This week, on Wednesday and Thursday, my group (all 16 of us!) went on a retreat to
St. Moritz. I apparently picked a good time to come to ETH- just in time for the retreat! We met really early on Wednesday morning at the central train station in Zurich, and then took the train out to St. Mortitz. We stayed at hotel
Lej da Staz outside of St. Moritz, which also had some facilities for meetings and such.
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| The hotel. |
We had meetings all afternoon and talked about where the group has been, where the group is and where we are going. It was really interesting and helpful to get some perspective and to hear about what research people are doing right now. In the evening we had a really nice dinner and played parlor games, which was more interesting with a diverse crowd of people and backgrounds. Luckily, we didn't make it to playing a German language game- I am like a deer in headlights when someone starts speaking German to me.
On Thursday morning we went on a hike mostly along they valley with some beautiful lakes. It had been rainy on Wednesday, but it cleared off and was really nice for the hike. This beautiful hike ended at
Hotel Waldhaus for lunch and a tour from the owner thanks to our hike guide. The afternoon finished with some strategic planning and brainstorming sessions before the train ride home.
It was a really nice retreat- helpful for me to get to know people a little better. It also started quite a bit of thinking on part about the future and what I want to do when I grow up. Talk about overwhelming but good all at the same time!
For those of you wondering if any work is getting done here, I did do my first two photolysis experiments today! :)
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| Start of the hike. It was really cold: 40F or something! |
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| Along the hike. |
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| Village where the Waldhaus was. |
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| View from our meeting room at the hotel. |
