Hey World!
Before I went any further with my descriptions of my trip, I wanted to post the pictures that I have taken of this trip. In later entries, I will continue to describe my experiences. Enjoy!
Above is a pictures of me with my hard hat visiting the ATLAS machine 90 meters underground. None of the pictures of the machines seem to do them justice unfortunately. Walking into the "cavern" that holds the machine, one gets the feeling that he/she is seeing the Grand Canyon of Physics.
The above picture is to give you an idea of the small country feel of the town of Meyrin. This picture is of the Meyrin Chapel.
The picture above is of the Meyrin town center. Beautiful, but TINY!
The above picture is of me standing on the edge of Lake Geneva with its famous water spout in the background. As you can see, the Swiss Alps are located directly behind Lake Geneva.
Yes, the above picture is of a Danger Sign, and yes, I was right there. Just kidding! The Danger Sign was pointing towards a different room that I did not visit.
The above picture is of the view one sees as he/she drives up the road towards CERN. The yellow sea in front of the building is the field of sunflowers that I described before, and behind the building are the French Alps. Also, I love the building itself because it seems so futuristic and "spacy."
The above picture of me with the cool CERN building. Strangely, this building is not really used by CERN for science at all, more for a place to have exhibits every once in a while.
Above is the tiny street in Meyrin, Switzerland. Clearly, two cars cannot both fit on this street. That is how small Meyrin Village is!
Above is a picture of me in the bustling town center of Meyrin. I personally think it very strange that next to such a rural town is such a huge, unbelievably modern Physics experiment. Talk about contrast!
The above picture was taken at the ALPHA experiment center, which you will read more about later. The ALPHA experiment actually has nothing to do with the LHC, but instead attempts to figure out why antimatter virtually disappeared at the beginning of the Universe. When I took this picture I was calmly talking to Jeffrey Hangst, the leader of the ALPHA experiment, when this huge container of liquid helium flew over my head on a crane!
The above picture is another of the ALPHA experiment. It is unbelievable to me how complicated the entire experiment looks.
Above is more of the ALPHA experiment.
Above is a picture of the ALPHA experiment. The white on the pipes is actually snow created from the low temperatures of liquid helium inside the tubes.
Again, the above picture is of the ALPHA experiment. I shall explain this experiment in detail later.
The above picture is of a swan on Lake Geneva. I don't know if the swans were put there on purpose or if swans are just native to Switzerland....which I doubt....but they are all over the Lake.
Above is a picture of the sailboats on Lake Geneva.
The people of Geneva are beginning to generate excitement about Les Fetes de Geneve...the parties of Geneva...that will begin in August. The above picture is of the Ferris Wheel which has been recently planted on the side of the lake for the pre-party festival. Even though Geneva is still in pre-party mode, there is live music every night at the location of the upcoming festival.
Rolex....that is all I can say. Geneva, in the past, was the watch capital of the world. Clearly, that tradition has not yet ended. Watch stores are all over the place.
The above picture is just one of myself beside the lake.
Above is another picture of the lake and the city of Geneva.
The above picture is of the famous water shoot/spout/thing (I don't know what to call it).
Me beside the water spout.
More Geneva with the mountains in the background....beautiful....sigh.
I took the above picture just because I thought it was hilarious. When I was walking by this swan, it had its tail in the air and it was kicking frantically as if it was attempting to dive deeper into the water but couldn't manage to swim further down into the water than where it was. It kept coming back up for air and then trying to dive again. So I took a picture.
The above picture is of the Reception Centre at CERN. As you can see, it is much more bland looking than the big space station-like building. However, it serves its purpose quite nicely.
Me at the Reception Centre where I waited for Katie to pick me up every morning. There is also a nice museum describing the LHC inside the center. If you ever visit CERN, make sure that you check out that museum.
The above picture really portrays everything that I described earlier. The Alps in the background, the sunflowers just in front of the camera and the massive exhibition center somewhere in between. The white building to the right of this center is the ATLAS experiment. 
Above is another picture of the fantastic countryside that surrounds CERN. 
This way to Meyrin...what more can I say?
More sunflowers....apparently, throughout the day, the sunflowers turn their heads so that they are always facing the sun. That is why in this picture, the heads of all the sunflowers are turned away from the camera.
More of the space station exhibition center.
The above picture is of the building that houses the ATLAS experiment.
More sunflowers. The sunflower was always present during my visit to CERN and thus, in a way, symbolizes my experience there.
Again, sunflowers. I didn't realize until now how many sunflower pictures I took.
The above picture is of the hole where the scientists lowered the ALICE detector into the ground. I could not see the ALICE detector because it was already closed off to visitors, but you can see through this hole just how deep underground ALICE is located.
Me, at CERN.
The sign for CERN. This sign is made out of a spare magnet! How cool is that?! It is also written in french, because everything is french in Geneva. Luckily, I am going into the highest french course offered at Andover, French 600, and just took the AP course last year.
More sunflowers!! 
The above picture is of the rows and rows of computers in the grid computer control room. The scientists have labeled this area the "farm" of computers. The vents on the floor are for air conditioning, which is always on high in order to keep the computers cool and in peak operating condition. Of course, it is rather cold in there. I shall speak more of the grid computer system in my later entries.
Me, with all of the computers. 
More grid computers....these computers were first created 5 years ago, but now they seem ancient compared to the new computers of today. But at least, they can still be used in the grid system.
It is hard to see through the screen, but inside the above chamber are stacks upon stacks of tapes as well as a robot which is continually moving everything around to keep it organized. Yeah, that's right, a ROBOT!
The above picture is of a tank of liquid helium which cools the massive magnets of the LHC down to a little below 2 K, or -271 degrees Celsius.
The above picture is of the trigger system at the ATLAS experiment. While the LHC is running, too much data will be produced for the scientists to handle. In fact, enough data will be produced that if it were stored on CD's, the pile of CD's that would result would be able to reach the moon. Thus, the computers above recognize what data is interesting, and what isn't and then only allows the interesting data to reach the scientists. 
The above picture is of the computer control room. This computer system controls PS, a different, much older particle accelerator that will be used to give initial energy to the protons before they enter the LHC>
The above picture is of the inside of the building that built and tested all the magnets before they went down into the LHC tunnel. The magnets are responsible for directing the protons around the tunnel, because the large magnetic field that they create force the protons to bend.
The above picture is of a map of the world...the parts filled in yellow are all the home countries of the Physicists of the ATLAS experiment.
The above photograph is of the ATLAS detector. Again, it is much more looming and breathtaking in real life, but I tried my best to do it justice. When I was taking this picture, I was 90 meters underground.
Above is another photograph of the ATLAS detector.
The above photograph is of the control room at the ATLAS building. The diagrams on the screen at the front of the room are large diagrams of the ATLAS detector.
Above is another view of the ATLAS computer control room.
Finally, on the above screen is an update of each of the parts of the ATLAS detector. This picture was taken to show just how complicated planning even one of the four experiments of the LHC really is.I hope you enjoyed the pictures!
-Carolyn
