Wait for it... drum roll... after two months of itching, I finally jetted off for my first business trip as a Scientifica engineer. Woohoo! Of course, it wasn't all fun and games. There was company politics, more than I'd expected, and professional niceties, and the weird pleasure of being in my familiar spaces in a totally different capacity. To be enveloped in the dark, with only the glow of highly magnified neurons seeping off a monitor, chatting science, enjoying the highlights of my old world, all the while knowing that I would be leaving the grunt work of actual research to some other poor soul: what a thrill. I think you can say this is the job for me.
And then came Friday afternoon. Sure, there was the 6pm flight home. But there was also a 9:30pm departure. And who could hold me back from a few hours out in the town, finally getting to see the place where I'd been planted for the past half week? This time it was Frankfurt, which has been described to me as "the Canary Wharf of Germany." It's basically one giant finance center, but since this is Europe, even giant finance centers have the historic old town to be explored. And I wasn't alone: this was Nelly the Neuron's maiden voyage too. Yes, we have a new team mascot. (And yes, I made its hat.)
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| Painting the town purple with Nelly the Neuron on our first Scientifica trip at Goethe University in Frankfurt |
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| Sight-seeing in Frankfurt in between the storms: the Imperial Cathedral of Saint Bartholomew, Paulsplatz, Stern Kaffee, and the historic old town |
A happy customer, a freshly functioning microscope, and a touristed Emilienne: I think we can count my first business trip as an overall success.
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