Bathroom

Want to install a timer for the bathroom fan, but it looks like there's no room inside the electrical box. The wiring in there is like spaghetti!

Actually, I've had other reasons to not fully trust the wiring in this condo.

Also want a medicine cabinet. Can't find anything anywhere from shopping around that would fit well. So probably build my own. Wood is expensive though, definitely not saving any money by doing it myself. But at least I'll get the right style and size.

Returning home

Got bumped up to business class on british airways for the London-Calgary leg again. It was awesome! Don't know why it keeps happening, I asked and they said it's probably cause I have a frequent flyer program (I was using my asia miles). Though that seems a little odd, since I didn't have many miles, and hadn't collected any in about 6 years. Oh well, I think I should try to keep flying oneworld airlines if they keep doing this for me. Besides, despite everyone's praise about singapore, I still think cathay has the prettiest cabin crew.

Now I'm back in canada, just like last time, got sick. Really kicked me on my butt this time. So tired but couldn't sleep cause my mind was active with all sorts of stuff that made no sense (usually something to do with electrical boxes?), was sore, and a bit feverish. Hope it's a quick recovery.

Nice to be home, but the main things greeting me were 6 weeks of mail, and taxes. On the plus side, looking closely, it looks like I can get OETC for the last few months of the year!

Dude where's my car's next gear

Got to drive to munich, then back to friedrichshafen, then back to munich. The second couple trips were on autobahns (which I kept accidentally calling interstates). If I'd been in my own car, I'd have totally been one of the guys going like 180. But instead I was in the rental car which I got bottom of the line to save intermap some money (though I noticed the mechanic rented an audi and the pilot rented a mercedes). The transmission was definitely not set up for highway driving. It was painful driving a couple hours at high rpms, I kept searching for another gear and almost put it in reverse a couple times. The germans are really concerned about snow on the roads though, there are warning signs all over the place, and as soon as the temp drops below 3 C the car beeps at you. And as soon as any snow falls, the salt trucks are out on the highway. Most of the driving between munich and friedrichshafen had very snowy conditions, probably not the best for driving fast anyways.

Went to Dachau on the way into munich, it's an old concentration camp / prison. Not too many people killed there in comparison to other places, but definitely a sad place. Though inspiring that people went through that and came out the other side.

Got the gender changer cable fabricated tuesday morning, drove to F to install it and test it, seemed successful, drove back to M at like 10pm. Pretty sucky day actually, and I hadn't been sleeping well. The radio was ineffective so I had to sing musicals to keep myself awake. It sounded horrendous!

Overall so many bad decisions associated with my time in germany. Firstly, probably didn't really need to go. And I was tired and wanted to get home. Secondly, as soon as I found we needed a gender changer, should have changed flights to go home the next day and let the next guy handle it in australia rather than stay in germany for several more days and rushing the install and not doing very thorough tests. Shouldn't have rented a car (the eu120 base charge jumped to eu370 by the time the extra crap charges are added), I barely used it except for driving the highway, which would have been possibly more pleasant, and definitely easier and safer, if I had just taken the very effective train network back and forth. Anyways, glad it's done now.

Moodswingen

Ok so that first evening I was really happy to be here, but it's changed back and forth since.

Can't believe so many days have passed already. The first day, went to the airport for a while, then went out and about a couple nearby towns (Meersburg and Ravensburg). Was nice to see a little bit of the area and a couple castles. But not that nice. Cold. The next day, spent most of the day waiting at the airport, then finally had a chance to do the main work I came here for, and discovered I couldn't really do anything at all. The cable is female, the old part had a male connector obviously but the new part has a female connector. Female and female can't mate though sometimes it's hot to watch them try. (it's a joke!) So Munich office will make a gender changer after the long weekend and maybe there'll be time to install/test, maybe not. Means no real work till tuesday. Good friday the weather was blowing snow and rain and cold, kindof lousy, though we visited Ulm and saw a crazy church, the Ulmer Münster! Spent the rest of the day in the hotel, trying to do some programming. Was feeling lousy and wishing I had made my return ticket sooner, I'm definitely ready to come home for a bit.

Next day really redeemed everything, the weather was sunny and less cold, went to Hohenschwangau and Neuschwanstein (palaces). The drive out there was beautiful with snowy hills and fields, and the palaces were crazy. A really good day. It was snowing on the drive back.

