Jonathan Fors

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Hem, ljuva hem

Wednesday, December 16, 2009 – 19:47

And here the autumn semester ends. I’m sitting here in Zürich Airport, waiting for the flight to Arlanda.

Normally, access to WiFi hotspots like the one I am on right now costs money, but once again I realize how good it is to be a student at the ETH. Without having to pay anything I have direct access to the university VPN network, a nice deal between the ETH and most Wi-Fi providers around Switzerland. That means that I can work with schoolwork and surf the web for free.

It seems like there’s about 30-40 cm of snow in Västerås today, hopefully there’ll be a white Christmas this year. So nice to have a bit of holiday!

By Jonathan Fors | Posted in English, Life | Comments (3)

Music for the neighbors

Monday, December 14, 2009 – 08:11

This semester passed by at enormous speed and in just two days it’s time to fly back to Sweden for the holidays. I plan on meeting many friends and catch up with the latest news from Sweden.

Two of the people I’ll meet are Daniel and Marc, of whom I took this photo this summer. They are in action doing some jazz improvisation on Marc’s balcony, spreading music all over Bäckby. It is difficult to put it down in words how much fun we had that evening, singing and playing music in the open.

Music for the Neighbors
By Jonathan Fors | Posted in English, Photos | Comments (0)

Someone should get their IQ checked out

Monday, December 14, 2009 – 04:02

Yesterday I sat in my study, working with photos and schoolwork when I got a telephone call. Robin gave me a heads up about a demonstration going on in downtown Zürich, he knows that I like new photography challenges. Without a hesitation I grabbed my camera gear and took the first tram towards the city. When I arrived the protest march was just about to start walking. There had been a rally at the Rathaus, but now it was time to make their way to Paradeplatz, the Swiss capital center and the headquarters of many major banks. Located right at Bahnhofstrasse, the main shopping street, it was full of people shopping for Christmas gifts.

Demonstration

Why the organizers decided that Paradeplatz was the place to be is really beyond me. The protest was all about the situation at the University of Zürich (that means, unrelated to the ETH at which I am enrolled), and now they wanted to show their disgust…with the banks? And if they didn’t lose enough credibility doing that, there was only one banner about the university issue. The rest was all red flags with stars and logotypes of leftist and communist groups. Talk about a failed protest.

Anyway, I’m not taking any side in the demonstration, my mission was to take photos. And there came a great opportunity, because as the march was just about to enter Paradeplatz several police vans raced to the scene and out jumped fully-equipped and armored riot police. Their intent to block the entry to the financial center was made very clear.

Crowd Control

As a photographer it is important to be observant of what is going on around yourself. Where is the action taking place? Which lens and which angle should I use in the current situation? Getting close to the action is crucial to get the best photos, and I made sure to do just that. In the above photo I stood just a few meters behind the police. Two seconds later I was thrust back into the crowd; I guess I stood in their way. It was alright – I already had my winner photo and was satisfied.

Riot police

The demonstration was eventually allowed to continue out to Paradeplatz. Here the left-wing demonstrators really got up to speed, and all I could see were communist slogans and waving red flags. The goal of being at Paradeplatz was apparently to block the trams and poke fun at the banks.

The demonstrators target UBS

I don’t think any of that contributed to their cause, upsetting hundreds of commuters (Paradeplatz is one of the most important junction points in the tram network) and requiring the above-mentioned large-scale police response. (It should be added that the demonstration looked peaceful, whether that was its nature or if that only was because of the power demonstration of the police remains unclear)

Demonstration reaches Paradeplatz
So this was what I did to lighten up a grey Saturday afternoon. Among the lessons learned was that one needs more than one camera to document this such large events. One with a wide-angle lens, the other with a powerful zoom. Time spend on changing lenses is time lost. But, being an amateur I can only dream of such purchases and keep on rocking with the handy D80 camera I have.
By Jonathan Fors | Posted in English, Fun, Photos | Tagged demonstration, street photography, zürich | Comments (2)

Zürichsee

Sunday, December 13, 2009 – 06:55

Felsenegg is a great place, and I’ll definitely return later for some more nice sunset photos. This next one was taken over the Lake of Zürich (Zürichsee) about 45 minutes after sunset. I just love the contrast between the still blue sky, the blue lake, the orange streetlights and the green fields.

Zürichsee from Felsenegg
By Jonathan Fors | Posted in Life | Comments (3)

Davos

Thursday, December 10, 2009 – 01:54

I didn’t stay in Zürich long after I came back from St. Moritz. I have been taking part in an Alpha course this semester, and we went on a weekend in Davos, Graubünden together. Davos, a small city and the most elevated one in Europe is an interesting place with unproportionally  many shops for just 10 000 people. This place really lives off tourists and people attending various small conferences.

