Time to pack!

Hi Guys

University is now over for me. I have passed the Master Exam as well as the Master's Thesis is being accepted. Overall seen I have a good average, which should make clear which marks I have... Basically it's a bit below my expectations, but that's my ego. I have handed in my application for my Master's degree. If everything goes well, I see no point why it shouldn't go well, I have on the 10th October a degree labeling "Master of Science UZH in Geography with Specialization in Human and Economic Geography" or something similar.
Coming back to my Master's Thesis on Indian Migrants in Zurich (if anyone is interested to read it, just write an E-mail or a comment), the most rewarding thing is not the mark, but the talking with people after the completion of the text. I have talked to 3 Indians already, one who participated in the interviews, and they are all very much interested in the fact that someone looked at their ethnic group.
The reason why I did not get a very good as a mark was that I have evaluated the qualitative interviews in a quantitative way, meaning I was not following the subject's conditions on how to evaluate a certain kind of interview... So it's all about expectations. But I would not evaluate it in another way, as I think the evaluation methods of qualitative studies are basically rubish and useless!!!
Looking back at 5 years of studying Geography, what do I think. Everyone who has listened to me in the recent time, must know this. I absolutely love the approach Geography makes in social science (I see myself as an Social Geographer!!! Physical Geography is just a nice to know by product in my mind, but thats another discussion). However due to the fact that we have this broad and colourful mix of subjects in the first two years, you never have a base. I ask myself, how is it possible to make a good social science approach if you don't know sociology, economics, political science and most important of all have no clue of the basics of philosophy. I have figured this out with long talks with my friend Pascal. This lead to the result that I picked up a small book we had in the Kantonsschule which is an extremely brief history of philosophy. In the Kanti I thought philosophy was useless and crap bullshit (sorry for the words!). We had in the last semester of the Kanti some philosophy and we had this book, I have never read. I read it this week and I have noticed that now I know the names of the guys in the book (Platon, Arestoteles, Hume, Darwin, Descartes, Freud, Kant, Weber, Marx, Husserl and what they are all called) and I have at most a faint idea what they said. The problem is, I don't understand it! Therefore it's extremely difficult to understand theoretical ideas of modern sociologists because they build uppon these bases (for those of you who don't my scientific views in detail, I love theory and the combinations of theoretical approaches. But not the talking in extreme detail of one theory but more the overview of many approaches...). Therefore I have bought some books on the introductiory of philosophy. Which now leads to the conclusion that I, if I had to start with Geography again would take as minor subjects: philosophy, sociology and economics.
Now, speaking of theory and approaches, as in Zurich we only talk about the "Handlungstheorie" in the sense of Giddens and if going a bit further of Werlen, whose actor centered socialgeography is in my eyes still a very valuable approach. However we do not discuss sociological alternatives, i.e. Luhmann's systemtheory or Habermas theory of "kommunikatives handeln".
Ok, after this brief scientific discussion, how does my world discovery continue! Tomorrow at 0810 from Wil I am of to France for 3 Months. Sun I am coming!
Until then!
Stay tuned in with my world discovery, enjoy the EM (although I guess the swiss are not going to last long...). Don't ask me who will win!

Greetings!!!

Last day of University

Today is the big day... well it's supposed to be. I'll be heading off to Zurich quite soon to have the presentation of my Master's thesis. This means today is actually my last day at Uni. Gee, it's already been 5 years. After having practiced this presentation about a zillion times I am able to speak it through backward and forward in my dreams!

See you!
Philippe

4 Days to go

Hi Guys

It's four days to go. Not to the ending of the world, nor to the start of a new world discovery, but to the end of my studies at Uni. On Friday afternoon I have my presentation of my Master's thesis, which's title is: "Citizenship in Transnational Societies - A Case Study of Indian Migrants in the Zurich Economic Area". Basically its a socialgeographic study on the integration of Indian citizens living in and near Zurich. Well, on Friday it's all over. I ask myself, what have I learned in these five years of studying Geography? Well, I have heard a lot about describing the world (this is what actually Geography means...). But I still have the feeling I know nothing.
What is much more important for the near future is my upcoming stay in Montpellier. In exactly two weeks, I will be in Montpellier attending French classes. I am going for the near-hard-core program. 12 Weeks in host-family with 5 days a week 4h of class in the morning and on three afternoons 2h of conversation class.
There is just one paradox. Although on the short run its much more fruitfull to invest into French, on the long run I really want to learn Spanish. I think spanish is such a nice language. It is much nicer than french (which think is a really elegant language) and it is tons nicer than English. Therefore I think I will be spending some time in Southamerica to learn Spanish... but these are still plans. In between I need to go back to India and see some more of this fascinating subcontinent. Ok thats for today.

