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It all begun in September 2009 at Arlanda Airport.

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The two-hour flight to Zürich-Kloten landed me in a warm and familiar city, the city where i was born. I took the tram to the student house in Altstetten where I got to the small room that was to be my home for the next 12 months.

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I was not alone in the house, there were in total 170 students from all over the world…sharing one kitchen. Imagine the mess!

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The ETH Zürich is an impressive university, with a magnificent main building.

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We used to live in that yellow house up that road in Siggenthal.

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I found a second home in the ICF church.

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Having bought a generous train ticket I was able to cheaply travel around the beautiful country and see many sights of the country. I took several trips, on my own and with my Swedish friend Martin.

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I was able to capture some nice shots of the Zürich police intervening in a demonstration.

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Switzerland equals skiing and snow!

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After winter comes the spring. The warm temperatures came back quickly, and around Easter it was possible to go swimming for the first time.

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Zürich is especially beautiful in the spring.

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One of the crazier events during the year was the International Pillow Fight Day that took place at Bellevue.

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The Swiss train system is legendary and I spent many hours commuting and traveling on rails. This was my home station, Zürich-Altstetten

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The main station in the city is the Zürich Hauptbahnhof, around which the entire city is built.

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Almost every station in Switzerland is built to the same functional style. This is the station of Spiez.

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Summer means city festivals and warm evenings.

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The mountains can be breathtaking, to say the least.

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Stein am Rhein.

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I eventually joined the music team in the church, and got baptized!

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It would be impossible to give an exhaustive list of friends, so I’ll just show a few photos of a small portion of the people who have meant a lot to me for this year.

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Sam (photo just above) was kind enough to take the initiative for a goodbye party for me. A nice way to say farewell!

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On August 24th 2010, the airplane left for Stockholm and Sweden.

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12 months of intensive studies in Zürich are over.

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Everything I do right now is focused on passing the exam on Monday, planning and packing will have to be done the night before I leave. Exams are interesting. I always come into a sort of high when working so focused during extended periods. All other things just fade away and my productivity doubles. The theme of the week is probability theory, I am in the process of memorizing proofs and definitions from a 130-page script. Two days until H-hour.

I have come to like oral exams, as they test more understanding than mechanical calculations. I find it easier to communicate complicated concept in, say, maths and physics, when you are talking to the professor. What I don’t like about the ETH examination session is that it is located at the end of the summer, nullifying your summer vacation. I’m going to be the palest person in my class when I come back home…

Seems like the new Yi students have got their blogs set up. It will be interesting to follow their adventures in the big world of Yi! I also really like the new front page design of our blog system. I guess that I will remain syndicated there until my return home. Follow the blogs here.

Things look bright for this upcoming semester in Linköping. I have very interesting courses in physics planned, and will also be mentoring new students (“nollan”) in the wonders of linear algebra together with Christopher. Time to meet many an old friend and live in an apartment with your own kitchen! I’m quite sick and tired of the dorm here at Meierwiesenstrasse.

Alright, enough writing for this time. Back to the probability theory…probably…

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“Not again”, was my first thought as I heard the alarm, before putting on my shoes and reaching for the Speed Freak. “Let’s make the best of the situation and snap some quick shots of the firemen.”

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It was some automatic alarm on the fourth floor this time. (To be clear: no fire) I was a bit annoyed as I was just going to sleep. The firefighters were quickly on the scene, but really took their time in the corridor, looking through fire plans before finding the rooms.57137

As the fire captain searched the rooms for the non-existent fire, some of us went to chat with the firefighters standing by at the trucks. Juan was curious about the rescue ladder.

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The firemen were really relaxed and funny, but had to say no to a game of Töggeli because they were on duty. The girls were “super-excited” to have all these good-looking firemen around, and they of course wanted photos.

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Perhaps you recognize the guy on the right side of the frame. He’s been here before.

I know that my neighbors want to download the photos, so I’ve made it easy for you guys. Follow this link to download a zip archive, everything’s included there. Please be kind to my server. I have limited bandwidth and wouldn’t be able to cope if everyone hammered the connection. Thank you. (The link will be removed in a couple of days)

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The city of Basel is located on the Rhine, not too far from Dreiländereck (“three-country corner”, where the borders of France, Switzerland and Germany meet).

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The weather was quite something. 35 degrees Celsius, at 5 in the afternoon. Don’t want to know what it was around lunchtime…

As I walked from the Rhine to Marktplatz I saw a police squad turn its sirens off, stop the car and exit the vehicle. As  I followed them, hoping to get a photo of policemen in action, they joined up with a number of their collegues. They had circulated a block of houses, apparently watching or guarding something.

