EPFL and Sauvabelin

From Maastricht we trained to Paris, figured out the connection from the Lyon train station to the South train station, then took another train to Lausanne, Switzerland. We must have looked super lost in Paris because two different guys tried to scam us. Luckily we're super suspicious people. 

Varun was working our first day in Lausanne so we joined him at EPFL for lunch and to see the campus. We visited the Rolex Learning Center, which was really cool but beyond our ability to photograph. So I borrowed this picture from their website:

Not my picture of the Rolex Learning Center

 

Underneath the Rolex Center

Nell trying out a reading nook in the library gift shop

A funny rainbow sculpture in one of the swiss cheese holes. 

After lunch at the EPFL cafeteria we walked down the hill to Lake Geneva. It was so hazy we didn't realize there were awesome mountains just across the lake until we were almost at the water's edge. Unfortunately, is was hazy down by the lake the whole time we were there. Varun assured us that it is breathtaking most of the time.
 

Nick with lake and faint mountains

Nell with an awesome pelican statue

We spent the afternoon hiking in the Sauvabelin forest. It's a really nice forest park kind of stuck into the uphill part of the city. It has a lake and a little farm zoo and a big wooden spiral tower. The tower was really neat; it was made of stacked wooden beams each at a small angle to the one below. You walked up the outer edge like a spiral staircase. A low rope fence keeps you from wandering too close in to the axis, which is very steep. I liked that in Switzerland dangerous things were marked but not really blocked off. They just want to draw your attention to the fact that there is a mistake to be made, the rest is up to you. 

Our first view of the tower through the trees

Nell at the top, with Lausanne and Lake Geneva in the background

Looking up...looking down is pretty similar but less sunny

Hairy pigs! They're so grimy

Little bitty sheep

Slightly less little sheep

Around the World quilt and quilt design wall

This post is a two-fer. Brian made me an awesome quilt design wall. He covered six foam insulation boards with quilt batting and hung them up. Fabric sticks to the batting if you smooth it on a bit. I'm using it here to showcase the outer rows of my Around the World quilt. It's been on pause while we worked on the Fibonacci quilt, which went off to the quilter last weekend. Now that I'm back to the Around the World quilt I've realized it's nearly done. Woot! Stay posted. 

 

Solar powered apple dryer

Nick, Scott and I are constructing a solar powered apple dryer to improve our dehydration efficiency come autumn. Last year we used the oven and a big computer fan. It was non-ideal: too little space, too high of a temperature, too great a risk of melting a computer fan. 

Scott modified the very swanky design described here to reflect our more modest aims; and the fact that we already had a spare storm window and bookshelf. Today we assembled the heat generation zone. Next it needs racks, doors, and a vent. Then we just need a sunny day and some test apples.