Sauntering Vaguely Downward

As you may have noticed, I spent most of last week in Italy. I’d never been to Italy previously. Even though it was a work trip, it was still hugely enjoyable.

ESRIN
ESRIN is the European Space Agency centre for Earth observation. It has quite an impressive entrance and some very swish office buildings, but not a lot in the way of otherwise space-y accoutrements. Because let’s face it, what we all want when we visit space agency centres are awesome spacecraft models and big dishes. ESRIN has none of the former and only one of the latter.

What it lacks in visible space gizmos and decent WiFi ESRIN makes up for with a fantastic canteen and rather good coffee. The canteen brought to mind the episode of “Spaced” in which Brian takes Twist to view an exhibition of white paintings. The first puzzle you have to solve is which of the white cubicles along the entrance hall might hold the (white) trays and (white) napkins. Next, you must work out which of the white stands artfully arranged in the white interior is concealing the drinks refrigerator, which the salad bar and which the pasta. When you’ve sorted this out, you walk to the white register to pay the white-clad cashier. It’s as much participatory performance art as it is lunch.


ESRIN’s one big dish.

( More from ESRIN )

Frascati by day
Frascati is on a hill. A very steep hill. The hotel we were staying in was very nice, but it was also at the bottom of the hill. To get to the centre of the old town once the day’s business was done, we had to climb the hill. This was perhaps for the best, as the evening meals tended to be long and involved.

( Frascati by day )

Frascati by night
One of the best things about participating in this particular well-established space mission is that everyone gets on really well. When it comes time for the evening meal, almost the entire quorum gathers to eat together. And we’re not talking about a quick bite in a pizzeria. No. We’re talking about a three hour, minimum-three-course session with wine, followed by gelato (since we were in Italy) and drinks at a bar. I’m grateful to have worked on this mission for so long. Our team delivers our data on time and have done for years. I can sincerely say that I put the effort in not just from professional pride, but out of love.


The fetish pig from the photo meme post resides in this restaurant.

( Gluttony )

I’m looking forward to seeing all these faces again in Madrid in June, when we have our Operations Review.

Request #9: The ceiling. You have inspired me to take lots of ceiling photos over the last day and a half, but I think you'll quite like this one. It's the ceiling of the train from the airport to the centre of Rome. Note the little 8-bit train rendering! We were only mildly disappointed that no one had thought to program it to move from one side to the other with the motion of the train.


Request #21: Something purple. A cake shop off the central square in front of the cathedral in Frascati has some pretty over-the-top window displays, each themed by colour. This is a small part of the purple window.



Request #22: Something pink. This pig was sitting on the bar of the restaurant we were in last night. It is inappropriate, inexplicable and incongruous. Also, pink.
( Piggy is possibly NSFW )

Bonus picture: Nerds enjoying themselves, with the assistance of wine. Lovely, lovely wine.