5 weeks down, 2 to go

I still can’t believe that I’ve been in Italy for 5 weeks now since it feels like it’s been a whole lot longer than that.  The last few weeks has been sort of like a roller coaster – a lot of ups and downs, speed up and slow down, sunny and rainy, windy and not so windy.  Our main crane, an LG1550 in case you were curious, is finally back up and running. Our 2nd main crane, an LG 1750, will be here around the end of the week and in the middle of the week we’ll be re-starting the pre-erection (installing only the first 2 tower sections).  Hopefully the weather cooperates since the project managers want to have 33 turbines erected by March 21st... (16 are complete and 7 are pre-erected).

The other weekend I also had my first Italian discotheque experience.  Who knew that my little town had such a fun disco?  The first thing I noticed that is unlike the US is that in Italy the discotheque doesn’t open until like 1am... and after getting up at 6:30am every day for work it took some work to stay up.  The 2nd thing, which I really liked, was how when people go out they “really“ dress up.  No one dresses like a scrub in grubby jeans and a t-shirt, but then again I guess that’s true even when people aren’t going out.  The last thing was that when you bought drinks you first went to the cashier to get a drink ticket and then you went to the bartender and ordered your drink.  I dunno if that was just unique to this disco but at least they still understood “Gin and Tonic“

Finally, another note about the food.  I know that this isn’t unique to Italy but I still just don’t understand how the Italians can eat dinner so late in the evening and still be ready for work the next morning.  We eat at 7pm every night and we’re always the only ones in the restaurant and by the time we finish around 8:15-8:30 other people are just starting to arrive.  That said I am still enjoying the food - it's nice to have a little dinner crew and to try interesting new dishes.

Underwhelming Pompeii

Yesterday I went to Pompeii with a bunch of my German colleagues.  It’s kind of ironic that in Italy I’m learning German.  On the way there we saw a really terrible accident involving a motorcycle – later I found out that the rider died from the crash... RIP rider.  It really put a damper on an otherwise quite fun day. 

The first thing I noticed about Pompeii was how much bigger it was than I had imagined.  I was also quite underwhelmed by what I saw.  It felt like every other old run down place I’d ever been.  I didn’t feel like I saw anything there that I probably couldn’t have seen somewhere else in Italy.  There were a bunch of run of the mill ruins as far as I’m concerned.  That said, I’m still glad that I went and I don’t plan on going back. 

After Pompeii, since it was such a nice day, we decided to go for a drive to the sea.  Let’s just say that everything you’ve heard about the roads along the Amalfi coast are true.  The roads are endlessly twisty, the drivers (especially the motorcycles and scooters) are crazy and don’t understand the meaning of lanes, the views are exceptional, and the roads are very narrow.  We ended up going to a small harbor to walk around near the water and to get there had to navigate a set of switchbacks.  Let’s just say that the Renault did not have the best turning radius for the narrow switchbacks so I was doing 3 point turns (much to my dismay and to the dismay of everyone behind me) at every turn...

It's all about the little things

Well that last post was a little more serious than I had hoped for but I’ve been in a very contemplative mood this week - I feel like this post will probably continue that trend. Work has been up and down since we had our main crane go down in flames, literally.  The commissioners have arrived and I’ve changed hotels which I think has helped my mood.  We all have rooms next to each other and we meet every day for breakfast and dinner.  The toughest thing about being on the road for extended periods of time is the loneliness.  Work is work no matter where you go.  But when you’re on the road having someone to talk to and share meals with and do non-work things is the difference between having a terrible time and actually enjoying yourself.  It’s the little things that are all the difference between having a good time and a shitty time.

People who don’t travel for a living are always jealous when I tell them about all the places I “get to go“.  What I’m not sure they all realize is that when I am traveling I am going for work and not vacation, plus I generally don’t go to glamorous places.  I usually work a 6 days a week and ~10 hours/day so it’s not like I have a lot of free time anyways.  I know everyone always tells me that it’s good to be traveling while you’re young and don’t have a family but until you’ve spent more nights in a Holiday Inn in Northern Michigan than in your own house I don’t want to hear it. 

My return to Seattle and then Italy again

It’s been many days, hundreds of miles driven and many thousands of miles flown since I last updated.  My journey back to the US before Christmas was a long and quite stressful journey.  It started on a Saturday afternoon with a 5hr drive to Napoli for my 6:40am flight on Sunday.  Finding a gas station that would take my company card at 5am was quite an experience.  I should have known that having a big red fire truck parked next to my plane with a bunch of guys pointing at the wings was a sign of how the next few days were going to be.  

I missed my connection in Munich like thousands of other people.  I tried going standby on a flight to Chicago and it took me over an hr to even get on the list.  After that I somehow managed to get on standby for a flight to Newark which I somehow got on, and I got a business class seat too.  I arrived in Newark sans bags (they would take almost 10 days to get to Seattle...) Waited in line for a long time before I finally got a hotel voucher, not that I actually slept in the hotel since I was rebooked on a 6am flight through Dulles to Seattle.  When I finally arrived in Seattle I had been traveling for about 53 hours, I was still wearing the same clothes from when I left work on Saturday and I hadn’t really slept in 2 days.

