Soo, it’s already the last week.
Time here has been so enjoyable that I even started considering the possibility of moving here someday. But I also understand that this is probably just the classic "rose-tinted glasses" effect. Everything feels exciting when it’s new, and that can definitely influence your judgement.
Still, before heading back, there was some work left to wrap up.
I can’t believe how fast time has passed — there are only two weeks left now! Realizing that made me much more active in exploring the area and trying to do as many things as possible before driving back to Berlin.
Work is still going well. I guess I’m actually pretty good at what I’m doing, because my boss here has asked me multiple times if I would consider staying and working here instead of returning to Germany. To be honest, the projects here are genuinely interesting, but spending another two or three years learning the language and settling into a completely new country would also be quite challenging.
Still… maybe someday I really will end up somewhere along the Mediterranean coast.
It was truly a lovely week. I have to say, the four-day work week is amazing — time passes so quickly before you even realize it’s already the weekend again.
Thanks to the extra recovery time, I’m able to go back to work feeling refreshed. I’m still working on different demos and improving the performance of existing projects. There are always bugs that take forever to track down, but with patience — which is probably one of the most important skills for a programmer — and careful debugging, things eventually work out.
May is really a great month because there are so many public holidays, which basically turns every week into a four-day workweek. I’m still mainly focused on creating different demos for different projects. One of the applications is a dashboard-style web app that demonstrates automation observability and human-in-the-loop workflow resolution in the healthcare industry. Another project is quite similar, but targeted toward public service work such as repairs, installations, and plumbing. There is also an AI-powered support QA platform and a commercial intelligence platform for fruit and vegetable distributors. I’m guessing most of these demos are intended for local businesses since they are all very region-specific.
I’ve been in France for more than a month now, and the funny part is that even though I still don’t speak French, communication is somehow getting easier. Whether it’s my colleagues chatting with each other or everyday situations like grocery shopping, I can usually pick up a few keywords and rely on body language to understand what’s going on.
This week has been busy once again. Even though I’ve been here for less than two weeks, I’m already working on three different projects. I’m responsible for the user interface on all of them, and I also contribute to improving the user experience to make workflows more efficient.
My work officially started on Tuesday, and things quickly became quite busy after a long break during Easter. Jumping straight back into work was definitely a challenge, but also exciting.
My first week was a bit more relaxed than expected, because it was mostly about paperwork and administration.
On Monday I was welcomed by Anna from ALFMED. She is friendly and very helpful and showed me my accommodation, which is right next to the agency. She gave me a brief introduction to the city and the area, including the city centre, public transport, and, since I came here by car, also some information about parking.
My journey already began on 22 March.
To make the 1,700 km, 16‑hour drive easier, I decided to turn it into a road trip and stop in a few different cities along the way.