CERN

We have a very tired department this morning as we arrived back from CERN at midnight last night.

It was worth the tiredness though. On Wednesday we arrived in Switzerland, booked into our hotel and then headed to Geneva for a tour of the United Nations building. We'd not done that before and it was a bit of a last minute thought but I think we'll probably do it again as it was a really interesting tour and the students all said they enjoyed it.

After a night on the town in Geneva we were up bright and early for our day at CERN. First we had a talk about the history of CERN and what they do there, then we were driven to the far side of the ring to visit the CMS cavern. This was a first for us and very impressive! If only we'd been there 2 days earlier - they had the detector open then for maintenance, but now it's closed again as they are getting ready to fire everything back up early next year. After CMS we had a visit to the magnet testing facility then time to relax in the CERN canteen before we headed back to the airport for the flight home.

All in all it was a pretty successful trip. we had the occasional misplaced passport and some slow moving students, but no one got lost or injured and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. Next up - Rome again. Or maybe not as the school are still deciding whether we are allowed two physics trips in one term. I won't be heartbroken if I don't have to book another set of flights!