eddie-brown.net blog

I am here to work. I really really am here to Work.

But recently it has been a tale of long weekends. Last Monday was some kind of local holiday. It was sunny. We didn?t care too much. This weekend is again a holiday.

Work has been progressing. Answering questions, and struggling to get the electricians t do as I want. This is not because they are awkward, just I cannot communicate fully with them. Tuesday will be interesting to say the least. Its a bit of a case of juggling the resources, and at the same time not upsetting the resources?. If we were all English speaking then I would be able to understand what the Contractors were planning on doing, and guide their actions to mesh together. As it is, we have separate views which cannot be expressed informally, but we have to get the customer to hep translate. Tuesday will be an interesting day, but after another couple of days the job should then run itself, with workloads balanced, and everything happening in the right order.

Anyway, a little about where I am. From the guide that I got from the Tourist Information office?.

Aguilar de Campoo has a population of 7.756 people of which 3,810 are male and 3.946 are female. It is located 892.10 meters above sea level.

I have left the commas and periods as the writer intended. With accuracy like that it is surprising that they have not rushed out another leaflet to include us in the tally? I wonder which bit of the town is that height above sea level. Its not exactly flat here!

I only need to pop up to the castle, and then I have done pretty much all the local sites. The train seems to take forever to get anywhere, and there are not many of them. As a result having all this time off is not necessarily as good as it might seem. I don?t personally have any form of car to take off anywhere?.

Yesterday we had to take the hire car back to the airport at Santander. This led to two of my colleagues heading to Bibao to do some shopping, then the other three of us met them at the airport. I got an English paper to read. and then we headed to the nearest shopping center for a quick look and some food. I should point out how cheap DVDs are here, I now have 3 left to watch (as I have already watched one of them). They have the added benefit that I could watch them in Spanish if i want. It was a bit of a squeeze on the way back with 5 of us in one car.

Thats enough from me for now. Time to download a load of pod casts from Radio 4 for later listening. Toodle pip.

I have posted some photos I have taken so far. there are more to follow. So far they include photos of Valencia, and the Dam at Aguilar de Campoo.

I have a little bit of a tan!

I just thought I would update my readers with what is going on out here….

I spent much of Tuesday travelling, seeing a customer site for the first time, and adapting to Spain a bit. And a meal out with others from work. Wednesday was a meeting with people from the customer (I was actually quite happy with how that meeting went, and that goes both for my point of view and my employer) and a 3 hour lunch with them (including lots of travel time….) and then another meal in the evening!

Don’t think that we have as much fun as Gary does though….

Wednesday for me started at just after 5 am, followed shortly by checking out of the hotel, and by 6am I had checked in for a flight north. This flight was on an especially small jet, it only being an internal Spanish flight… however, they did serve breakfast. which was a bonus.

Met the Installation and commissioning manager at the airport, and after a quick coffee (his flight was not as posh as mine…) he drove to the site. Mmmmmm Spanish roads!

What followed was an attempt from our side to show me the site, and what I needed to do. This got hijacked almost immediately by the Spanish electricians who were really keen on asking me questions. Not that I really understood them.

I have now spent a couple of days on site, assessing what is needed and planning, and answering the occasional questions. In the coming week I hope to get involved in the commissioning of machines and not just the wiring.

And I can just about get food and drink in the hotel. so its not all bad!

This is a post I have been meaning to write for 4 days now. That helps illustrate how good I am at communicating at the moment….

On Wednesday work asked me to go to Spain for 2 to 3 weeks. Actually they asked me to stay in Spain for 2 to 3 weeks, as I was already meant to be there on Wednesday (with travelling on tuesday/thursday.)

So suddenly off i am going. Even resorting to buying myself a trolley case. I guess I will have to just muddle through and learn enough Spanish as I go. One thing is for sure, it will certainly be interesting!

Google is being a little odd today. If you are looking for a date, why not give them a try?

I managed to get a date straight away from it….