silver necklace, right? And this never looses it’s value, right?

In any case, you get the idea. I won’t tell you what I had to pay in the end (I threw away the receipt as soon as possible. I am repressing the memories as we speak), but let me just tell me that I didn’t feel so bad for spending all my money on this stuff, when I saw the woman that was standing behind me in line holding a broom. I repeat: She was going to buy a broom. At least I did not spend my money on a fake Nimbus 2000, huh? That is something. Although she was also feeling the embarrassement of the purchase herself and kept telling people that it was not for her. Even if it was, I wouldn’t have judged. It is a Nimbus 2000 after all.

And so, I leave you today with an important question: what should I call my Pygmy Puff? I haven’t got a name yet, and am tempted to select a name from Cursed Child… Very tempted to go with Scorpius, but that seems a little extreme for my pink, fluffy Pygmy Puff. So, suggestions?

Instead of trying to catch up with the increasing amount of things I should write here concerning trips/holidays etc., I am just going to write about something that has gotten me extremely excited. Even for me. Office mate R. noted that he knew I could get very enthusiastic, but he had never actually seen me jumping around.

So. Excitement.

I went to London last week for a long Harry Potter weekend. I love Harry Potter, and I love London and the UK. In fact, if it wasn't for the great opportunity at ETH, I would've definitely moved to the UK, because that is just where I would like to live at some point. But we'll see what happens in the future :)

Just so you know, this is not my first Harry Potter holiday, and neither will it be my last. I love Harry Potter extremely. I have a lot of friends who love Harry Potter in various degrees, but somehow I always seem to be the most extreme. How can I not be, I ask you, because it is Harry Freaking Potter (consider yourself awarded 10 house points if you recognise that reference ;) ).

So. HARRY POTTER LONDON.

The idea started a loooooooooooong time ago! In fact, it started in 2015 when I learned that a new Harry Potter play was coming out. Even before the title was released, I knew that I had to go there, because if there is anything I love besides books, it is theatre. It touches me in a way books or movies never can: for me, it is a very emotional, personal and beautiful experience. Which sounds lame, but that is just the way it is. So I was determined to go to this play, no matter the costs or logistics and I registered as a priority member (obviously).

Sidenote: bearing in mind my love for theatre, I was absolutely thrilled when I got a musical-voucher from my office mates and colleagues for my birthday 2 weeks ago :)

When the tickets for Cursed Child actually went on sale, things were absolutely crazy! It was by far my most stressful experience on the internet ever! After a brief moment of panic - where I finally got through the queue to buy tickets, but learned that the Safari browser wasn’t working, so I had to get back into the queue, while frantically downloading FireFox - a new booking period from September - December 2016 was released and I managed to get 4 tickets for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child on October 29, 2016 for the entire book club (they had consented to go to the play with me with varying degrees of enthusiasm..). I was elated! But it was over a year before we actually got to go.

And last week, the time had finally come to go to London, to see Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. I had deliberately not read the script (even though it was seducing and tempting me from my book case every single day, since I had pre-ordered it of course!), so that everything would be a surprise.

However, just going to London for only 1 play (even though it is Harry Potter), seemed a bit of a waste, especially since some members of the bookclub hadn’t been in London before. So we (well, I mainly) decided to go to London for a long Harry Potter weekend with lots of activities related to Harry Potter and books! I very happily arranged it all :)

So these blog posts will be the Harry Potter London Chronicles, where I will tell you in detail about our A-MA-ZING Harry Potter weekend. Today, the first instalment: Harry Potter London - Platform 9 3/4.

We arrived on Wednesday, October 26 in the evening and had a lovely pizza dinner at King’s Cross station. After the dinner, we went to Platform 9 3/4 (OF COURSE), where we had our photo’s taken (I did not anticipate buying them, but the photos were just so superior to the ones we managed to make ourselves) in house scarfs (I am a proud Ravenclaw!).
I also bought quite some stuff in the shop: a Harry-Potter-bag (which I really needed), and Harry Potter trivial pursuit (so that we could play it during the weekend) and of course the photo. The rest of the weekend, I bought more stuff, and more justifications will follow :p

For now though, I will leave you, while I depart from Platform 9 3/4 with the Hogwarts express!

I have been neglecting this blog (for like, the 100th time), I know. I'm sorry. Shall I name work as an excuse again? Yeah let's do that..

You see, when you're a PhD at ETH, there is apparently this thing called a 'Proposal Defence'. Before getting into ETH, I had never heard of it, as it is not common in the Netherlands. The proposal defence is one of the two major deadlines during your PhD (the other being the defence of your actual thesis): before the first year is up (but at the end of your first year), you have to present your 'proposal' for the rest of your PhD to the committee. In order to make it appealing, a mere schedule and some vague plans are not enough: you basically have to show everything you have done so far (or generate results very quickly), and give a very detailed plan, including methods, time estimation, etc. This is also one of the most likely stages where you could potentially get fired. After this, you are pretty safe. So: it's a big deal.

