Last week I got to go to Paris (technically Les Mureaux, 30 min away, but we stay in town and drive out) for a week for work. This was the same location I'd been to twice before while working on the ISS and when I left ISS I thought all international travel was also past. Lo and behold, it's not. A lesson to all that the fickle whims of government funding will never cease and international partners may always be potentially beneficial. The project coordination is not a done deal, we are still in the exploratory phase, but I am very much enjoying getting to work with ESA again and even some of the same faces from ATV.
Having driven in Paris before that wasn't a shock to me, but the HOUR it took me to locate the parking garage to our hotel was and I did "good" as other folks took between 2 and 3 hours. This was literally all within a kilometer of the hotel in La Defense and I highly recommend you never drive there as words cannot convey how hard it is. Seriously, don't... ever. I actually made a powerpoint with turn by turn
street view pictures (thanks google) to aid folks that were arriving for the second part of the meeting. They still had a hard time but at least didn't spend 1-3 hours circling to find it.
I didn't take a lot of extra time to sightsee and the weekdays were really long working days that left little time in the evening. But I do have some pictures to get off the camera and post up later this a week. Being preggo and having temperatures that never really got above freezing, meant a visit to the Louvre for the first time (indoor & heated, crucial sightseeing criteria in January).
Our "social event", as all bilateral meetings require by custom, was a dinner cruise on the Seine, also a first for me and pretty spectacular. The sights at night from the river were pretty neat and the boat had excellent timing passing the Eiffel Tower right at the top of the hour when it lights up with sparkles. The meal was interesting too. The foie gras appetizer was good, although it is one of those things (like lobster) that I find to be less spectacular in real life than the hype. The main was interesting because we honestly didn't know what we were eating until someone told us the next day (quail compressed into pucks like pate and not in a recognizable bird shape), not bad but also not particularly memorable. The cheese and dessert courses, however, were good. Really, I enjoyed all the food while in Paris including the three course lunches at work (seriously, the NASA cafeteria could learn a thing or two).
All in all, good trip and I'll get the few pics I took up soon.
