French Amazon Lab

Jason and Chris with the Neuchatel girls
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Awake

I woke up extremely frequently during the night, which I attribute to either jetlag or some bizarre exotic disease that I won't be diagnosed with until I'm crippled.  I'm hoping for the former.

Cold sweat and pit stains aside, I managed to survive my first experience driving in Europe

Jason didn't wake up frequently, but he woke up very early and for good and was studying French.  Regardless, our alarms were of no use because we were awake well before them.  That sounds good except that you are forced to consuming excessive amounts of expresso to keep your head above the lab bench late in the afternoon.

The breakfast served by the hotel is very European, which means extremely light.  A croissant is the heaviest thing you will eat, but I'm ok with that, from previous experiences with Mara in Italy.  Americans are generally accostomed to large breakfasts, so it's always a bit of a shock when you are nibbling at pieces of cheese, a single hardboiled egg and a very small dry scone.  However, because this is Switzerland, all of these items are extremely fresh and delicious.

When I discussed John's travels in Neuchatel once we were in Bangkok, he couldn't stop speaking of how well he ate, particularly of the freshness of the cheese.  Well, considering that we are eating a complimentary breakfast at a small hotel, I imagine he was right, because even this set up is delcious.

Baxter

The taxi took us to Baxter, and required no directions on our part.  It seems the Baxter facility is large enough that everyone in town knows where it is.  I guess this is not unlike Amgen in Thousand Oaks or Countrywide in Simi Valley.  But the Swiss are used to this situation, in that some of the world's biggest pharmaceutical companies are headquartered there (Novartis, Rouche etc).

It seems that the management at Baxter Thousand Oaks did not underestimate the English capabilities of the corresponding Neuchatel upper management, but as for the actual lab we will be working in is quite another story.  The language gap has sent Jason and I scrambling to learn as much French as possible in as quick a time as possible.

There is a huge gap between conversational French and technical French, luckily though.  The latin based words found in the sciences are so similar in all major Western languages that we had very little trouble interpreting the SOPs.  Speaking colloquially with the coworkers, however, was quite another story.

The day was very long, as most first days are.  And while we already know the assays we will be performing, (having performed them extensively in Thouand Oaks), the language gap leaves you feeling almost more clueless than if you knew the language but not the job.

Amazon Lab

If I may, it truly seems as if Jason and myself stumbled into a movie.  We have been sent to Switerland for the better part of the summer, to the beautiful city of Neuchatel, to do what we do best at work, and on top of it all, the lab is entirely populated by beautiful women.  So much so, in fact, that it feels like an Amazon-like scenario, where the inferior men are put to work to serve the whims of a dominant matriarchal society.

Now, before one might get any ideas, the language gap still puts us in an awkward corner wherein we cannot communicate with our coworkers without great headaches, but it doesn't negate the hilarity of the image that our work portrays.

So much so that even the managers commented that it was dangerous for them to send the only two single guys from Thousand Oaks (when, in fact, it was for that reason because we are not tied down to families).

Driving

To our utter surprise, they have given us a company car, which is extremely useful.  However, it also means someone has to drive it, which is me, because I can drive a manuel.  Despite having lived and travelled in Europe, I have not once driven... not once.

So yesterday was my first experience driving in Europe, with an ugly little minivan.  It 's not that hard, actually, and it's even better in Switzerland in that the speed limits are so strictly enforced (by radar gun, issuing automatic tickets) that no one crowds your ass, and no one guns it.  Every slowly coasts through the towns.

That's not to say I didn't have my issues.  Upon finding what I percieved to be public parking, I pulled into the driveway and down a steep hill, only to find that it was private and that I had to back out.  This was painful in that I had to back out up an extremely steep incline, and then back into the main road during rush hour.  Pit stains aside, i managed somehow and we found public parking.  And so I survived my first European driving experience intact.

Food

After butchering French again in speaking with the hotel manager, we headed out to find food, and ended up in a nice Italian place.  The food was way too spicy for me, which I am not used to (maybe Northern Italian food that I'm used to is not as spicy as southern).

Then, at nine o'clock in the evening, the sun still above the hills (!!), we walked to Neuchatel castle and had a look-see.  The town is truly picturesque and the castle even more so, looking out upon the lake.  The town government still resides in the castle, which makes those politicians extremely lucky, if you ask me.

We got back to the hotel and had a beer before retiring for sleep.  Tomorrow we dont' go to work until 1:30p, which means sleep.  yay.