34 - New Year, New Oui - Dax

 Tuesday, 2 January 2024    

It was a very quiet return to the office today.  Most people have returned to work, I think the ones on-site that haven't were holding down the fort while the rest of us were off.  I had a hard time getting out of bed and ultimately dragged myself into the office at 9:15; not the worst but I knew that most people had probably arrived at 8 so I'll see about tightening up my sleep schedule in the coming days.  A friend suggested I could say I have jet lag (la décalage horaire) 🤣

I hadn't bought any groceries to make lunch so I went to the nearby restaurant of La Tchanka by myself.  Turns out, one of the automation engineers from AIGP came by himself as well, so we ended up chatting and eating together.  La Tchanka had a more limited choice of dishes available, likely due to staffing and/or supply availability so we both ended up just having the 1/2 duck breast for lunch.  I guess it's kinda weird to say I just had a 1/2 duck breast for lunch as if my culinary standards have been irreversibly shifted upwards due to my time here 😅  

There wasn't a whole lot to do today in the office aside from sift through my emails and remember where I'd left off.  The rest of the team made a good amount of progress made in the plant during my first week of vacation but we've still a ways to go before we're ready for takeoff.  

I'd meant to get a haircut before NYE but didn't succeed in finding available appointments so Tuesday night was my haircut.  The barber was nice and understanding; we ended up going with something similar to my normal hair style and my sheared hairs were swept away.  After the haircut, I grabbed a few items in the nearby grocery store so I would be able to make lunch this week; it's a good thing I did as I discovered many restaurants in Dax were recovering from the end of the year by taking vacation.  After 3 busts, I returned to chez moi and used some of my new groceries for a meal of steamed broccoli, roasted cheese (a 200g brick of Rouy), and (it almost goes without saying) du pain.  

Wednesday, 3 January 2024

Another fairly quiet day back in the office; this time I made progress in waking up and arrived at 9 😂.  I also packed my lunch today: a dried ham & brebis cheese sandwich plus broccoli to be lightly steamed in the microwave.  An interesting tidbit I found was that the microwaves in the break room don't have carousels but still seem to do a decent job; granted, I only nuked the broccoli for maybe a minute so maybe a more substantial dish would be a better test but still I'm curious how it works.  

Dinner was at Chez Nous, where the normally delightful daily menu was changed out for their shared platter options plus some "tapas" style items.  Between three of us, we did a good job with three tapas (a croque monsieur, samosas filled with chapon (I think a type of chicken), and crunchy bites filled with duck and foie gras) and the three platters: charcutterie, cheese, and veggie dips.  Afterwards, we were enticed with the dessert offerings; I was drawn to the mysterious item titled "Le projet KB" of which our server jokingly kept very vague.  So I ordered it and was quite pleased with my choice, though it was a little difficult to eat.

Le project KB: white chocolate and cream layered between wafers (I believe they're called gauffrettes) with it all encased in white chocolate

We/I've been eating at Chez Nous at least a once a week, so the guys who work there (they're all men) recognize us and have begun to build a rapport.  Apparently when I'd left for my vacation and the other engineer (Mojito) dined there by himself, the server had mentioned that "your colleague came here last Friday, he's not with you tonight?" and it took Mojito a few seconds to realize they were asking about his American 🤣.  I still have some Reese's cups from the US, maybe I'll bring some in to share with the team at Chez Nous next time.  

Thursday, 4 January, 2024

Made it in at 8:45 today!  I'm slowly working my way back into the schedule 

We had a meeting at work to discuss the schedule for the remainder of the project.  Additionally, the site manager went to speak with HR about the paperwork for extending my visit and while he didn't receive a flat out "no", he did get a deflection of which HR person he needs to talk to.  I guess we/I'll need to apply some pressure to get the legal stuff done; otherwise, (per the latest schedule) I'll have to hit the road just before they'll really need me.  And while spending 3 months eating duck & drinking wine then leaving right before the work gets hard would just be such a crying shame 😜, it actually would be unfortunate to not see the job through as well as miss the opportunity to stick around and learn about the other products they have on site (and possibly lay the groundwork to come back in the future to assist with improvement efforts).

Dinner with the engineers from AIGP was at a new restaurant for me, the Garden.  It's situated very close to the casino of Dax; it seems that many cities around here have a casino...  Anyhow, the food at the Garden was pretty good, their niche appears to be Asian fusion; hence my dinner of shredded duck tacos (with a side of porn fries, which were analogous to disco fries but this is France).  

I've been very slowly making progress on watching season 2 of The Boys on Amazon Prime and managed to close out the season finale.  Now that the season is done, I'll see about finding some French media to consume in my downtime.  

Friday, 5 January 2024

Slight hiccup in the morning pattern today, I was into the office just a little past 8:30.  Not too much to report about at the office but there were several of us who went out to lunch at Au Saveurs de Carine today.  One of the more interesting topics that came up at lunch was La Feria, which I guess is how the French call the bull festival (of which the running of the bulls to the arena is part).  Not every town in SW France has a Feria celebration but the ones that do certainly draw in a crowd.  

A fairly quiet evening tonight; I managed to finally put away the laundry I had cleaned before the New Year.  Good thing too as I've got enough dirty laundry to do a couple loads tomorrow.  Reflecting on this week, I think a lot of the the momentum I brought with me here to explore and go see things got used up with my road trip a week ago.  

Maybe it's a matter of finding a routine again but I think this weekend will be fairly subdued since I haven't done nearly as much research as I normally would have by end of day Friday.  I'm rapidly approaching two months now so maybe it's natural to lose a little of the steam; still, I'm going to attempt to rally over the weekend to get my head back in the game and hit next week with my eye on the weekend prize.