We then arrived in Paris on June 21st. If spending the summer solstice in the city of lights means nothing to you then you've never heard of Fete de la Musique, a one day outdoor party. The streets were filled with Parisians taking in the food, the sights and the sounds generated from live musicians trough out the city. Fete de la Musique is now celebrated in almost every part of France and a good chunk of Switzerland too. There were teenage garage bands, DJs, tam-tam players and of course many troubadours. At one location the musician's distributed lyrics into the crowd so that everyone could sing along. Here are some pics:
As the party went on, it got wild. Here's a photo of a small gathering of dancing Parisians assembled on the top of a nearby bus shelter.
On the last night we met up with some old friends who now live in Paris. No I'm not talking about evil Gomez, although he was there and he did take the picture below. I'm talking about our good friend Phong Tran. If anyone out there is interested as to how cells and their cytoskeletons adapt to varying morphologies and want to move to either UPenn or the Institut Curie go work for him! (Yes Phong is so wanted, he runs two labs.)
One last comment (as you can see all these travel entries have some hidden science-based topic stitched in at the end). Science is a funny profession. Until relatively late in our careers, we are nomads. Every 3-7 years we pack our bags and head off to a new institution, city, country or continent. There we meet new people. It's exciting - most scientists are smart, engaging and open minded. Many are opinionated and critical, but in an enlightened way. It's great. But it is also tough to maintain contact with all these good but long lost friends. We try to meet - a day passing through another city, a conference. I guess it gives us a good excuse to travel.
In the next post I'll post some photos of still other long lost friends, but the venue will be on the other side of the Rhine.
- Log in to post comments
More like this
