Back in the US

The new decade just started and it's time to write something in this blog again...especially since I (finally) updated my Web Albums. Since it's likely that I update the pictures more often than this blog, you may want to check the rss feed on picasa or see the updates in facebook.
So much for the organizational part, but what happened since the last post (which was in spring 2008)?

First of all I graduated in summer 2008. So now I'm a so called Master of Science ETH in Computer Science (or in the old school fashion: Dipl. Ing. Inf.) and since I couldn't get enough of ETH I stayed there to pursue a PhD (doctor) and do some research.
So much about work but what about travels?

Since this blog is about traveling, I should write about that part too and shortly go over some of the albums I uploaded. First one is not too far of a travel but a nice experience nonetheless. The European soccer championships came to Switzerland (and Austria) in 2008 and Italy played 2 games in Zurich. I was lucky enough to get some tickets and went to see those games (the only ones where Italy actually played decently).

Once I graduated at ETH, I also finished my UNITECH exchange program and got a diploma from them too...and best of all was that all UNITECH graduates were to get those in Barcelona. So, I spent some nice days in the Catalan capital and got to see and photograph many of Gaudì's masterpiece.

2008 ended, 2009 started and I moved to a flat in Zurich. I share an apartment there with a fellow PhD student and you can find 2 pictures of the house here.
A nice thing of being a PhD student is that you get to go to conferences to learn about the latest developments in research (and to show off own results if possible). Conferences may or may not be worth mentioning in terms of sight-seeing but some places like Ascona (with its ETH-owned conference center on top of Monte Verità) are quite photogenic and so I mention it here.
In summer even PhD students can get some time off and I used that to sight-see Prague and to visit relatives in San Fele (my parents' hometown). As I took the plane to Italy and the closest airport is in Naples (about 2h from San Fele) we decided to stop on the way in Caserta to take a look at the Versailles-style Palace there.

Now, the title of the post was back in the US and so I should shortly elaborate on that. My professor is spending 9 months at his former university in the US and has been sending his students around the world a bit. The result for me was that in September, he asked whether I wanted to join him in California for winter, until the end of the month it was finalized and a month later (after the usual paperwork) in late October I was on a plane to sunny California. But enough for this post which is getting too long...I'll write more on it in the next few days...promised...after all, I can't just upload all those albums without writing something about it... ;-)