28th March 2006 - Day 162

Both of us were operating only on a few hours of sleep as too much nonsense was sprouted yesterday night.

Plans have been made to crash Qicong’s German lesson in the morning. But it’ll depend on whether the teacher in charge would agree to it or not.

We left the place at around 0835 and caught the 0845 train back to Zürich city. The Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH) is located right smack in the center of the city. It’s recognized as the top notch technical university in Switzerland.

We took the Polybahn up the slopes of ETH. The Polybahn is a fully automated cog wheel train that ferries people up every 3 minutes. Not unlike shuttle bus services.

On the Polybahn, we met the teacher in charge of the class. Since the opportunity presents itself, I asked her if I could join her class as a Gasthörer after the usual Q&A session.

Not surprisingly, she agreed. The next 1.5 hours was spent revising some foundation and deciphering some newspaper.

During the break, we went to a museum in the ETH which was similar to the
Raffles Biodiversity Museum, only that it was much more diverse in the amount of specimen on display.

Commonly seen: little children on ETH campus

Qicong had to go back to classes. I wandered for another half an hour inside the museum before going to the Hauptbahnhof for some tourist information. After which, I roamed the city streets in search of some cheap Swiss pastries.

Well, not exactly cheap. But reasonably priced. 2 strawberry tarts for 3,90 CHF at the local supermarket chain store Coop.

Soon, it was lunch time. Being a miser and wanting to save some CHF, the registered student at ETH had to go round the Mensa queue twice so that I could get a proper meal at student price. If not, it’ll cost twice as much. It seems like they are very strict about this regulation according to Qicong who had an unpleasant experience with them.

After lunch, I went around to some of the more prominent churches in town. The weather these days doesn’t seem very good. It was raining as I walk through the city. Taking a proper photo in this weather is not easy. But I have no such problem since I was using a single use camera. No review of the photos taken and hence saving myself the trouble of taking the same shot again.

If it works, good. If not, too bad.

Once classes was over, we went to Altstetten where the Chemical Engineering Department of ETH is. The buildings look quite cool. There were display cases showing various instruments and apparatus. It’s always quite interesting to try to figure out how they work.

We went to a farm nearby where a horse was. We walked all the way in the rain to see a horse! What’s wrong with us? We don’t see a horse in a farm often in the vast land we come from. That’s why.

The horse in question

We fell prey to false advertising in a supermarket after the farm visit. No excuse for me. I could have read more carefully.

Qicong’s floormates are an international bunch coming from all of Europe. I think it is can be quite fun, learning about other culture. Possibly one of the disadvantages is that it’ll be difficult to practise German since English is used more often instead.

So, have to sleep earlier tonight after the sleep deprivation yesterday.