51 - Back in the saddle - Dax, Castets, & Hossegor
Monday, March 25 - Castets
Despite sleeping a solid 10 hours, I awoke to my 8AM alarm very disoriented but I suppose that shouldn't be too surprising. I managed to drag myself out of bed and get ready for the day. After dropping my stuff off in the car, I doubled back towards the lobby to dire bonjour to Jerome, the hotel manager. He came outside to say hello, I suspect he'd had the same idea when he saw me through the window. It was a short catch-up but he offered to organize a little soirée/get-together for me, c'est sympa!
It was good to see everyone at the office again. So much and so little has changed at the same time: the work site has way fewer contractors since the installation is now 99% complete (just some finishing touches pending once we confirm everything will stay where it is) but the people welcomed me back in the office like I'd never left. I even had my old seat and locker, if being away for a month lets those count as "old."
I'd thought ahead about what sort of treat I would bring to spread some American culture. It being the Easter season, a quick walk through a convenience store gave me plenty of ideas. My last visit's dispersion of Reese's Cups was well received, so Reese's Eggs seemed like a natural next step. And that would have been all I'd brought if my eyes hadn't caught a glimpse of some bright, sugar-coated color: Peeps. For better or for worse, I figured it wouldn't be fair to deprive my French colleagues of an American Easter classic.
For lunch, I popped over to O Saveurs de Carrine. The weather outside had become fairly nice so I ate outdoors in the back patio. The restaurant was busy but it was nice to say "hello" and enjoy a duck burrito.
The afternoon went by quickly. I wasn't directly involved in it, but the testing done today was encouraging for later this week. I tried my hand at compiling data trends to validate heat loads but couldn't quite navigate the systems and menus to properly export the .csv files.
I stopped by Le Clerc after work to grab some apartment essentials (soap) and also swung by a clothing store afterwards out of curiosity. To my surprise, the lady on shift informed me while I was trying on some clothes that the store offered to hem pants for free. I'm not quite sure why this boggled me, it seems like a perfectly sound practice for a clothing vendor to have but I guess that's not how most of the market works in the US (at least to my knowledge).
I visited Chez Nous for dinner but had just missed them closing the kitchen. That's ok, I made a reservation for tomorrow evening and left them a box of Peeps, we'll see if they welcome me back or ban me for life. Dinner was instead at El Meson, I was partly thrown when the serveuse wasn't the woman I was used to seeing but the dinner was delectable. I'd managed to back into a parking spot in one Dax's parking lots; it wasn't a terribly tight space but it was partly on an incline and there were car and poles all about, so I was pretty pleased with myself to have managed it unscathed. That being said, I did stall the engine twice... Baby steps, baby steps.
Tuesday, March 26 - Castets
After settling in to bed last night, I was disappointed to find myself waking up at 4AM; fortunately, I was able to force through a little more sleep but with diminishing returns. Let's hope my circadian rhythm wakes me up at 4AM tomorrow since I'll have the 5AM to 5PM shift.
A look in the breakroom confirmed that of the candy I put in the refectory yesterday, a lone pink bunny Peep survived the night shift. It was a simple day; a few meetings sprinkled throughout the day to review the equipment status as well as business as usual with other sites. I started to crash pretty hard during my 2:30PM meeting but was able to rally after 20 minutes of swaying precariously in my seat. The rest of my time was spent reviewing the equipment and the testing protocol; we're in a much better place than we were the last time we attempted this performance test but I'm not uncrossing my fingers just yet.
Lunch was at O Saveurs de Carrine again, this time I remembered to bring a package of neon pink Peeps for them. The place went from quiet to very busy shortly after I sat down, it was good to have made a reservation yesterday 😅. I recall there was a guy in rain pants and a large backpack finishing up his meal when I arrived, I wonder if he was just backpacking or following a pilgrimage route.
Dinner was at Chez Nous. The guys were pleased to see me so I guess they found the Peeps at least partly palatable 😂. I ate with intention and made my way back home for an early bedtime.
Wednesday, March 27 - Castets
It was a long day doing the equipment test; not all went as planned but I was pleased that my calcs were pretty dang close. Unfortunately, we didn't get as far as I'd hoped but we passed it onto the next shift and I left for dinner.
I'd intended to have a quiet dinner just somewhere close by, but one of the guys I'd regularly had dinner with last visit invited me out to Bistro Balneare with another of his coworkers. The meal was excellent but I fear my French was running on fumes towards the end of a long day, so while I had difficulty following the conversation I enjoyed it all the same. I had a nose bleed before the main course came, it's probably a result of changing humidity but it had me thinking about the bonkers amount of pollen in the air coming off the thousands of pine trees in the area.
My coworker on night shift informed me that I wouldn't have to come in early tomorrow. Sadly, it wasn't because everything went swimmingly, but at least we made progress and I get to sleep a little more.
Thursday, March 28 - Castets
Another long day here despite being completely an office day: lots of followup and débriefing about yesterday's test. I spent much of the day importing .CSV files into Excel to be able to review the instrument data over the whole test. I hadn't seen as many of the mechanical issues and limitations as my nightshift colleague so a lot of what I was looking for was based on his email summary before going to bed. Still, I think today was productive. There remains much work to be done but at least they're *mostly* new problems or the first time confirming them to be problematic.
I had dinner in the Centreville of Dax at the Grand Cafe de Bordeaux. I was looking for something laid back and the place delivered, plus duck! I wrapped up with a coupe de la glace called "The Iceberg", mint chocolate chip with some Get 27 (a French mint liquor).
Friday, March 29 - Castets
I slept in a bit today, making it into the office at 9:30. Most of my time was spent sifting through the data I compiled but we had a good meeting to discuss the plan for next week. Since I'd planned on hanging around for a couple days next week to follow up on stuff or learning about the site's other processes if things went extremely smoothly on Wednesday, we'll try to take full advantage of me being around a bit longer. When I said I think we should do X or test Y, they agreed and discussed what needed to be done to make those happen; I'm not sure why that feels strange, it's a sign of a functional team...
There were viennoiserries (croissants, chocolatines, and pains aux raisins) in the break room today; today's was the construction manager's last day on-site (at least for a while). He's an incredibly resourceful, charismatic, and engaging guy so he'll be missed. His safety yellow jumpsuit was a staple of my time here 😂 But he's not gone-gone, he's headed to a sister plant across the way to oversee some of their construction and he'll be back to this one later in spring to oversee some final touches.
I was tired when I got back to the apartment. I laid down on the couch to do my Duolingo lesson and quickly realized I needed to set an alarm to avoid just falling asleep in lieu of resting my eyes for a bit 😅. But the 5 minute break was much needed and allowed me to recuperate enough to make it out the door to dinner, which was a fairly low-key effort. I opted to dine at Crescendo, a cafeteria style restaurant in the mall nearby and that perfectly fit my pace for the night. I'd shown up just as a DJ was breaking down his equipment, a flyer on the wall later while eating indicated tonight had been African themed with some special dishes making it onto the menu. I think one of those dishes involved cassava in a very flavorful sauce yum!
And with that, my work week back to SW France is complete! It was a busy week; not too stressful but I didn't find myself with too much time to dilly-dally. It was great to see some familiar faces again, if only to say goodbye or à la prochaine. I think I handled the jet-lag much better this trip but I won't declare victory until I wake up at a reasonable time tomorrow.
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