The rain, the Seine and the Eiffel Tower

Paris appears to be a bit sad that this year’s conference is drawing to end since it has started to rain yesterday evening. The rain was especially timely for those making their way from the Palais des congrès to the River Banquet Cruise near Pont des Invalides. But luckily geochemists are not the sort of people to let a bit of rain stop them from having yet another fun evening.

 

This year’s banquet took place on two river boats, where we could eat dinner and enjoy good company all while taking in the sights of Paris along the Seine. It is a lovely way to see such a city, as the Seine is a focal point itself. Although we didn’t find ourselves interacting too much with many other conference participants, everyone was just excitedly chatting amongst themselves and periodically going upstairs for an outside view of Notre-Dame, Musée d’Orsay, and not the least of which, the Eiffel Tower.

 

The Eiffel Tower is of course one of the top highlights of the cruise, particularly when you see it lit up and twinkling after sunset. The cruise was perfectly timed so that we could see the first lights of the tower being turned on, and conveniently the rain had also let up for our entire dinner cruise!

 

Once on the docks, groups of us slowly disembarked to continue the evening. For our group, we found ourselves wandering amongst some of the buildings we had seen from the river, thus enjoying them once again completely lit up in the night. Then we toasted to the night at a bar as the rain picked up again.