Celebrating 1 year in Paris and the European Space Agency, 700 Followers, oh and my Birthday(!)
This week is a bit special for me as it marks 1 year since I left my home country Norway on a one-way plane ticket to Paris to pick up my duties at the European Space Agency. Truly a giant leap for a young man looking to enter the Space sector and push the boundaries!
And, seeing as today is also my 27th birthday it was also a neat opportunity to celebrate with some colleagues and go out for a proper lunch at our favorite local Italian restaurant!
Anyway, having looked back at my first year in ESA and the French Capital I thought I would share some thoughts and memories with you all together with some pictures of my tiny celebrations today. :)
27 and smiling! I would say that there were more than enough reasons to celebrate with a glass of wine for lunch today!
It is safe to say that the past year has been quite a shift for me. Before moving, I had mostly worked and studied in Norway with the exception of my time at the International Space University taking me to Florida and the NASA Kennedy Space Center back in 2012. So I knew that many new challenges awaited me, from starting to work at a demanding workplace, to getting into life in a new city and becoming familiar with a completely different language!
However, these were the types of challenges that made the opportunity to go impossible to resist in the first place! Indeed, I've always known that personal growth depends on you being willing to throw yourself into new environments that are different from those you have grown familiar with, and it was about time to do so again since Florida.
I knew that getting to work with an International organization like the European Space Agency at the heart of a European Capital was sure to provide me with many ladders to climb. Living for at least a year or two in a big city like Paris was also something I have wanted to do for a long time. Something I knew I had to do while still young and without any ties to family etc.
The Italian restaurant we went to is really awesome. I treated myself with a starter consisting of Italian Coppa ham followed by Pasta with chicken in a neat lemon sauce. Yummy!
The year at the Space Agency has already allowed me to meet and connect with so many great people, young and old, with ties to the European and International Space Industries. It has also allowed me to take the step from working with other people's project, to being in charge of my own. Indeed, I'm just looking at every opportunity possible to grab experience, make connections, and prepare myself for a new era in space that is more promising than what I dared to dream of back when I first started out back in 2012. So I'm just thrilled to see where I will be going on from here!
Oh, and as if there weren't enough reasons to be happy today, I also turned 700 followers this morning! (So someone gave me a nice birthday present unknowingly ;) ). So I would also like to use this opportunity, once again, to tell you how amazing it is to be able to share the journey with all of you guys. Both as I take new steps on my space-journey, and also as I get more and more into the brave new world of the Blockchain. I am happy to have you with me, and hope to be there with you too!
So thank you all for reading this far and being an amazing community here on steemit! I expect to have my next satellite images post up tomorrow, and looking forward to engaging more with you!
Take care
Fredrik / @fredrikaa
Congrats, Fredrik!
Thanks a lot janusface! :)
Happy Birthday, man! :D
Congrats on the followers as well!
Thanks a lot buddy!
This trip around the sun sure seems to have gone faster than the previous ones...
Hope the follower count can grow more quickly as I resume more regular posting. Had a lot more active engagements and comments during my first weeks.
Congratulations and happy birthday mate! And that restaurant looks delicious! Next time I go to Paris I know who to ask for restaurant recommendations! :)
Thanks a lot mate!
Yeah it is really nice, one of our favorites ^^.
Make sure to send me a message!
I will! :)
Happy birthday dear, I also completed my 27 happy years in the month of August. You have lived a great life so far because it is not very easy to work in a Space Agency. It has many challenges and requires many sacrifices from us. I hope you will also contribute a lot to this steemit community.
Thanks a lot my friend :)
I absolutely do look forward to doing more and more and more and more on steemt! It's just so much more than just another blog-site. It's a building block for so much to come in content creation.
Yes you are very right dear.
I hope you had a happy birthday (looks like you did!) and congratulations on your achievements, Fredrik.
Moving into another country to embark in such an enterprise is no small feat (I should know), but by reading your articles one can tell that you are passionate about what you do and enjoy talking about your work―which is very interesting indeed―so it seems like it was the right choice for you. Besides, luckily for you, you have to deal with French instead of German, hehe ;-)
My best wishes for you in this new year in your life, cheers!
Thank you so much irime. I'll be happy with my achievements once this current project is over and I can take a well deserved holiday ^^ but thank you very much for the kind words.
I absolutely love the radically changed environment and how such a move forces you to adapt. I'll probably look to do it again in a year :) got to do it when we can!
Haha, well it's a very international organisation, so I get to deal with people from most of Europe ;p
Our previous conference that I hosted was in Berchtesgaden in southern Germany, and I do work with some Bavarian organisations. So I get to experience them as well ^^
Thanks again both for your wishes but also for your awesome engagement here on steemit! It's people like you who make it worthwhile being here :)
Take care!
Congratulations for everything. The next time, the beer will then be for me ;)
PS: can I trade a visit at ESA with a visit at CERN? :)
Haha, that sounds awesome :) I certainly won't say no to that!
Sure we could do a trade. Although if you want to see ESA I would rather have gone to the open day at ESTEC, the European Space Technology Research Centre, in the Netherlands. the Headquarters are mostly office-spaces :P (although we will be moving out for 2 years beginning next year due to large refurbishing, so it is an opportunity to space it up a little bit I guess!)
Okay, let's organize the trip to the Netherlands then. It is a long time I have spoken any Dutch :p
I however do not know when I will have the time... as you can imagine!
Happy Bday Fredrik :)
Thanks Marcus!
Cya later this month? ;)
Just as a man would not cherish living in a body other than his own, so do nations not like to live under other nations, however noble and great the latter may be.
- Mahatma Gandhi
Thanks for all your arduous work, here's a bunch of token of appreciation!
I suspect this comment is a favorite of yours
@fredrikaa This is great news. Nicely carried out!.