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As soon as I pulled up the camera the policemen hid behind street signs, walked out of the way or turned their heads away. They seemed slightly agitated of having a photographer nearby, and one of them walked up to me and politely asked “Haben Sie einen Ausweis?”. (Do you have an Ausweis?). The German word Ausweis is ambiguous here and could either mean a license to take photos or identification papers. I answered in English (I always do that when I need a language advantage) “Yes, I have identification”. The policeman then responded “Please don’t take too much [sic] pictures of me” and walked back to his post.

I suspect they were about to arrest somebody, but don’t understand why they were so agitated about me being there. This was a public part in one of the most touristy areas of Basel, and people are carrying cameras in abundance. The officer was polite, yes, but I was a little annoyed about being approached. Good that the Basel police has some manners, in comparison to the London Metropolitan Police.

I waited around for a few minutes, but nothing seemed to happen and I wanted to catch a train that was about to leave. It was time to I make my way to the combined SBB and SNCF train station. It was now after seven in the evening, and thus my Gleis 7 card allowed me unlimited travel by train.

Next stop: Liestal.

The Canton of Basel is a half-canton and consists of the two parts Basel-Stadt and Basel-Landchaft. Basel (the city) is the capital of Basel-Stadt (the canton), whereas the tiny town of Liestal (13’000 inhabitants) is the capital of Basel-Landschaft. This was really a boring place, and big rainclouds were gathering in the sky. I walked around a bit before I crossed a bridge over the Frenke river. Two girls were swimming with their dog and were talking to a friend on the bridge. Seeing that I was a photographer,  they wanted me to take their picture. That photo will have to suffice for the Canton of Basel-Landschaft.

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Back at the station, I saw that the S-Bahn to Olten was about to leave. Olten is located in Solothurn, another canton I haven’t been in. Why not? I can take any train for free!

As I arrived in Olten, the ICN express train headed for the canton’s eponymous capital arrived at the platform. Improvising again, I stepped aboard. The ICN trains are the fastest Swiss trains, and I swoosched past the Solothurn landscape in over 200 km/h. (The device in the picture is my GPS logger)

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Solothurn

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Hm… Wildbachstrasse. That must mean “Forsgatan” in Swedish. My own road!

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It was getting late and I could just manage a few minutes in town before the Postauto took me back to the station, where another ICN waited to take me home to Zürich. I didn’t want to get home too late.

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Coming back to the student house I saw that people were excited. I asked about the bronze match in the World Cup, and they were all “Yeah we [Germans] won alright, but you should have SEEN the weather!!” I looked around and saw that the yard was filled with tree branches and leaves, and that the lounge had a smell of algae and dirt.

I was told that there had been extreme rainfall and very powerful winds in the evening. It was so bad that rain water flooded the entrances and got into the lounge via the doors and windows. The house is located only 150 cm above the ground water level, and this probably contributed to the flooding. In a few minutes (an Indian friend of mine said “Man, I’ve seen the Indian monsoon, but that was nothing compared to this”) there was almost a decimeter of water in the ground floor and kitchen. The house representatives mobilized with the inhabitants, wielding mops and buckets. It had passed by in about half an hour, but it was quite surreal to come back home and hear about this. I had just seen the clouds in Liestal, but never felt any rain. Guess I was lucky.

Water had also flooded the elevators, so they are temporarily out of order. Grr…

Anyway, with the Gleis 7 card, improvised travelling is both easy and cheap. And the Swiss railway system is, as I’ve said before, awesome. Just go to the station and a take a new route you haven’t seen. Get ready for the adventure.

Time to update my Swiss Challenge stats. Just five cantons left now!

Swiss challenge
Zürich, Bern, Luzern, Uri, Schwyz, Obwalden, Nidwalden, Glarus, Zug, Fribourg, Solothurn, Basel Stadt, Basel Land, Schaffhausen, Appenzell Ausserrhoden, Appenzell Innerrhoden, Sankt Gallen, Graubünden, Aargau, Thurgau, Ticino, Vaud, Valais, Neuchâtel, Genève, Jura

Since I got to Zürich in September last year I’ve found sort of a second home in ICF. Monday evenings with the smallgroup, Tuesdays rehearsing music with the band, Wednesdays with the TWC photography workshop, Thursdays with the student group, and Zwänzger on Fridays.  Phew! No, I don’t do all things every week, so don’t worry too much about me

Zwänzger is Swiss German for “20-ish person” and is the name for the friday evening services, aimed at people of this age (like me!). As the music team was looking for a pianist when I arrived it didn’t take much time until I was playing in the band.

This last friday was one of my last times in the worship band before I go back to Linköping in August. Danny is briefing the stage team on this evening’s service.

