University and Parks - Zurich, Oct. 12

​I think Zurich is growing on me. I was a bit hesitant about it after my first visit to the city, but I'm liking it more now that I've been able to explore around on my own. I got to explore some really nice areas yesterday, which gave me a new perspective on the city that I didn't have before. I also got to explore around some university facilities, which definitely peaked my interest.

As I mentioned in my last post, I visited a research lab yesterday that's part of ETH. The professor I'm currently working with got me in contact with this group, since their work is somewhat related to my project. They do some funky things with waves moving through objects, and use actuators to cancel boundary reflections, or even simulate reflections as though the object were larger than it is. My project is more focused on the measurement of these types of waves, but it's still cool nevertheless!

​​​They allowed me to take pictures, and they've got some really cool hardware! There's a granite block with thousands of reflector dots on it, a circular 2D experiment, and a pool with over a hundred sensors and actuators (which has its own server room full of FPGAs for controlling it all). I think my favorite is the 4m tall robot arm (depending on how it's positioned), which is used to measure the granite block.

This group, along with several other ETH research groups, work in a hangar of an old military airport just east of Zurich. Apparently this area is being turned into an innovation park, and these groups managed to get access early on. We briefly went through to look at all their projects, and there are some really cool ones! An electric plane, an autonomous race car, a hyperloop team, etc. There's also a full machine shop here, it looks like an awesome place to work!

​After meeting with the group and being showed around, I decided to visit the ETH campus. There's actually 2 main campuses, one in the middle of Zurich and the other on the north side of town. The one in the center of Zurich seems to mostly consist of one big old building, which doesn't really appeal to me. The north one is in the Hoenggerberg district, which includes a small mountain (large hill?) on which the ETH campus has been built. There's been very little non-ETH development in this area other than a handful of farms, so the campus is fairly isolated.

And because it's built on top of this hill, it gets some fantastic views of the city and surrounding area. You have to go a bit outside the campus for the best views, I found the forest on the east side to be the best location.

I couldn't stop taking photos, it was just such a great view! Here's a collection of some of the best ones. Some of these are wide panoramas, which the previews don't show, so I recommend you expand them to see the full image.

And of course, I also explored the campus pretty thoroughly. I didn't find the buildings to be super interesting, but they're a lot better than the boring old light gray found in so many other places. There's also lots of greenery around the campus, so it doesn't feel overly covered in asphalt. The places that are covered feel very pedestrian friendly, getting around is really easy by foot. There's also lots of busses that stop at the center of campus, so it's really easy to get in and out of campus using that.

There were a decent number of students around, though it doesn't seem like classes have started yet. Despite the fact that people were on campus, I really didn't see any cars driving around, which is awesome! The main highway on the west side of the campus leads straight into a parking garage, meaning people don't have to cruise through campus while searching for a spot. Excellent!

I also explored around the forested area on the east side of the campus, which was quite nice to walk through. There are a number of logging roads running through, which make for nice pathways. It also has a handful of campsites spread around, there were a few groups with bonfires going. I really enjoyed walking through here!

And that's all I did around the ETH campus, it's quite a nice area! I really like that it's built on top of the hill, being able to see everything all around was just fantastic, it made me realize how much I appreciate being able to see mountains. It also gave me a new insight on the city, being able to see how far out it spread. I realized that the center is only a tiny portion of what exists, and that I really should have explored other areas before making a judgement on it as a whole.

For example, when I first explored around the city center, I noticed there was a handful of car roads running through it. I had assumed the center would be the most pedestrianized area of the city, and further out areas would have a lot more cars. However I don't think that's the case, from my vantage point above, most of the roads I could see actually seemed quite devoid of cars. If anything, cars seemed more prevalent around the center than anywhere else.

I explored a bit more of the city outside of the center, and it seems that car traffic really is limited to just a few main roads running through the city. The side roads have very few cars running through them, the public transit vehicles seem to be much more dominant. There's a lot of streets like this with trams lines running through, but practically no cars around. It's safe enough that crosswalks aren't even needed, people can just quickly check whether a tram is coming, then cross wherever. I like this, makes getting around even easier!

After having explored some more around the city, it definitely seems like cars are much less common around Zurich than I'd thought. The public transit is very thorough and frequent, I found it really easy to take it from almost anywhere to almost anywhere else. And it's actually not super expensive, a day pass for Zurich is 8.80 Francs, very comparable to other places I've visited on this trip.

I was exploring around on Google Maps and found a funicular railway (I didn't even know what it was called!) that went up the Zurichberg, another small mountain (large hill? really doesn't seem big enough to be a mountain...) on the east side of Zurich. I've never been on one before, and I think they're pretty cool!

It's like if a tram and an elevator had a child on a hill side. There's a rail going straight up the hill, with 2 cars pulled up the rails by a cable. The cable is actually attached to both cars to balance the load, so one goes down while the other goes up. It's a single track all the way, so there's a split in the middle for the cars to get around each other. There's multiple stations along the way, meaning they have to be spaced apart fairly accurately since both cars are connected. And inside is a panel with buttons to request your desired stops, just like an elevator. Neat!

Once I got to the top, I discovered it was another forested area with logging trails running through, so it made for a good time hiking through.

And of course, since it's on top of a hill, there were some more fantastic views to see.

I think this picture is my favorite.

I would have loved to stay through the sunset, but I had to get back before dinner, which ended up being almost a 2 hour commute from the top of the hill (trams don't really go up there). I caught a couple glimpses of the sunset from the train, which had a really rich red glow to it, but I wasn't able to get a photo of it. Oh well.

​So Zurich has definitely grown on me now that I've explored around some more. I really appreciate the hills and mountains all around, the forested park areas, the public transit, etc. It is known for being an expensive place to live, but it seems to me that it really depends on your lifestyle. For example, restaurants are rather expensive, but groceries seem to have fairly normal prices for most things (I skimmed through a couple grocery websites). I also looked at apartments around here, and they're fairly comparable to where I went to college. I definitely wouldn't call it cheap, but I think you could live here without needing a fortune.

Today has been pretty laid back, I sort of wanted a day to relax and catch up on things like this blog post. This is also my last day near Zurich before I head to the Alps! I've been waiting to book travel and accommodations in case anything came up, so I need to get on top of that. More to come later, take care!