Since my last post I stayed in Paris, briefly returned to England, flew to Rochester, NY, flew back to England, then almost immediately left for Paris again which is where I am now. Phew, this travelling malarky is quite tiring! I am having a good time but it has confirmed two things to me; 1) It is not always the place but the people who you are with that makes it, and 2) Sometimes staying in one place for longer than a week can be nice!
I arrived at École Polytechnique very late on Sunday night, so had to get my key from the ‘pompiers’ or fireman office. My first test of French never really came with the conversation going thusly:
Me, walking in with a suitcase: “Bon Soir, je….”
Pompier: “Hotel?”
Me: “Ah, oui”
Pompier: “Nom?”
Me: “Cross”
Pompier: “Ici”
And then he went back to watching TV. Probably quite lucky considering how tired I was. The next day had a much more testing trial of my French, after I accidentally told the secretary, who was sorting out my badge, that I could speak a little French. She immediately switched to French and I had to converse in French for about an hour. It highlighted just how many words I don’t know but at least I was trying!
In the lab, however; there is an odd mix of French and English. The technicians/laser people, who work at that lab all the time, tend to speak in French, whereas the experimentalists who come just for that experiment tend to speak in English. The lab is also very multicultural; with German, French, Italian and Russian collaborators, and me making up the English quota! The week I was there was to help with experimental set up. I’m not sure how much use I was, as I had no idea where most things were, but I certainly learnt a lot. I had barely arrived before I had to return to Oxford however.
Small Plane to snowy Rochester
The return to Oxford was for two meetings: one with the head of department to check how everything was going and another group meeting to discuss current status. Both went fine, though the latter did give me some work to do whilst away on my next trip. I was due to fly out the next morning (to Rochester, NY), but, seeing as I had been away for a while, I decided to go to the pub for one just to say hello to everyone. Through a series of (un)fortunate events, I ended up at a bop (Oxford term for a dance/drinking event at a college) and decided that having no sleep before flying was better than a couple of hours. I regretted this almost immediately whilst waiting for the plane, but it did mean I slept well that evening despite jet lag! I also completely blame Shamim for this; if I still did friend rankings he would have lost some points!! (Although the bop was good.)
The flight from Newark to Rochester was on one of the smallest planes I have ever seen, but it was pretty fun. We had to ditch two passengers however; due to a ‘weight imbalance’ and poor weather conditions. There was a rather awkward half an hour or so when they were waiting for volunteers, but I was in no mood to wait longer! The hotel I stayed at, an Extended Stay, was surprisingly nice considering how cheap it was, and all the staff were friendly. Even the large amount of snow did nothing to stop everything happening; we had a good couple of inches at least, more than enough to cause England to grind to a halt, but the roads were cleared, people carried on as normal and even the airport remained open!
Rochester itself is quite small, and I stayed on the outskirts. The Omega laser facility is quite big and runs like a well oiled machine; it was quite impressive to see, on shot day, how efficiently things ran and how consistent the laser and diagnostics were. I helped out with target metrology and then tried to help generally on shot day but I don’t know quite how much I will be involved in this project in future so haven’t really looked too closely at the results. I also spent most evenings working on questions that I had to do for grad classes I was missing due to being on these experiments. The last day involved a meeting to discuss future direction, which I was woefully unqualified to attend! It did, however; have some funny moments, and surprising humour from some of the Americans: it turned out one of the experimental jet shot days will fall on the 11th September, to which comments were: “Bad day for shots!” and “I won’t even begin to talk about twin jets!”. I thought Americans didn’t joke about these things?!