Needless to say, when the date for your proposal defence comes nearer and nearer you realise more and more that you actually do not have enough results to fill the 'approximately' 10 pages report. So, you go into panic mode and work. At least, that is what I did. I sacrificed a total of 3 weekends (farewell!) and worked more hours than usual during the week, although I did not work crazy hours: I know I'm not productive when I try that. In the end, I did have a report of 37 pages and some (nice?) results, so I guess it was worth it? In any case, the committee let me pass (after a discussion/question round, which made me sweat a lot. I know they should ask me things, but it was nerve-racking.. )

My proposal defence was July 11, 2016 and I started really working on it (or rather: generating the results) somewhere in May. Busy times.

Unfortunately, these two months of work coincided with a lot of travel (most of them work related), so I was (and still am) a bit knackered.

To get over this, I am going on a (well-deserved) holiday soon to ... *wait for it* ... Japan! Not sure if I'll be completely rested afterwards, but it should be at least very awesome.

Before I will post pictures of Japan though, I wanted to share my recent (work-related) trips with you.

The first trip (which was just for fun, not work) was Tatort Jungfrau during the Pentecost weekend: a detective game in the Swiss Alps (Jungfrau region), where you have to find clues located everywhere in the area. It was a fun way of discovering one of Switzerland's most beautiful scenery.


Snowy landscapes at Kleine Scheidegg


( Click here if you want more pictures )

Next trip I will tell you about is the PhD retreat in the black forest in Germany. Stay tuned!

Last Thursday (on our sneaky extra free day) I decided to take matters into my own hands and proposed a 'lazy people mountain day trip'. Very soon, we had established the Lazy People Group, consisting out of 4 people.

We decided to go to Mount Rigi near the Vierwaldstättersee and take the cogwheel train up to the top, instead of walking up (we are the Lazy People Group, after all). The weather was great and the views were breathtaking, so I will share my most pretty pictures with you now!

Taking the cogwheel train up
After going to Arth-Goldau by train from Zürich, we took the cogwheel train up. This ride lasted for about 45 minutes and was very scenic. You should definitely go on this train once (even if you’d normally rather walk up the mountain), because you’ll see great views from spots you can’t always reach yourself.


N. and F. are in the right spirit! We were very lucky when we took the train, as we were in the old, cosy train!


Train looks cute, doesn’t it?

Views at the highest train station Rigi Kulm
This is the view you are greeted with immediately after stepping out of the train:



( More views from the train station )

Views from the hotel/restaurant
F., who was in charge of maximising the laziness of the day, soon found an elevator which took us one level up, to the hotel/restaurant with, again, very pretty views!

Me!

( More views from the hotel/restaurant )

Views from the top
After laughing a bit at our laziness with the elevator, we took the gentle path upwards (total distance ~300 m) to the absolute top of the mountain. This path was marked with a statue of an old man with a cane. Laziness maximised again! The other path, by the way, (which was shorter, but much steeper), was indicated by a statue of a fine, young, backpacking guy. Of course.



( More views at the very top! )

On our way back from the top to the restaurant, we were not really paying attention and hence missed the path for both the lazy or elderly people and for backpacking guys. Hence, we chose our own path and just walked down over grass and snow. This was the first indication that our group name might be changed eventually to the Somewhat Lazy People Group.

Hike from Rigi Kulm to Rigi Staffel
After a lunch at the restaurant (I had a bratwurst with fries), which was expensive but okay, and a visit to the souvenir shop, we decided to walk down to the next cogwheel train station, as that was not too far (we started to really become a Somewhat Lazy People Group).

We hiked from all the way up there!

( More views during the hike from Rigi Kulm to Rigi Staffel )

Hike from Rigi Staffel to Rigi Klösterli
We were (surprisingly) still in good shape when we reached the cogwheel station and we decided that we actually wanted to hike a little more; not in the least because when you hike, you see a different view every twist and turn, which is amazing! Unfortunately, the next stretch of the trail/path next to the cogwheel tracks that we had been following so far, was still snowed under, so we couldn’t take that. Fortunately, J. found a path which was even suitable for prams from Rigi Staffel to Rigi Klösterli. This was a nice 40 minute walk on a very well-maintained path (although I’m not sure if it would really be that suitable for prams, but Swiss people are special, so maybe they would be able to use it for prams after all..).



( Views during the hike from Rigi Staffel to Rigi Kloesterli )

Hike from Kräbel to Arth-Goldau
When we reached Rigi Klösterli (which was again a cogwheel train station), we decided to take the train down a few stops, because the total hiking time back to the main station in Arth Goldau was over 2 hours, and even though we were quite active so far, we are still the Somewhat Lazy People Group :p.
So, we ended up taking the train from Rigi Klösterli to Kräbel from which we walked all the way to the main station of Arth-Goldau.



( More views from Kraebel to Arth-Goldau )

It was a lovely, lovely walk. While waiting for our train back to Zürich, we had some ice cream and when we arrived in Zürich, we had some drinks in the park. It was a lovely, great, amazing, somewhat lazy day and I can’t wait to go to the mountains again!