When I first looked at the plan at 4am, which was the time we met up, the first impression that I got was that the schedule was really tight. Since it was very early, there wasn’t a lot of traffic on the roads, so in the airport we managed to get some time buying food before boarding the plane. While I was thinking about how I could spend the free time efficiently to buy souvenirs for my friends and parents, the flight captain suddenly announced that we could not take off on time due to French air traffic control strikes. It really frustrated me as this had wasted us an entire two hours waiting on the plane. As a result, we missed lunchtime in Cern and grabbed a quick baguette at Geneva Airport.

CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, is famous for the Large Hadron Collider that lies under the France-Switzerland border near Geneva. It is the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator with a circumference of 27 kilometres. It allows physicists to test the predictions of different theories of particle physics. We were glad to see the Low Energy Ion RIng (LIER) there, which is a particle accelerator that fires lead ions into the Large Hadron Collider. We also saw the central control room, one of the museums and most importantly, the gift shop.

After the tour, we took the tram to the central business district of Geneva. We strolled along the promenade of Lake Geneva and Jet d’Eau (the water fountain), which was definitely the highlight.

Jamie W, Year 13