Saludos desde Thurgau

Sportlich ist der Mensch

Hallo Zusammen
Und nochmals in deutscher Sprache. Nach meinen Konzentrationsschwächen gestern, habe ich dann den Weg auf mich genommen und bin zum Vitaparcours in Aadorf gefahren (ja,ja, mit dem Auto). Dort habe ich eine gemütliche Runde gedreht. Ich bevorzuge zwar Fahrradfahren, jedoch nach zwei Touren am Montag (50km) und am Dienstag (25km, mit ziemlicher Steigung) waren und sind meine Beine ein bisschen mit Muskelkater belastet. Deswegen habe ich mich dann fürs Rennen entschieden. Ich war vor über 15 Jahren mal in diesem Vitaparcours. Ist eigentlich noch ganz schlau, man kann rennen und noch ein paar andere Übungen machen. Ich beabsichtige in Montpellier ein tägliches Jogging einzuführen, damit ich ein Bisschen fit bleibe... Irgendwie muss man ja den französischen Wein verdauen....

Gruss
Philippe

P.S. für alle die es nicht Wissen, Alice hat heute Geburtstag...

Mal ne Runde in deutscher Sprache

Hoi Zämä.
Zur Abwechslung schreib ich mal eine Runde in deutscher Sprache. Nun, es gibt eigentlich keinen speziellen Grund irgendwas zu schreiben, ausser dass es mir gerade langweilig ist. Konkret heisst dies, ich sollte mich damit beschäftigen, was ich bei der Disputation meiner Masterarbeit nächste Woche Freitag sagen möchte, ich mich aber irgendwie nicht motivieren kann. Den Vortrag hab ich fertig und optimisiert. Jedoch weiss ich nicht genau, was ich für die Disputation vorbereiten soll oder wo ich anfangen soll. Eines ist klar, das Prüfungskommitte besteht aus Elsasser, Bühler und Heim (Bodenkundler). Ich hoff nun, dass dieser letztgenannte iregndwelche schlauen Fragen stellt und nicht irgendwelchen Mist.
Naja, aber ich kann mich nicht motivieren irgend einen Strich zu tun. Vielleicht sollte ich jetzt eine sportliche Pause einlegen und nachher weiter machen, so wie ichs die letzten 2 Tage gemacht habe. Ich denke, das ist warscheinlich die beste Idee.
Also, ich geh dann mal Sport machen.

Saludos
Philippe

Chronological Picture Overview

Peru:


Cusco

Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu

Nazca Lines

Paracas

Paracas

Paracas

Paracas

Paracas


Lima

Lima



Lima

Lima

Trujillo


Trujillo

Trujillo

Chiclayo

Chiclayo


Mancora

Mancora

Ecuador:

Guayaquil

Guayaquil

Guayaquil

Guayaquil

On the road to Cuenca

Cuenca

Cuenca


Cuenca

Incapirca

Lama at Incapirca

Puyo

Puyo

On the road to Tena

Tena

River Rafting at Tena

Quito


Quito

Quito

Quito

Mitad del Mundo (Equator Line)

