Neighbours - everybody loves good ones goes the theme tune to a famous aussie soap opera by the same name.
And slipping off the 101 last night to Moffett Federal Airfield after touching down in San Francisco it became ridiculously clear that Solar Impulse could not be in better company.
HP, Yahoo, Apple, YouTube, Sun Power, Dropbox, Google, the list goes on ...
Bref as the French speaking team I'm travelling with would put it - the big guns are all here, mirror glass facades inspecting the tops of the palm trees over which they tower. This is the very heart of the Silicon Valley and a server-full of fodder to feed a tech geek's wet dreams for years to come (one would suppose). Microsoft is literally next door for goodness sake, a stone's throw away if I want to cause trouble. One strange jet lag induced fantasy saw me stealthily remove an HB-SIA engine propeller belt, stretch it between a couple of tree trunks, set myself in the middle, do a run up and catapult myself over the high wire fence of the NASA base where we're staying and land directly into Ballmer's office. A memorable way to bag an interview and promote a message: experimental flight meets proverbial glass ceiling shattering.
Andre and Bertrand on the other hand have no need for such tactics to grab valuable face time with the Valley elite. Neighbours, as the theme song reminds - "with a little understanding they can find the perfect blend." Which apparently they already have: Sun Power, only down the road, developed the 12 thousand solar cells covering the plane's gangly wings; featherlight but still large enough to drink in the sunshine like brits in the 90's downing Sunny D before we found out it was bad for us. Then there's Google co-founder Larry Page who came over to play. The boys happily swapped toys, with Larry sharing his Google specs for a stroke of B and A's plane. No tears before bedtime, so perhaps these three are perfect playmates - I certainly wouldn't be surprised to see them all hang out together again soon.
Because, to reach the climax of this dreadful theme tune that for some reason I'm dragging through the entirety of this blog post, "that's when neighbours become good friends."
Good, now that's over time to finish up other business:
We'll be flying to Phoenix in the next few days hopefully, weather depending. I can't say more for the moment.
For those of you reading this who may just be checking I'm alive:
1. I'm alive. We 6 media team members flew out of Zurich yesterday and arrived late last night.
2. The accommodation is tickety boo. There's even a ceiling fan: Those of you who know me well will know that reporting from a place with a ceiling fan has actually always been a priority of mine. (still lacking the whiskey in the desk drawer, but it's only day 2).
3. The food is good. No freeze dried astronaut powder for us. In fact the chefs are swiss and have come with us. Tonight it's raclette ... a nice gesture but one I'm not quite ready for, scarred by the recent memory of Swiss Air's Roesti-Fondue Calzone pizza breakfast.
4. Parcels I sent myself arrived unharmed though aroused a fair amount of suspicion. NASA, it seems, has never received a hair dryer nor heated rollers in the post before. At least I'm some kind of pioneer.
5. One feeling: it's a little strange to be travelling and working (for the time being) entirely in French in a country where my own language is spoken all around me. At the same time it reminds me that for the most part in Switzerland I work in English in a country where languages that are not mine, at least natively, are spoken all around me. Then for a brief flicker of a moment I wonder why I always get myself into these situations, whilst all the time knowing that I wouldn't change it, not for all its complexities, potential misunderstandings, the jokes that go down like a lead balloon, and then the jokes between cultures that are finally got and laughed at louder than they deserve, almost in celebration. There's a lot of that, sat outside at the sunshine soaked picnic tables, taking a brief break from the circus we're building round ourselves, somewhere between Sunnyvale and Mountain View.
So that's life for now. Apologies for an absence of anything pretty but working in the corner of a hangar, in a tangle of cables, amongst cameras, lenses and computers.
Fondest Regards,
Helena
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