In Zürich the weather is business as usual: no snow and relatively foggy. When we arrived in Davos the weather there was also as usual: Much snow and clear skies. Yummy!

Davos Schützalp

We had a lot of teaching and worship mixed with food and fellowship. We had the Saturday afternoon off, and most of us went to do something that I haven’t done in many years: sledding! You definitely don’t have to be young to enjoy that, trust me.

Sledding on Davos Schützalp
Sledding

But for some strange reason the snow wasn’t just used for peaceful purposes like sledding. Some of the people in the above photo returned home with snow both on the outside and inside of their clothes…

When we came back to the apartment we had more predigt followed by a feast of Fondue. I considered finishing the cheese in one big gulp, but I chickened out.

Fondue cheese

In the night we made Glühwein, but only after building a bar disk in the snow outside the apartment. We had a lot of fun building, and also here there were some incidents with flying snow…

Glühwein

I made many new friends and experienced both the very nice city of Davos and some awesome moments of prayer this weekend. Many moments will stay in my heart for a long time!

The next Swiss place to visit will definitely be Walensee. We passed by there on the way back home and it was a stunning sight.

For all you photography geeks: Look closely on the last photo you’ll see the little thing with the red dot standing on the “bar disk”. That is my trusty SB-800 firing from remote with the wide area diffusor enabled. Camera set to Manual exposure on tripod, fully automatic TTL flash command mode, photo taken via the very useful IR remote control I had in my hand + timed release. A few simple tricks like that and you’ll get awesome results and impressed friends!

By Jonathan Fors | Posted in English, Life, Photos | Tagged davos, excursion, nikon, sb-800, switzerland | Comments (0)

St. Moritz

Wednesday, December 9, 2009 – 00:03

You want to know what’s great about Zürich? I’ll tell you what. Last week I went to school, unsuspecting about the coming adventures. Talking to some friends during lunchtime I heard that they were planning a ski trip. The same evening I, two other Swedes, one Norwegian and two Dutchmen boarded the train that would take us to St. Moritz.

That’s it — you don’t need to plan long eight-hour trips like back home, the Alps are just around the corner. In fact, they are visible from ETH on a clear day, rising monumentally above the horizon. Skiers paradise. The train left Zürich HB at half past seven and the trip took us almost three hours, which actually is kind of a long trip since St. Moritz is relatively far away from Zürich. The reason for going so late in the evening is that all of us has a Gleis 7 card that allows you to go by the Swiss trains for free after seven o’clock. The six of us occupied sixteen seats in the train because of all the skiing equipment…

In the train

The weather was perfect. There had been heavy snowfall during the weekend and the weather report predicted 130 centimeters of powder. I didn’t type that number wrong, we expected one point three meters of fresh, wonderful snow. We arrived in Celerina near St. Moritz at Tuesday evening and checked in to the hostel. There was overcast, but we hoped for better weather in the morning. A good night’s sleep later the alarm clocks went of early in the morning. Martin went up to check the weather. His first report was a dissapointing “I can see overcast”, which was followed by an excited “Wait… I can see stars!”. It marked the beginning of a very good day.

Sunshine

I have never before experienced off-piste skiing that was so demanding. My friends are very good skiers (and snowboarders), so they found some, hrm… interesting paths down the mountain. Since there’d been so much snowing many pistes were closed, and the avalance risk was higher than usual at 3 out of 5. We took precautions and equipped ourselves with active transponders and shovels just to be safe.

Transponder

The weather report didn’t lie when it talked about the snow. Robin even got stuck when he took of his snowboard because he sunk down shoulders-deep into the powder. :)

Lunchtime

A helicopter was flying around the mountain all afternoon, landing and taking off many times from the same place. Only later I understood that they were dropping explosives on the slopes, setting off controlled avalanches.

Helibernina Chopper

Floating in powder way above ground is an awesome feeling. The skis don’t make a sound and you land soft when you tumble around. The snow is untouched and you find your own path down the slope. Combine that with blue skies, no wind and a temperature of a few degrees below zero and you’ve got the perfect day of skiing. It doesn’t get any better. Value for the money? Absolutely!

St. Moritz
I'm a gibber!

Wonderful Switzerland!

By Jonathan Fors | Posted in English, Life, Photos | Tagged excursion, switzerland | Comments (5)

Zürich International Tram Party

Tuesday, December 1, 2009 – 01:51

November was surprisingly warm, with temperatures above 15 degrees Celsius. That took an end today as the first snow started to fall on Zürich. Not enough to leave a cover of snow here in the city, but I would expect some serious snow in the Alps. The following photo is to demonstrate how the weather does not look right now:

Zürich blue and white tram

I am really beginning to feel like home here, as if this is the obvious place to be. I have less and less trouble speaking to my Swiss friends in their native language, and taking the tram everywhere you go seems just as normal as eating and breathing. In fact, they are a good place to party!