Now that's done, today looks kindof lousy again and probably nothing to do being easter sunday. Maybe I'll sit at the hotel programming to justify being here on the company's expense, or maybe I'll drive into austria and switzerland just to say I've been there. Tomorrow I'll make my way to munich and see what there is to see there, spend the night, then see how things go in the munich office on tuesday, if things go well (I kindof hope they don't) I'll drive back to friedrichshafen, install the stuff, and try to do testing, then drive back to munich for the night and fly back home in the morning.

German restaurant

Arrived in Friedrichshafen this afternoon and shortly after headed to a restaurant that the copilot had been raving about ever since he was here for a short time a month ago. The waitress was so friendly, I was like "I'm in love!" Obviously not really, but she was really cool and seemed down to earth, chatted when she had a moment, and the fact that she was nice and smiled put her above pretty much everyone in Spain. Seems like a fun person.

The restaurant was really good! Of course the beer would have been really good too if I liked that sort of stuff. (the pilots loved it). And the atmosphere and design of the place was really neat, I really liked it! I'm sure we'll be back.

The temperature is only a few deg C, which isn't so hot, but it feels crisp and clean.

There are real forests here! Deciduous trees don't have leaves, but there's no snow on the ground except in the hills/mountains, and there's even some green grass.

Took a short walk after I got back from the restaurant. It was cold, I had to return and grab my touque (yes even though I was only planning on being in the meditteranean, I brought my touque). It kindof reminded me of that really cool place near portland I mentioned a few months ago.

If you couldn't tell, overall it feels really good to be out of Torremolinos/Malaga/Spain, and be here. But I'm still a bit tired and want to come home sometime soon. The fun young pilot is leaving tomorrow, but the pilot who remains is pretty good. One mechanic is quite old but a great guy, the other is middle age and isn't the greatest to be around, but they'll be quite busy I think. I don't know how my schedule will go, but I don't actually have a lot to do. Haven't decided if I'll rent a car, haven't decided how much I'll try to get Intermap to pay for, haven't decided much of anything really :)

By the way, as my next rotation is likely in adelaide, I'm thinking of heading down a couple weeks early, see some australia or new zealand. Anyone want to join? (yeah I know most readers of this blog can't, but might as well ask)

Easter parade

Here's it's the whole Easter week. Took a train into Malaga yesterday and wandered around. Soon found a parade. Later on, found other parades. Looks like there were a few different processions moving around. Each one had a band at the fornt playing mournful music, then lots of people wearing penitance hats (tall pointy hats with "curtain" with just eye wholes comvering the face/shoulders). These people were carrying massive candles of 7-10 cm diameter and over a metre long. There were children too, surprised noone caught on fire by accident. Some kids watching were collecting balls of wax, the candle holders would drip some wax onto their existing ball to make it bigger, it was kindof cute. Anyways, there were some people carrying big scepters and other neat stuff, and there were incense burners... that smell seems to stir weird feelings which I can't really place. The biggest thing was a massive float. One procession had Mary in black robes, another Mary in blue robes, a couple others Jesus held prisoner by roman soldiers. Lots of big candles on these things. And these were big, I counted that there were over 100 men carrying each one. (I'd guess 108 cause that's a special number). Then there'd be a band playing what seemed like more triumphant music (but I could be wrong). Overall the thing was very impressive, especially with the background of old european buildings and sometimes an incredible massive cathedral. It's amazing, seeing so much "faith", I dunno how to say exactly what I mean. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be seriously religious. In any case, I am a little curious about these things and think it might be worth learning more about their customs.

Latest plans

Heading to Friedrichshafen tomorrow. Plan on returning to Calgary on wed mar 26. In between, we'll see what happens. Thinking maybe I should have made the return to calgary sooner, I feel like being home again. That seems to be the feeling of a few others here too, I think this place has that effect after a while.

Chopsticks wrapper

Welcome to Chinese Restaurant. Please try your Nice Chinese Food with Chopsticks. the traditional and typical of Chinese glorious history and culture.

Friedrichshafen

The plane leaves here on upcoming monday or tuesday, to go to near the border between germany, switzerland, and austria. There's maintenance being done there, and part of that involves the mechanic installing a radar related part. That needs to be tested before it goes working again. So, the plan's shaping up for me to go to friedrichshafen to test it. I could stay a bit longer on my own time too maybe. But a bunch of complications.

Firstly, don't really know when the plane will go there. Secondly, don't know the availability of people/resources to get the mechanical work done to install this part, it might take a couple days or more. Even when done, the testing can only be partially done if the plane is in the hangar, and would only take a couple hours. The testing would be completed by the other guy when the plane reaches australia.

