Old Scottish Friends

After the couple weeks working in London, I went up to Aberdeen to visit Pat, Stef and Chloe, of course! (old friends, though newly Scottish!). The time in Aberdeen was very nice and relaxing with some quality time with friends. Pat & I got many a scotch tasting (tours, local pubs and the living room). We also did a hike in on a nearby "mountain" - okay, it wasn't a mountain, more of a large hill, and it was covered in snow, and the distillery at the base (Glenlivet, which was supposed to be our reward), was closed, but still a nice hike and some much needed exercise. Stef and I also got a day adventuring to nearby castles (we avoided the snow!). And then there were the many fun days of hanging with Chloe and, I must admit, some days doing some remote work to pay the bills.

Here's a few photos from an expedition Pat & I took to the town of Elgin and the Glen Moray distillery (3 pounds for a tour and 7 scotch tastings!!).



And then Stef & I left Chloe with Pat for a day and did an outing to see a couple castles and have a really nice dinner just south of Aberdeen in Stonehaven. The photo of Stef next to a very special piece of Scottish history is quite impressive isn't it? (click on the photo and you can see a larger version of the photo and see what is underneath the box) I nearly had enough "covered" or "being repaired" photos of Scottish monuments to make an entire photo series of hidden art!! Or the other possibility is that this is a Scottish obelisk that will be the found during the beginning of A Space Odyssey: 2014?



How about Scottish mountaineering?




And some general trouble causing with my favourite girl in Aberdeen...



After two great weeks in Aberdeen (which flew by!) and with the work in London in the works but the paperwork dragging along, I made a quick decision to make a trip. After printing a map of Europe, going to the local pub, taping the aforementioned map to the dart board and having a few scotches, I threw a dart. Okay, in reality it more involved finding a cheap last minute flight to somewhere I wanted to go. As it turns out, Poland (and more specifically Krakow) was the final choice. And so I said farewell to Pat & Stef (left March 8 to be precise), but left the majority of my luggage with them ensuring another visit sometime very soon!

Aye, I've arrived in Scotland

Hello from Scotland, Inverness to be precise. Just took a cab from the airport and trying to meet up with some friends who have me waiting at this very posh Inn while they finish a brewery tour. Judging by this place, I think I'm hanging out with friends that have "nice tastes" (i.e., expensive). Wasn't in the plans to come here (Inverness), but the aforementioned friends (Ali & Jason from London) were coming up here with a group of friends and have a spare room so... And they left on Thursday and left me their place in London for Thursday & Friday night... just a smallish $3500/month apartment in Islington (near King's Cross tube station). Sheeshh! Things are a tad expensive here! Tomorrow I'm off to Pat & Stef's in Aberdeen.

So far things have gone quite well. The reception in the London office was very good, though nothing 100% has materialized. There would be commitments materializing if I were ready to commit 100%, but there are lots of downsides. They don't seem all that busy here (by comparison to the US offices anyway). And committing 100% for a single project would likely mean restrictions on taking smaller jobs in interesting places. For example, the only small job that has presented itself is 3 weeks of drilling supervision in Bulgaria. It sucks thought that job just got pulled out from underneath me at 4PM on Friday (a senior up guy from Germany pulled a "we want CH2M International staff on the project" i.e., not CH2M US - which I find very penny wise, pound foolish if they're interested in having me come over and "join the team"). I was rather annoyed to hear this on Friday afternoon, but things will come...

There is also work on the London Olympics project that could come through and be an expenses/accomodation paid endeavour, which is kind of key because London is friggin expensive. There is also work in ~May in Netherlands and ~June in Northern Ireland, but both of these seem so far away we'll have to see what materializes. Both the Olympics and Dublin jobs want me to commit full time, but seem willing to take me on shorter stints as well. This still could all work out well allowing me to do some travelling, go to Ben's wedding (May 4) and still end up with enough work to not cause the bank account to drop. We'll see I guess.

I will talk with some London office folk on Monday and barring any requests to come back to London ASAP, I guess I'm off to the Netherlands next? Though I've also met a fun Australian lawyer who's coming to Scotland and we may hang out and I'm contemplating a Germany visit, which could then lead to Prauge or? So maybe I'll add a stop somewhere before the Netherlands? See, the problem is my friend Jen has very rudely scheduled her holidays when I'm planning to be in the Netherlands. So I have to either stay at her place without her or rearrange (not that some alone time in Amsterdam in a paid apartment would be too rough). I haven't started to figure this out yet because everything seems to change anyway.

I realize I've talked mostly about work in London. I guess that's what was / is on my mind. But London was lots of fun as always. Were several nights of debauchery, a pub crawl and many a Guinness. I met up with my long lost 2nd cousin (Heather) who turns out went to the same junior high and high school as myself, met up with some fun people at the hostel, and met some good people at work. I was mostly focussed on work, but London is a hard place not to have some fun!!