I had these days my first airbnb-guests - here a pic with my guests from South Korea. After their mandatory military service for two years they are travelling around Europe for a few months. In Switzerland they visited the Jungfraujoch. (I've never been up there yet.)

They couldn't believe that we've here military conscription as well, because we do not have such a neighbour as they've... 

I went to London for a conference and on my way back to Bern I took this shot - sunset over Lake Geneva

How exciting - I received today a parcel from Japan! Even though a lot of products I use daily are produced far away, at places and in countries I've never been to it is very exciting to receive a parcel from an exotic place as Japan, wrapped in UK-paper :-)

Obviously there are not only nice cookie cutters produced in Germany but also in Japan! I will use them soon, I promise!

A very swiss thing is the "Milchchäschtli" engl. milk-box, a compartment used for storing and picking up small itmes under the letter box. The milk box does not have a lock and its size (15x25x35.5 cm) is defined by the "Post regulation". If your letter box does not fulfil the regulations, the post is not obligated to deliver your mails. There are a lot of rules and regulations in Switzerland...

A friend wrote recently that it is nice to be back in a bigger city where things like this happen - although missing people in Durham. There are of course also events in smaller towns as Durham going on and also Bern is not a metropolis but it is nice to have a wider choice. 

The society BeJazz organized a winter jazz festival. I went today to the last two concerts of this festival and I really liked it! 

I thought that the name of the society stands for "to be jazz", but actually it is "Bern Jazz"... Obviously I'm still thinking a bit more than usually in english and it also happens occasionally that I'm cycling on the wrong side of the street...

I went home to my parents today. After practising for the orchestra I dug out my saxophone - since not practising anymore on a regular basis for more than ten years. Good news is I'm still able to play but after ten minutes I'm exhausted and I had to have a look to the fingering chart since I forgot some less common fingerings...

I went to work today to the big library close to my flat. It’s a great place to work with all the other hard-working students around, this has a positive effect on my productivity…

I love sweepstaking and I was already quite often lucky: cinema tickets, a watch, a hoover (when I was a kid, so I wasn’t that excited about it), snowboard pants but even inline skates.

A few month ago I thought that it is quite a while since I won something… Today I received a letter from “swissrent a sport”: I won ten day tickets to rent ski/snowboard.

Someone interested in skiing/snowboarding in Switzerland? Admittedly the more expensive thing is the ski pass…

The University Sports of the University of Bern offers a very attractive sports programme for all students and staff members: from different dance courses to swimming to Kayak to ping-pong and even rugby.

After more than one year without playing basketball I realized today how much I missed it! And I also had to realize that playing basketball with a group of 20 year old girls is as much exhausting as snowboarding with a group of 20 year old men J

That's me, on skis! Something that I haven't done since more than 15 years. And it's true, it's like cycling - you don't forget how to do it, if you learnt it once as a kid.

I also realised this weekend in Grindelwald that skiing with carving ski is quite a lot of fun - I'm not waiting for another 15 years to pass by for my next ski day, that's for sure! 

The music on the program is easy on the ear, we have a great soloist and a friendly orchestra!

Sitting in a bar in the beautiful old town of Siena, having a cappuccino, reading through the CAA conference programme and making myself ready for tomorrow after I finally printed my poster... 

One week in Italy and what I bring home (additionally to some gramme more of myself) - food and basketball shoes! I had today a few hours in Florence. The streets were packed with people. Sightseeing and visiting museums wasn't an option since I wasn't willing to wait hours in a queue. After walking around a bit a stopped by a sports store because they had such a big selection of basketball shirts also for kids in their showcase... I had already to fix my old shoes, so I was hoping to find some shoes in my size. Here they are: my brand new And1 and they were even on sale. It was the perfect ending to a great week :)

At the end of this winter season I went to Zermatt - skiing and snowboarding one more time, it was amazing!

The almost perfect pyramidal peak of the Matterhorn overlooks the small town of Zermatt in the canton of Valais. This year is the 150th anniversary of the first ascent.

Most people know the logo of the Toblerone: a picture of the Matterhorn with an image of a bear hidden. The bear is symbolizing the town of the chocolate's origin, the Toblerone was created 1908 in Bern. Bern University took over the Tobler chocolate factory and converted it into a library and lecture theatres, which openend in 1993. Today, the chocolate is produced outside of Bern, 35'000 t per year *yummy*

Even MacGyver knew that a swiss knife is a very useful tool - e.g. helping strangers to open a bottle of wine or to cut a slice of mum's cake aboard a train...

I received a newsletter: it's only 50 days to go for the Gigathlon. I've to admit that I'm not ready for it yet. I really have to exercise! So I went inlineskating tonight (after working the whole beautiful day inside) and catched the sunset.

for not sitting at home in front of my computer - but I don't have a choice. Six weeks to go...

Great place for tea and cake - and for work as well!