Sweet victory

Things have been going well over the past few days.  At work, the new sample is behaving itself well.  Yesterday I finished up analyzing the spectra from the cavities of different lengths, and I was right - no difference.  Today I started looking at non-parallel Fabry-Perot cavities.  I saw some pretty strange spectra, and Mélanie and Clèment are quite interested in finding out more about them.  So my mission has changed, for a while at least: now I need to plot the Fourier transforms of these spectra and use the distance between peaks in wave-vector-space to predict the length of the dominant lasing path inside the cavity.  I spent the afternoon reading a paper that the lab published on that very topic, and coding a routine in Igor.  Tomorrow I'll keep working on those tasks, and write up a short summary of my past few weeks investigating the spectral line widths.  Lots of desk work!  But it's fortunate, because Clèment has returned from last week's conference in Vienna and needs to work in the lab as well.  So we can take turns.

Yesterday evening I rested and recuperated from my walk at Versailles.  I cooked myself dinner!  It was only couscous and some little cocktail sausages, but I felt accomplished.  Today after work, Kierstin and I ate quiche and baguette in the room, and then headed off towards the Champs-Elysées to see the Arc de Triomphe.  Imagine our surprise to discover Linda on the same car of the metro train, on her way to the Tuileries gardens.  (What are the Johnny Cromptons?)  She decided to join us instead, and on our way up the Champs-Elysées took us to the store that sells arguably the best macaroons in Paris.  Since Paris is unarguably the best city for macaroons, that means that these are basically the best in the world.

I didn't really know what macaroons were before coming to Paris, and I was skeptical at first.  But after ordering a rose-petal and a caramel macaroon on Linda's recommendation, my mouth was extremely happy.  I savored them as we walked up to the Arc de Triomph, and am very much looking forward to going back at some point and trying a cherry blossom macaroon.  Linda bought one of those, and it was delicious when I tasted it.  And we also ran into Drew, strolling back down the sidewalk, to top off the evening of improbable meetings.

And the Arc de Triomphe!  For some reason, back when I took French classes it became a significant life goal of mine to visit this monument.  Standing at the center of a teeming swirling roundabout, looking to my left down the Champs-Elysées all the way to the Tuileries and the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower rising above the buildings ahead, the Arc de Triomphe above me and the best macaroon in the world melting in my mouth, I couldn`t help feeling very triumphant indeed.