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Almost everybody here is volunteering, and during a normal friday evening around fourty people are involved. Musicians, sound technicians, lights, video cameras, producer, ushers, stage manager… the list goes on. Everything is run very professionally, in usual Swiss manner. The goal isn’t to make a concert, though, as this is a service before God. The ultimate purpose of this evening is to lead people closer to Him, and worship music has always been a central part of the faith. I personally believe that this is the ultimate purpose of music, a tool given to us to glorify God.

The soundcheck is done, the music rehearsed and the video production stands ready. We now prepare ourselves in prayer followed by a backstage meal.

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And here is where the makeup comes in. Being on stage with video cameras it’s quite important to look well. No, no, I’m joking, there’s no way I’d wear makeup for that purpose. The stage gets rather warm in a city that currently has 30+ degrees of heat, and even dry skin looks rather strange and shiny on the monitors. The “makeup” is in fact just a matte cover to prevent this.

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The service starts at eight in the evening. Worship music, followed by Danny’s message (the current series is about grace). Zwänzger is, as you might have guessed, completely a Swiss German-speaking event.

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As the pianist I back up the preacher or MC during the prayer. Gotta love that piano+strings patch on the Motif keyboard!

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So that was a little about the friday evenings at ICF. Hope you enjoyed it; and remember to pop in to Zwänzger if you are in town on a friday!

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This last weekend the “Züri Fäscht” has been going on. As it occurs only every three years, it is a huge happening. Two million people were in town these days. (To get a sense of scale: Zürich has a population of ~360’000, Switzerland 7 million).

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The whole city center was closed off for traffic, and the streets were packed with people. Food stands, tivolis, music, fireworks… you name it.

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The main attraction during the day was the Patrouille Suisse, the acrobatic team of the Swiss Luftwaffe.

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But the night sported the biggest attraction. A 30-minute programme by a skilled pyrotechnic artist made the whole Zürich region stop and watch.

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Oh yeah, as I wrote in the last post we watched Germany play against Argentina. With the number of Germans living in the house, the mood was on top

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Pros:

• The tram stops right outside the door
• Downtown within 20 minutes

Cons:

• Tram rails require maintenance
• Trams run during the day
• Maintenance can only be done during the night

I don’t mind the trams themselves, but I do mind the sound of metal grinding in my sleep.

Grossmünster in moonlight.

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Update 6 July 2010: Did some improvements to the photo.

We had a little bit of action at the student house at Meierwiesenstrasse today. I was taking a nap when I woke up to the sound of fire klaxons. Seems like someone or something has triggered the fire alarm, so there was nothing else to do than to make your way to the nearest exit. On the way out I instinctively grabbed my always-ready camera bag – I knew the fire brigade was on its way. Photo time!

As usual, click on any photo to magnify or to browse the album.

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Within a few minutes two big trucks, including a rescue ladder, arrived to the scene with full speed.

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Nobody was surprised that the cause was inside the kitchen; someone had forgot a piece of bread in the oven. There was a strong burnt smell inside the house, and some smoke was still visible when the firemen arrived.

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Everyone was safe, so the firemen switched the alarm off and returned to their vehicles.

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A little action in the otherwise quite uneventful exam week, and once again I got to practice my photojournalism skills. Always, always keep your camera ready!

Everything had run like clockwork; the fire alarm, fire brigade withing ten minutes, and the housekeeper and a security guard arrived shortly thereafter. The Swiss have done it again. And the unlucky person who forgot bread in the oven might have to pay 2000 CHF for the false alarm. Wow.

“En bulle i ugnen”, as you might say in Swedish…or did I just misunderstand that idiom?

Update: A reader pointed out that the expression “en bulle i ugnen” is just as valid in English as “a bun in the oven”. I hadn’t even bothered to check that. The headline thus reads “A bun in the oven can have serious consequences” in English.

A Swiss/Japanese evning with lots of people from ICF.
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David thought it a to be a good idea to invent a new type of sushi: Chocolate.
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I always lend the camera to someone else at parties. That way I (usually) get lots of good photos while not having to be the remembered as “the guy with the camera”. Those who try the camera always take many pictures, since most of them never have operated a fast camera with a good lens before. Another benefit is that you get photos of yourself, something that becomes a problem if you are a photographer.

Stepan, Florian and I are having some kind of discussion.
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Anyone can take good photos with an external flash, as long as the camera is set to be fully automatic with TTL; Me and my new haircut.

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The Latinos spiced up the evening with some groovy music and we started to dance.

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A crazy group photo (I’m lying on the floor to create an interesting perspective)
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A very nice evening with good food (thank Yuki!) and lots of friends. A good way to prepare for the upcoming exams.