G'Day All,

Of course I started in Toronto, and the first stage to Paris and transfer to Munich went well except for the mandatory (fat) smelly woman whom check in clerks have clubbed together to always have me sit beside. The intrusion on my olfactory nerves was not as annoying as that on my seat space, however I was reconciled by the fact that in the event of a mishap I could always bury myself in her midrif and be sure of a comfy crash.

Upon arrival in Munich I made the stupid assumption that the train to the city might be running 30 secs late and therefore still be catchable. Of course I was in Germany, and such unimaginable disruptions do not occur - I saw it pulling out as I ran down the escalator. With typical German imagination the bus to the city leaves a full 2 mins after the train - I did catch that though and from there made it onto the the train to Austria with all of 4 mins to spare (and an information guy yelling after me "run,run")!

My time in Austria was much more relaxing than the foregoing might have portended. Alpbach, (the little village at the end of the Inn valley my Aunt Ruth and Uncle Arnulf live in) is extremely beautiful. Mountains surround you - some still with snow caps, and the village is all traditional wooden houses etc. I went on some lovely walks, did some reading, ate extremely well and got to think about some problems in quantum measurement theory I've wanted to for a while. Ruth and Arnulf were great - both well except Arnulf wrecked his back for a few days on a long walk. He then proceeds to mow the lawn while I wasn't looking - apparently I'm too delicate for such strenuous activity. I also visited Anton Zeilinger, a very well known experimentalist, who works from Innsbruck. I had met him just 2 weeks before my trip at the University of Toronto where he was giving a few lectures. He has some great experiments going which I had read about so was very happy to see.

After 10 days in Austria I caught the train to Lindau. It was raining when I arrived and the rain persisted with a period of about 4 hrs the whole time I was there. Lindau is a tiny island in Lake Constance - on the border of Germany, Austria and Switzerland. In fact if you die in the middle of the lake there are no set boundries (they're continually disputed) as to which country you officially died in. I imagine, being the sort of strict rule followers they all are, that they divide you into 3 parts and feed you to fish carrying the passport of their own country.

My first evening there I'm wandering around the town when an American comes up to me and says in a terrible accent "Excuse me spreck see English". I stared at him, slowly shaking my head for 5 seconds enjoying the concern on his face before replying "Don't bloody speak anything else mate". In Lindau was a meeting of Nobel physics laureates during which the laureates gave lectures but also held discussion groups with the students. These discussions were the most interesting for me since the groups were small and you could ask anything you wanted. I got a few good ideas which I'll work on when I have the time.

I met up with a group of 12 Swedes and 8 Norwegians who were sponsored by the Nobel commitee (the King of Sweden is the brother of Count Bernadotte - the host of the meetings) and we ended up having as much fun and good discussions outside the meetings as in. At one point they persuaded me (after a visit to a local winery!) that a midnight swim in the lake was in order. As I entered (butt naked) the 5C water I realised, too late, that this was nothing for them (they cut holes in the ice to swim in!) but that I was probably endangering the chances of there being little Terry Rudolphs to carry on my name. That of course remains to be seen.

After an exhausting week in Lindau I then set off to Munich for 3 days. I guess the highlight of the stay there was doing a bike tour with "Mikes Bike tours" which, although (as well as?) being informative, was a lot of fun. After the part of the tour which involved a trip to a typical Munich beer garden we found ourselves riding past the English common - a nudist meadow. Of course the only nudists out were geriatric old men, which was a relief because with 30, some drunk, cyclists we would have had more than the 2 accidents we did at that point had it been otherwise.

On the way out of Munich I did have one little problem. You see you buy train tickets there in a set of 12 for 15DM. You are then meant to tear off as many strips as you need for your journey and punch them at your point of entry. When I did this (I needed 8) the tickets chose not to tear along the perforation but rather in a jagged line down the middle. The machine then refused to stamp these. I could hear my train on the platform so thought "what the hell they haven't inspected for tickets yet" so I set off. Sure enough, halfway to the airport the ticket guy comes. Now he speaks good english, so I try to explain that I am not responsible for inferior German engineering which has led to this situation. No, he needs my passport and I have to pay a 60DM fine. I really can't believe that this guy thinks that I have nothing better to do than rip off the Munich transport authority, after all I'm leaving the country and I have all the obviously useless tickets etc so I refuse point blank to pay the fine. Yes I have the money AND a credit card, but he'd better issue a summons and send it to my home address in Toowoomba 'coz I'm not gonna pay. In fact my exact words were (and I apologise for the profanity) "You'll have to bloody extradite me to get it mate". This upset him slightly, so he starts copying down my details (gave him my Aussie passport since I was traveling on the British one). By this time everyone around is snickering because I'm not behaving like a good little European and submitting to authority properly. As he finishes (he spelt Toowoomba "Toowanaba" so I don't think it'll arrive) I ask him for the ripped tickets back because I wanted to tell my friends this funny story and the tickets would help in the telling. He couldn't quite grasp this so a guy next to me who spoke german enlightened him, at which point he got very upset, threw down a copy for me of the summons and marched to the back of the car to await the next stop so he could change cars. In his haste, however, he'd forgotten the pad he used for getting people's details, and so just before we stopped I picked it up, waved it at him with a nice friendly smile and pointedly stuck it in my bag. Got my souvenir after all.

From Munich I went to Paris, which apart from the Taiwanese lady on the plane who wanted to set me up with her 17yr old daughter (she even got a photo with me at the baggage carousel!) went fine. I then had a great week in Paris with Helen, my supervisor. She had blisters on her feet from too much walking yet persisted in wearing the pretty shoes that matched her dresses rather than the running shoes which were more comfortable. The trials of having a female supervisor. It only required a little bullying to get her to behave. She was also very proud of her French. This I had respect for until Bastille day. Apparently, she translated, there was a Grand Ball at the Bastille monument that night. Since we were only 200m up the road we decided to go and watch all the fancily dressed French men and women celebrate their day of liberation in a cultured manner. Of course we arrive to find 20,000 drunk, screaming people climbing up the monument or dancing to the rave music being played from a concert stage.

Paris is a beautiful city - aside from the fact that dogs are allowed to do their business on the footpaths and hence one has to look down continually, rather than up at the pretty buildings. We also visited the Ecole Normale Superieur to see some great experiments they are doing, which really helps bring the papers I read to life. Of course the sight of all these wires and monitors and cryostats etc just affirmed my conviction that experimental physics is akin to withcraft and therefore not for me.

And that was pretty much that. Apart from the bomb scare on the way to the airport which caused a station evacuation which I deftly avoided by prying open the doors of the train on a platform and jumping in but that still made me late (caught the plane with an easy 15mins to spare) because they decided 4 stations down to make us change trains anyway in the off chance that the bomber may have got on somehow. Ridiculous.

So that was my last month. How about yours?

Tez