Which brings me to another point; Americans. Or rather certain aspects of American culture. Some of it I just don’t get. Putting aside the standard differences of not including tax in the price, and having to tip everywhere (both of which mean I have no idea how much I should pay for something), and endless adverts on TV; people in shops/restaurants seem really nice/chatty and then you begin to wonder ‘Are they only doing this for a tip? Or are they genuinely nice?’. As a skeptical Brit, I originally thought the first but now, shockingly, I think that, actually, they want to talk and be nice to people! And customers want people to talk to them! At one meal, halfway through the main, the waitress came up to the table with another waitress and announced: “Hey guys, sorry to disturb you, I just wanted to introduce Bernadette who will be your server from now on. I was only covering her whilst she was on break. I hope everything is ok with your meals!” and then left. Me and the other English person at the table looked at each other and smiled but the Americans acted like this was normal. I was thinking; I wouldn’t even notice if you changed, and if I did, I wouldn’t mind, I don’t need to be told! Very weird. Similarly, I have to watch what I say around some Americans, they are very earnest and seem to take things more at face value than the word-twisting, innuendo-filled British English, and so many jokes fall flat or are interpreted sincerely. Also the fact that saying ‘toilet’ is somewhat rude always gets me; as well as using restroom; I keep expecting a bed to be in there. However; don’t take this as me hating on Americans; most of them seem really nice, I just don’t think I could live in certain places (though San Francisco and Chicago, so far, are on the ‘ok for living’ list!)
Massive, but delicious, cheesecake from Cheesecake Factory
Whilst at the airport ready to leave Rochester for Newark, I got an email from the French secretary saying that she knew nothing about me staying in Paris for the upcoming 3 weeks. Now, seeing as that was my next destination, I was somewhat worried, but couldn’t be certain that it wasn’t just a misunderstanding due to my French. There was not much I got do, however; due to the time difference, but I spent most of the time hoping it was just a misunderstanding! The flight back was amazing; I got to watch Cloud Atlas, Silver Linings Playbook, Rise of the Guardians and the first hour of Skyfall. All were brilliant, and I actually really enjoy flying and airline food! I arrived back in the morning and decided to stay up; again having a catch up with people in the day, and evening, though not staying up quite so late again!
The next day was, of course, travelling! Heading back to St Pancras, and onto the Eurostar. Thankfully I had had confirmation that I did have a room at the hotel, so the journey was uneventful and I was soon in bed. The main experiment was due to start the week that I arrived, but, due to problems with the short pulse laser, this couldn’t happen. I still managed to help out with some diagnostics/alignment, feeling slightly more useful than last time, and in any down time did more grad class questions. The short pulse laser was ‘fixed’ by Thursday/Friday of last week, so proper experimental shots should start on Monday. I think I have been put in charge of setting up the cameras and making sure the images are saved after each shot; hopefully easy enough that I can’t break anything/laser people/lose all the data haha. One evening in the week too I managed to head to Paris and meet up with some French friends who I worked at P&G with. it was a very pleasant evening, though my French was woefully inadequate!
So, yeah, you know, I was at a castle, it’s quite obscure, you probably haven’t heard of it…
This weekend I decided that, seeing as I was near Paris, I should go visit some sights! Seeing as I had already been to Paris centre before, I looked for some alternatives. Ideas floated were Versailles and Sceaux but I remembered that a certain BBC program was filmed in a château near to Paris so decided to head out there. This was, of course, the show Merlin and the château is found in a small town called Pierrefonds a 40 minute train and half hour bus from Paris Nord. Impressively I managed to successfully navigate all parts of the French public transport system – though it was a close run thing when finding the bus; apparently the bay numbers don’t actually correspond to the correct bus and asking drivers for help resulted in answers like ‘not this one, look for the white bus’ (all the buses are white…) – and I arrived in Pierrefonds. I definitely satisfied my geeky side as the castle was just like in the show, and many photos were taken! I also had the best macaron ever at the local bakery. I think that American and French food probably is just as unhealthy as the other – Americans may have chips and burgers but, while the French at least have vegetables, everything in France seems to be cooked in butter! – but I have definitely enjoyed the French cuisine, especially pastries. Starting everyday with coffee (again, another thing the French do well, though the Americans aren’t too shabby either) and a pain-aux-raisins, pain-au-chocolat or croissant is pretty nice! That evening I had dinner in Paris which was cool, finally discerning what Tartiflette was, and then drinks in a cool bar nearby.
So, the next week holds experiments in store, and then a return to Oxford on Friday. but, fear not, more travelling will ensue before I will remain in one place for long!
Joe @ Oxford 