Tram Party

Yes, we spent two hours riding tram no. 4, partying as we went. Since the “blue four” tram is the one everyone here at Meierwiesenstrasse takes to go downtown, it was the place to be! I think we well exceeded our “international student” stereotypes, doing stuff that natives wouldn’t dream of.

Tram 4 nach Werdhölzli

Of course we had to run out at every stop and take a group photo. I don’t think the driver was too happy about it, since we blocked the doors until everybody could get back in again, thus preventing the tram to leave.

Rudolf and Sam guard the doors

Our fellow passengers seemed a little confused to as what we really were doing, running in and out of the trams shouting and laughing. This made it even more funny. The only thing we really lacked was music, since the guy with the portable speakers wasn’t able to join us.

Group photo at Central

Central (above) is where you get off to get to the universities. We made sure to get a good picture.

Oh, yes, I shouldn’t forget posting another photo from last week’s excursion. This was when it was warm outside:

Morning sun over St. Gallen
By Jonathan Fors | Posted in English, Fun, Life, Photos | Comments (8)

Roots of Sihlwald

Monday, November 23, 2009 – 19:11

Since I had a day-pass for the whole Canton of Zürich I was free to take any train, bus or boat I wanted. The Sihl valley was a place I had not seen, so I took the S4 tram as far as possible and ended up in Sihlwald, a forest just beside the river. I found this interesting root formation just at the trail.

Roots of Sihlwald
By Jonathan Fors | Posted in English, Photos | Tagged excursion, switzerland | Comments (1)

Blue hour

Sunday, November 22, 2009 – 22:51
Zürich from Felsenegg

I was on a photo tour of the Canton of Zürich yesterday, and will upload some photos in the next coming days. The above photo was taken from Felsenegg during the “blue hour” just after sunset, for which I waited over an hour. ETH is clearly visible as the lit square building right in the middle of the photo.

Nikon D80, Nikkor 18-200 f/3.5-5.6 @200mm, f/11

By Jonathan Fors | Posted in English, Photos | Tagged excursion, zürich | Comments (2)

58. Rudermatch Uni-Poly

Thursday, November 19, 2009 – 00:19

Like many other places that have competing universities Zürich sports an academic rowing match. Of course, it is the ETH and the University of Zürich that fight for the prize, and takes place on the Limmat river. The ETH and “Uni” are just across the street to each other, and while the relationship seems friendly that is not the fact during this annual event. :)   I and many others from Meierwiesenstrasse went to Münsterbrücke to get a good view of the competition and, most importantly, to cheer for ETH. There were three classes: Men, Women and Professors, but what of course attracted the most attention was the Men’s class.

The competition starts on the Lake of Zürich, enters the Limmat and goes downstream for a few hundred meters, passing under Quaibrücke and Münsterbrücke before crossing the finish line on the way to Rathausbrücke.

Poly beats Uni

We knew that ETH (in this race always nicknamed “Poly” after its old name of “Polytechnikum”)  wouldn’t have much of a chance, since the Uni had won for the last eighteen years and were supposed to have a superior rowing team this year as well. Because of this, many people became excited to see that Poly had a large lead over the Uni boat already after Quaibrücke in the first race. We cheered for Poly as they crossed the finish line first, defeating a baffled Uni team. One more win and the challenge prize would hang in the ETH for the first time in almost two decades.

Quaibrücke and the Alps

The Poly Women’s team also did very good, beating the Uni with a good margin. The Uni professors were stronger than their Poly counterparts, though. (Note the very nice view over the lake in the above photo, it’s always nice being able to see the Alps rise at the horizon)

Poly Professors

The second round proved decisive. The Uni professors and the Poly girls secured their respective victories. People were now very excited for the men’s last race, and there was a small delay as the crews were preparing the boat. It was difficult to determine the leader from where we stood when they passed under Quaibrücke, but it soon became apparent that “Poly” was on their way of returning home with the prize this year.

58. Rudermatch Uni-Poly

People were shouting from the bridge and cheering “Poly! Poly! Poly” as the white-and-blue team pulled their final strokes over the finish line.

Poly Rowing Team going for the win

Happy and inspired by the event we took the tram back to Meierwiesenstrasse for some Saturday studying.

By Jonathan Fors | Posted in English, Fun, Photos | Tagged ETH Zürich, zürich | Comments (0)
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