Neutron scattering does not only enable important research to be carried out, which helps us to understand materials and life a bit more, but also brings people to nice countries. Being part of the ESS Scandinavia team, I'm based at ILL in Grenoble, the capital of the French Alps. I'm preparing for the future, working with world-class leading scientists from all over Europe in the fields of materials science and neutron instrumentation.
Today was an "Analyzing data day" at ILL. Numbercrunching you might say. Digging too much into data made my senses continue analysing even on my way home to our place in the outskirts of Grenoble. I, as always, had first to face the stochastic motions - the origin of quasielastic scattering for a neutron freak - in French traffic. By this I mean a more or less "amorphous" behaviour in car-driving here, where red lights and parking spots appear to serve only as guides for strangers like me. However, the opposite (the ordered structure) exists as well - here in France you need to fill in loads of papers and they may even ask you about your shoe size if you, for example, are about to buy a radio. These are just some of my observations of everyday life in France - and I like to make the comparison to Sweden, where you probably can buy a castle without signing a single paper and without telling the seller who you are.
Passing by the grocery store on my way home, I purchased the essentials for this weekend's activity, walking. My skis were stolen a few weeks ago, but the scenery is nevertheless magnificent on foot! So what did I buy? - Baguettes, cheese, wine and yoghurt of course!!! I'm still amazed about the thousands of different kinds of yoghurt you find here!. But then again a foreigner in Sweden would marvel at the hundreds of different kinds of milk we seem to need to survive. Does anyone know what "långfil" is for example...