So, realistically, I dunno, I'd like to go to germany, I think it would be fun. But is it really practical for the company to have me stay on for a few days, and work to book new awkward flights and pay a lot since it's almost easter, for only those couple hours of work, which won't even be a full testing? It all works for my benefit, but I feel guilty to cost the company so much if it's not really worthwhile. But I don't know if we trust the mechanics to install it unsupervised, and if we're willing to leave it till australia with no testing, in case something's not right (though in that case we'd just remove it and reinstall the old ok-but-not-best part).

I don't even have ideas on where to go and what to do if I take some time to myself there. Maybe everything will be all booked up or closed down for easter.

Couple more notes about driving

I guess driving is a big part, go back and forth to the airport a couple times every day.

I think I forgot to mention one of the coolest things in Malta that I've been thinking about... at at least two points along the road from the hotel to the airport were big scoreboard style digital clocks. Nothing special there, except that they showed the seconds! It was totally encouraging you to do time trials between the two! I'd have totally been blazing down those roads on the way to the airport at 2 am, trying to beat my previous time! :)

I'm finding myself pretty well suited to driving around here. I even like the roundabouts, though I still think they'd be dangerous back home.
- What I hate are the motorcyclists. Just like back home, lots of people here enjoy being as obnoxiously loud as possible. Unlike back home, people drive their motorbikes very close to cars, eg. passing cars by going in between lanes, even at highway speeds. Sometimes I really feel like drifting just those 20 cm that would leave the idiot smeared across the highway.
- Also lame is that as bad as we are back home for slowing down to crawl across speed bumps, it's even worse here.
- For the most part it's impossible to find street parking. Luckily, you don't need it, cause you can just leave the car in the street and put the hazard lights on. This has it's ups and downs of course.
- Smart cars are far less popular here than back home. Though I did once see a smart coupe. It somehow managed to be uglier and even less practical than the regular one.
- And how back home, when there's not quite enough room for you to get into the special turn lane or something, the person in front will squeeze forward a little to let you through? You'll never see that happen here.
Ok that's all again for now.

Ronda et al

And yet another night of no flying, this time headed northwest to explore some smaller towns in the spanish countryside. The scenery around here is pretty cool, it makes trips out of the city worthwhile even if there is no destination. This trip we took smaller super windy roads. It's really hilly here, not gentle hills but pretty sharp ones. And lots of towns built on the sides or tops of steep hills. Seemed strange at first, especially when sometimes there was a shallow valley nearby that would be so much easier to build on, but then someone reminded me that there was lots of fighting in old times around here, and a defensible position was probably the top priority. Visited Ronda, built at the top of a tall cliff, with a deep gorge going through the middle of it, quite interesting landscape. And an absolutely enormous impressive stone/brick bridge to go across it. Photos won't do it justice. Stopped in Casares on the way back, one of the little towns on top of some crazy terrain.

Granada

Another night of no flying, headed out to Granada. Ditched the car and walked to find places, it's so hard to find street parking anywhere. Found a giant cathedral, a monument of catholic penis envy of the muslims who were here before. Wandered a narrow spider web (spider on drugs) of narrow alleyways, can't imagine how you would ever give someone directions if you lived somewhere in there. Got to a great lookout point to see the Alhambra, the main attraction of Granada. An old muslim fort with palaces and such. Weaved our way back down then followed the chinese route (not sure how it has that name, it's not like there are many chinese here) around the rear of the Alhambra to the entrance. It's really neat just wandering. Inside the Alhambra, it as amazing the details of the carvings covering entire walls of palaces. Also extensive impressive gardens, likely incredible in the summertime. Was fun to stand atop towers and look out over the city. With these sorts of things, it's hard to imagine how many people over how many decades it would have taken to create. I didn't have much to eat or have sunglasses, and by the end of the day I was feeling weak and headachey, but about half an hour after a meal I felt quite good again. Stopped for some tea/coffee and headed back 'home'.

