On Saturday I went to the station in foggy Neuchatel to take the train to Zurich.
From there I was heading to the town of Santa Fe in New Mexico - somewhere I'd never been - for our annual meeting of the leaders working on our various research areas.
There are no direct flights to Santa Fe - it's a very small domestic-only airport in the US - and the best I could do was fly to San Francisco and take a smaller plane to Albuquerque. Which is only an hour's drive from Santa Fe.
I was really apprehensive about this trip: the federal shutdown in the US has cause havoc over the last few days, with many flights being cancelled. SFO was one off the affected hubs.
I ended up being really lucky, this time: my flight landed an hour and ten minutes early in SFO, which meant I had plenty of time to get through immigration, transfer terminals and get through security. A few colleagues had recommended installing the Mobile Passport Control (MPC) app which ended up being fantastic: I entered all my details ahead of time, snapped a selfie as I was exiting the plane, and went to a special queue with 3 people ahead of me. With a really quick security line I ended up at the gate for my next flight before the flight in was scheduled to arrive! Which just meant I had 3 hours to stay awake, of course, but hey.
The connecting flight was in a tiny jet, but ironically I had way more space. I took this photo of SF on the way out.
Albuquerque was much darker, as we arrived. Here's the airport in Albuquerque, which is really quite quaint.
I had pre-ordered an Uber, and my driver explained that New Mexico has an ordinance limiting the wattage of exterior lighting, which is why it's so dark. I think that's a really good idea, I have to say.
After a little over an hour's drive - and nearly 24 hours of travel, door-to-door - I finally checked in to the Inn and Spa at Loretto and found my room.
I was absolutely exhausted, by this point, so managed to sleep for nearly 8 hours!
The following morning I met up with Dagmara and Amanda for breakfast, and we headed into the centre of Santa Fe - which is really close to the hotel - to explore.
New Mexico is known for its chiles. In the background of this photo you can see some native American stallholders selling jewelry at the Governor's Palace.
We spent some time visiting the New Mexico History Museum.
It was an interesting place, with lots of (as you'd expect) history.
I really like the local architecture, I have to say.
The colour of the trees against the bright blue sky was really something.
This stagecoach was amazing.
After this we decided to go and get some hot chocolate. On the way we stopped by a courtyard with arts and crafts...
… that it turned out had been used by Oppenheimer as an office during the Manhattan Project.
Santa Fe is a really colorful place.
The Kakawa Chocolate House was very busy...
… but well worth the wait. We had flights of hot chocolate - all of which I enjoyed immensely.
Fikret joined us there: we'd planned to arrive together the night before, but his flight from Atlanta had been cancelled the night before. Many of the people travelling in for the event were impacted by flight delays and cancellations. I was really one of the lucky ones, it turns out.
The four of us went for a lightish lunch at la Plazuela.
After lunch we wandered along Canyon Road - which is famous for its art galleries - and snapped a quick pic out the back of the hotel, on the way past it.
I was so happy to be able to visit Santa Fe a little - there's nothing like sunshine and good food to start getting over jet lag.
There are definitely some characters in Santa Fe. It reminds me a lot of California, in that sense.
The artworks on display were impressive.
For dinner we joined the larger group - those who had managed to arrive on Sunday, at least - for dinner at Tomasita's.
Some of us decided to try their frozen margerita: they had one with a dash of sangria called "the swirl". Because of the potency - and probably the altitude, as Santa Fe is at over 2,000m - they limit these to two per person. Matthew didn't need much convincing to try a third because, you know, Science.
After a slightly less good night's sleep - this is often the way for me, as you're less exhausted but still have major jet lag on the second night - we had breakfast and a nice walk to talk about some work topics.
We ended up back on Canyon Road again as we wandered.
The autumn colors here are lovely.
In the afternoon we started work proper, having eased nicely into it over the last day and a half.
It was really good to see people in person, and we've already started to make some solid progress through fruitful discussions.
After the session finished, we had some time to unwind or explore. I got some work done, others went to the very nice pool area:
For our welcome reception we stayed in the hotel, just getting drinks and dinner at Crafted.
It was fun to catch up socially with so many people - some of whom I work with on a daily basis, others much less regularly.
It was a nice, relaxed environment.
Staying in the hotel made it much easier for those people who'd just arrived to go to bed once we'd finished.
A few of us went through to the hotel bar and had one last drink by the fireplace.
The more serious meetings start tomorrow, but also some more serous fun, too, as we visit the original Meow Wolf.
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