week 4

The sunday after La fete de la Musique, I went to Orsay and met up with Marouan to have lunch and then go play soccer. It was fun but the combination of the lunch of merguez sausage and orange juice just 15 minutes before we played along with the blazing hot sun and dire lack of sleep from the night before meant I did not "marker" this time:( Afterwards we went back to MArouans and hung out until the match where Portugal lost to Germany. And then, as is tradition, I walked back from Orsay to Supelec...the distance never seems to shorten.

This week at work was very fun and I spent a lot of time in the lab working with the detectors with Marouan, Franck, and Piotr (a PhD student who just arrived from Virginia summer school at Jefferson Lab). It is sooooooo much fun, the work I do. And I cant get over how hands on and fidgety you can be with the detectors. On Tuesday, we couldnt figure out what was wrong with it and so they just started to take it apart, right there, nothing special apparently. When they finally revealed the innermost layer of strips, we found the problem and then work ceased for a few minutes while we let a gnat crawl across the detector. We have also started to work with a smaller prototype of the detector that goes in a magnetic field to test what is called the "Lorentz angle" that is not a good thing to have a lot of and something that we are trying to study to reduce as much as possible. These tests are done with an infrared laser that you cant see so if it shines in your eyes then you dont even know you are losing your sight until you cant see anything...so we wear goggles. And it is fun because I am slowly becoming confident enough in knowing the equipment to be able to turn knobs and push buttons and know what they will do. Although when everything is turned on, there is constant reminders from everyone to "ne touche pas" because of the high voltage (400V-~2000V if you are interested).

On friday I went to Lyon (as was posted on my previous message) to visit my friend Flo who lives there. I took the famed TGV, of which American French textbooks seem to love to write about. When I got on the train I had to move past a girl to get to my seat so I was polite and said "pardon" and then asked "Nous allons aller a Lyon?" to which she responded "Oui...". And then, about ten minutes later when we got out our passports to have our tickets checked it turned out we were both American. I thought it kindof funny that we had a mini conversation in French before, but from then on we talked in English (still the easier language for me). I got to Lyon at about 5:30pm and it took about an hour to find Flos flat but I got to see a lot of the city on the way, its very beuatiful and the rivers that run through it are amazing. When I got to Flos flat, I met her sister, Appoline, and (a first for France) we did the "une bises" meeting where you do the kisses on the cheek. It was a very nice change and I think something that would be nice if they started in America. Flo and I went out to dinner at a traditional Bouchon Lyonnais and had a really nice meal in a district of Lyon in which there are old Roman ruins, very cool! The next day Flo had to work, so I walked all around Lyon and did much shopping (mostly just window shopping) because the reknowned "soldes" of France have just begun. These are government sanctioned sales that happen once a year in February and once a year in July for a few weeks outside of which time stores can actually get in trouble for putting things on sale. Its kindof difficult for me to fully understand but most stores have sales jusq'ua -70%!! This makes the things which are normally 300euros only 90euros! Hence, I still did not buy a whole lot. But it makes it fun to look. After, I climbed to the top of one of Lyons hills and visited a cathedral on the top from which you could see all of Lyon and the countryside. It was beautiful and really made the "pilgrimage" up the hill well worth it, especially since my shirt was drenched in sweat by now (France has very hot weather, not unbearable, but just guaranteeing that you will sweat through your shirt everyday). After walking around for abit more and hanging out down by the Rhone river, I met Flo and Appoline for dinner back at the flat, and then went with Flo to meet two of her friends and get ice cream. Again, we did the bisous (kisses) and I met Elise and Angelique. Elise spoke some English but Engelique spoke none. Although, amazingly, I was able to get along just fine and I even told them my story about the guy at La fete de la musique who tried to pick me up. (I dont think Ill be able to ever get over this speaking French thing and I think its the greatest thing to speak in another language) We decided to go on a picnic the next day so we spent some time planning that while we ate our ice cream (I had cactus, cafe, and strachiatella). So the next day, Flo and I picked them up and for the afternoon we went to "la campagne" (the countryside) where we visited Perrougewhich is a (maybe I should say used to be a) medieval city. It was so fun and very relaxing to be out of the urban lifestyle for a few hours. When we went back to Lyon we walked around this big park that is there and also went to this sort of zoo place in the park where there were elephants and giraffes and zebras and monkeys ....... It was pretty cool to see (also very hot outside) and the park was quite picturesque with wide grassy fields, a pond, and people playing all about. We went directly to the train station froom there where we said our good byes (with the bisous again :) ) and Flo walked me to my train to help me find it. And..two hours later, I was back at Le guichet where I had the distinct pleasure of walking back to Supelec (FOR THE LAST TIME!!!!!) to catch the end of the Euro finals. Spain beat Germany, who would have thought? I honestly thought Germany was stronger. Although I am going to Espagne next weekend so I am pretty excited about this outcome.