Jumping from South to North over the Equator

Same again

Riding on the back of a Pick-Up

Crater lake near Otavalo

Same

Same again

Back home - sadly

Hi guys,

It's now been two days, since I have returned to the Swiss's country. There are three things coming into my mind when thinking of this. Firstly, there is no hill without a farm or a house on it; secondly it's so clean that you could eat your ice-cream which fell onto the street and thirdly, it's so boring.
Today I was on a roughly 12h bus round trip which was carried out for the festivities of my uncle's 70th birthday. It was a nice trip, but it was boring. No music (reggeaton, salsa etc), no film, no indigenous people, no worries about the luggage being stolen, no police check-points, no drug x-raying (will explain shortly), no bumpy road and on the streets no sole. All these nice things, which make a bus trip nice were missing. This increased my longing back for Southamerica. Ok, to be honest, today it was much easier than two days ago. When I came back to Switzerland, I had the culture shock I was missing when I went to Peru and Ecuador. But maybe that's always the case when you go abroad and find out more about your supposed home country than the country you are visiting. I know that this feeling will decrease in the following days and weeks, as in about 1.5 weeks time I have my final presentation at Uni.
Ok, let me go back to were I left off, or where Alice left off (check the entry from Otavalo http://www.alicesuiza.blogspot.com/). On wednesday morning our ways parted, she continued to Columbia and I returned to Quito. I got out at the bus terminal and then took the Troley-bus (a bus with real existing stations and lines) to the place we stayed some days back. There it was originaly planed to walk 2 quadras and take another bus to the airport. However, as it was way too full in the troley, I thought, lets take a taxi. So I did. Now, what do you do in a tiny airport if you have to wait 3.5h for check-in and in total 6.5h until take off. I did use the absolutely overpriced internetcafe and ate a last portion of too expensive chicken.
Then I went to check in, chated to a British girl, met some Swiss also going to Zurich. I checked-in, paid the USD 40.8 airport tax in cash, went through migration, had my hand luggage x-rayed and started my long wait in the lounge chatting with the Brit once again. Then police officers with drug sniffing dogs started to walk around in the lounge. So far so good. Then another police officer came to the girl and me and asked us kindly to follow her. Ok, so we did. In a small office they showed us a leaflet, that this is a drug x-ray control and that we are the lucky ones selected. You had to fill out a document with personal info. Then you had to go into a small room, lower the trousers to the height of the underpants and pull the t-shirt up to heart level. Then a scanner x-rayed your stomach. As I am not into drugs, they did not find anything swallowed in my stomach.
Good, that being over and after another long wait, the boarding started. Therefore we were let into the gangway in groups of about 15 people. Then we had to align our hand baggage and a drug dog did his work again.
Finally, we took off, only to land on a planned stop in Guayaquil and to disembarque again. Again through security and another wait. The same game of course again in Madrid.
In Madrid I met my Salsa-teacher from Zurich. She was on the way Cuba.
Now, I am here writing this blog.
My next adventure is then Montpellier. Je pense que je vais écrire en français pour essayer la langue.

Cheerio!

some Pictures & Quito

Hi guys

Look at us, especially at me. Don't my undestructable army glasses have a sexy touch... Well at least it was no problem doing the rafting, which was a lot of fun. Here we are sitting in a small hut somewhere along the river, eating our lunch.

We spent three nights in Quito and in its vincinity. On one afternoon and one whole day we did sightseeing in Quito. Lots of churches. In addition to that we did look for some pair of shoes for ourselves. Alice found some, I didn't. Yesterday we went up a mountain (the Pinchincha), first in a cable car and then by foot. Due to bad weather we returned before reaching the summit. We went up there with a friend of Alice's and a friend of the friend. It was a nice but very muddy walk.

Here you can see me on the Panecilla, with parts of Quito in the back. On the Panecilla is also a very ugly angel like statue.

This picture is not taken out of an airplane, but from the top station of the cable car up the Pinchincha.

As my flight home is in less than two days, this is my last entry from Southamerica. I will upload more images from Switzerland.

Cheerio!

El Oriente

Hi guys

Tonight will be our fifth and last night in the Oriente before continuing to Quito and thereby return to the highland.
As mentioned in the last entry we did a rafting tour yesterday. It was a lot of fun. We got wet, wet and wet again. Over all it was a pleasant trip. The exciting parts with action could have been a bit longer but one can't have everything. We were on the boat with a Dutch and a Canadian girl and the guide. Although the commandos of the guide were in English it was sometimes quite annoying when he wanted us something to do and I didn't understand it. Well, what can one do except learn some Spanish. In addition to the consequence of getting soaked wet, I caught a lovely ultra red sunburn on the upper parts of my legs. The conesequence was that I had to put a wet towel over my legs for sleeping, to cool it of. Now it's ok, but still looks very unhealthy.
I had my camera in a special dry bag (dunno the right name for it). The guide had the marvelous idea of putting this bag into the cool box which was by far not water proof sealed. This all for doing some intentional flips with the boat. He did it once, then we all protested because with thought this being stupid. After the trip while opening the box and the bag we saw that there was water in it. My camera bag was totally soaked and the camera was wet. Luckily it turned out that Cannon is a good product and therefore my cam still is completely functional.
At this point I would have again wanted to upload some images, however, the computer has problems accessing our cameras.
Ok, thats it. We'll have some dinner later and then tomorrow at 0630 we take the bus to Quito. Can't believe that next week I am already on my way back... time flies by just too fast.
Cheerio!