Gibraltar

The plane was not flying one night cause of weather, so a few of us headed down to Gibraltar. The drive was not too exciting. Gibraltar is pretty impressive looking though as you approach it! As usual in europe sometimes crazy narrow streets and a great difficulty finding parking. Took a cable car to the top. There are barbary macaques there, and plenty of warning signs about them. Still, some lady had put her handbag down. We watched as one calmly walked up to it, looking around, then sat there, took hold of it, and precisely opened a zipper, and reached inside and found a plastic bag. Other people noticed and yelled warnings to the lady who quickly picked up her handbag, leaving the monkey (yes though they're tailless, they're monkeys not apes) with only an empty plastic bag. She's damn lucky. Anyways, great views from up there, can see the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, and can see Africa. Wandered along some trails at the top. It's amazing how unmaintained it is. There's old rusty bent metal sticking out and all sorts, nothing's blocked off. And a lot of places have a lot of trash. Stupid people dumping their water bottles and other crap. And some graffitti or people scratching their names. I think there were a few noteworthy places around the rock we could have visited, but didn't get around to cause we got too hungry. But hiking around was worthwhile in itself. Also walked around a while in town, has a British feel. But nothing exceptional to remark on. Took forever to get out of town, and the route was chaos, there were people directing traffic in who knows what kind of system but it was definitely screwed up, especially including a u-turn with noone or even a traffic cone to lend some order to it.

Bullfight

As mentioned previously, there was going to be a bullfight one evening. The day came, I could still get a ticket, but I had a group meeting/presentation to attend. I mentioned it to my manager, and being the cool guy he is, told me to go to the bullfight instead! (the meeting ended up being canceled so I'm really glad I didn't stick around for it). My manager's last day is today though, hope the new manager is similarly cool but I somehow doubt it.

Anyways, the bullfight was kindof as expected, and most of us had the same general feeling: glad to have done it once, just to have had the experience, but plan to never watch one again. It is quite simply cruelty to animals, euro-style. Viewer discretion is advised.

Firstly, everyone comes out on parade, an important looking guy, a bunch of bullfighty type guys, some horse guys, some shovel guys, etc. In total there were going to be three bullfighters, six bulls.

The bull's already got it's irritant thing in it's neck when it comes out. The bullfighter's cronies wave flags to get it excited and have it run around a bit, and hide behind baffles if it looks dangerous. Then, a couple horsed guys come out, and when the bull comes up to them, they stick their spear in it for a while. The horses are completely blindfolded so they don't freak out that a bull is thumping them in the side. The horse guys soon go away. The cronies tire out the bull again, and one of them or sometimes the main bullfighter stick some barbed tassley things in it's back. The main bullfighter then waves his flag for a while while the bull tries to hurt the flag. The crowd shouts "ole!" sometimes. The bull moans sometimes. The "best" guy went on his knees sometimes, or spanked the bull as it went by. After a while of this, he trades his flag-waving sword for a stabby sword. Now, when the bull charges by, he tries to stab it deep in the back. One guy was good at getting the sword completely buried in the bull. The other two guys only got it partway in, and tried a couple times. With the sword completely buried, the bull collapses pretty soon, and a cronie comes in with a little knife to the back of the neck to make sure. Without the sword going fully in during the few tries, the bullfighter trades his stabby sword for a "ski pole" sword. He approaches the bull, gives a quick but shallow (cause of the flat ski-poley part) stab to the back of the neck, and the bull dies. With lots of cheering, the harnessed horses come out, get hooked up, and drag the dead bull away, while the shovel guys smooth out the dirt of the bullring. There's something about the fans waving white things, and some important guy then showing a white thing (I didn't notice this) if he approves of the match. Something like that.

Then it all happens again.

Sometimes mildly entertaining. Sometimes making me feel sick. It is definitely designed for entertainment though, not as a real challenge. I think, given 3-5 days, I could go down there and "fight" the bull and win no problem. I just wouldn't be very entertaining. The bull is so focussed on the flag thing that the person's in no real danger unless they wave the flag between themselves and the bull and don't move themselves or the flag. Stampede bull riding is far more dangerous than this stuff here.

So now you have the full description, you don't need to go see one. But probably given a chance, you will to be able to say you have, and then choose to never watch one again, just as we did.

Update time

Well it was pretty much non-stop for quite a while, work was busy (crazy hours of work, often middle of nights, etc) and then when an opportunity for other stuff came up I'd take it and push non-critical work back which means it continued to be too busy. Anyways, things calmed down eventully, with a few days of bad weather grounding the aircraft. Getting to relax and get out of here a bit I've definitely started to enjoy this rotation more than at the beginning, though it's still below other rotations. Also, even ethnically, things seem to have improved, recently I've seen upwards of ten orientals in a single day!! Actually one evening I saw a couple party-dressed asians, so naturally I followed them, and discovered where I can probably find the few who are here. Through an unremarkable doorway and down some stairs, should I dare to enter. The one word on the outside... karaoke! Anyways, I've had a chance to sit down for a while, time to update on what I've been up to in between work.