Hu, what, when, where, how, and sometimes Y

  Monday, 5 February 2024 As I was getting out of bed, got a call from my US colleague; she'd taken the wrong turn to the office.  Her GPS had gotten her close but no cigar; nothing a U-turn and hanging a left for another kilometer couldn't fix.   Many other guests were on-site today too, many of them had last been on-site my 2nd week in November.  My time was spent with my colleague getting her familiar with the process and what differences exist between the plant in France and home.  Her presence helped me realize just how much my ability to speak French must've been a boon for this project: having documents and discussion in French might slow things down for her but she's equipped with all sorts of modern translation tools and most people can there can speak at least a bit of English.   Most of us went to a group dinner at Mr. Mouette; sadly my US colleague skipped as she was reeling from jet lag and a cold.  The table was similar to the g...

 Sunday, 4 February 2024 I had three objectives in mind for today and one of those was dropped early in the morning.   My colleague from Newark would be arriving today to tag out with me for supporting the project in Castets.  I wanted to be close by and help her get familiar with Dax and the area. I wanted to spend a bit of time seeing stuff in the Landes region, since I'd already said "so long" to the Basque region to the south. Begin the packing process since I might not have too much time on the weeknights A text message from my coworker indicating that she was too tired from the overnight flight to do anything but to have lunch at the hotel and decompress in the her room crossed objective #1 off the to-do list.  Hopefully she sleeps through the night and won't have an issue making it to the office tomorrow morning.   That freed me up to tackle the fairly conservative idea I had for the day.  One of my housing options for this visit was a comp...

 Saturday, 3 February 2024 Off to a misty start this morning but a couple cups of coffee (and a quick viennoiserie) had me on the road towards this afternoon's destination: St Jean Pied de Port.  Located to the south east of Dax, this town in Basque country is further in from the coast than I'm used to; funnily, my GPS routed me differently than I had expected, similar to the routes I'd taken to visit the Armagnac region or to Carcassonne.   As great as it is to be able to walk around the block to Le Secret du Pain, I think this Maison Phillipe Pelé is much, much better.   I arrived around 12:30 to St Jean Pied de Port, which meant most places (and people) were on their lunch break and the street's weren't too busy.  Many walls of the old city are preserved, so entering via the Spanish gate offered an info plaque explaining the town's name (St Jean Pied de Port translates literally as Saint John Foot of the Pass): Named for John the Baptist, the town b...