The next 3 weeks I was actually able to be home in Seattle and live a somewhat normal life – although for much of the time everyone was either away for the holidays or working.  It was pretty weird at first being back in Seattle since I hadn’t been „home" in about 3 months.  I had been sorta keeping in contact with most of my friends and I knew that everyone had lives and would move on.  I guess I just hadn’t expected how much people had moved on and continued with their lives.  Consequently, one of the things my job has taught me is to not worry about the what if’s and to just live in the here and now.  My time off is usually quite limited and there just isn’t enough time to worry about what if’s and general bullshit.  If anything, my time away have made me realize that there are certain people who I always make it a point to hang out with and then... there is everyone else.  I’ve also come to the conclusion that 3 weeks is entirely too much time for me to take off all at once.  Don’t get me wrong I enjoy a vacation as much as the next but after being on the road for so long I had just been so used to always being busy and then to all of a sudden not have any set plans... well that took some getting used to.

A few highlights of my time in Seattle were in no particular order – Chicken Teriyaki, New Years Eve, Stevens Pass, Christmas, Buenos Aires Grill.  Now here are a few pictures of what I’ve come back to in Italy.

New Site

I've been in Italy for almost 3 weeks now and in that time we've now erected 8 turbines at 2 different sites.  This week has been my first week at a different site in Italy - even further south than the last one.  If you're really curious it's in Maida Catanzaro and it was about 6hrs drive from my last site.  The drive was quite an interesting experience if you consider getting lost like 30 times interesting.  I thought I could wing it with printed google maps directions, but following those is next to impossible because a "main" road in Italy can be this narrow half paved road that winds around a mountain.  Oh and street signs... yeah they basically don't exist.  So after about an hour of being lost and probably 12 U-turns I said forget this and hopped on the highways and took the long way.

I was sent down to this different site to help out since they're trying to do a last push before the holidays to finish.  Without getting into too many details this site has had pretty much every problem you can think of.  The one major problem has been the weather.  In the 5 days or so it's been sunny and 70, cold/rainy/lightning and 30m/s winds (which is like 67mph...)  The new site is actually pretty close to the water too so I'm hoping I can get Sunday off and do a little sightseeing. 

I've also in my one week heard some pretty crazy stories that basically screamed stereotypical southern Italy.  Again these are just stories and are probably better told in person.  But let's just say that it's all about the people you know around here.

Now I'll leave you with some pictures that one of my colleagues took of my site and the surrounding area.

One week food observations

After one week in Italy I noticed an interesting thing about the restaurants in Italy, well at least the local places I’ve been going since I’m not exactly in a touristy area.  None of the restaurants have menus or have even hinted that one exists or ever existed.  When going out with some of the Italians I work with, they simply ordered whatever it was that they wanted.  Maybe they were ordering simple things that any restaurant should have or know how to make.  Then I went out with one of my German colleagues to a different place and it was the same.  The waiter just simply asked us what we wanted, gave us a few recommendations and that was it.  Maybe it was because he knew we didn’t speak or read any Italian, but it was still interesting.  That said – the food on the whole has been great.

For dinner tonight I had a fresh salsiccia e fonghi pizza or sausage and mushroom for you English speakers.  Best 4 euros I've spent so far.  It was made fresh right when I ordered it with hand tossed dough and super fresh ingredients all cooked in a wood fire oven.  I'm pretty sure in Italy pizza is considered "fast food", well if fast food was like that in the US I'd be a very happy man.

Oh and the breakfast I've been eating is your standard European fare of pastries, breads, cereal and yogurt.  No cheese or meat platter though.  Coffee is excellent and super strong.  I love the tiny little cups with the single shots of coffee.  

First day at work

So Italy has been a mix of what I expected and a lot of not at all what I expected.  I expected the weather to be warm and sunny, lots of mountains/hills, picturesque views, a driving nightmare, full of beautiful women and tasty tasty food.  Well there are lots of mountains/hills, picturesque views and the food has been really good.  But it has also been cold, wet, muddy, super windy, surprisingly urban and full of crazy dogs.

Working in Italy is not at all like the US.  There's actually a pretty interesting mix of people that I work with.  For my company there's an Italian, German and American.  And we work with an Italian crane crew and delivery company and then a German and a Portuguese erection team.  Luckily the one language that everyone "knows" is English so whenever one group talks to another it's always in English.   There also hasn't been a lot of work to do yet this week since we've had high wind days pretty much every day I've been here.  It's also rained constantly which means the entire site is a perpetual mud pit.  

I haven't had too many chances to sample the local cuisine but I have tried some pizza which was pretty good since it was made fresh to order, with some super fresh ingredients and in a real wood fire oven; oh and it was only 4 euros.  I had dinner with one of my co-workers in the hotel restaurant and it was weird being there in jeans and flip flops eating in this fancy white table cloth restaurant.  I had like a full 4 course meal which was simply exquisite.  There was nothing extravagant about the food, just good fresh ingredients prepared simply.

Oh and one last thing - right near my jobsite there are these 3 crazy dogs that will just run out in front of your car in the middle of the street and start barking like mad.  And you don't want to hit them but you also can't see them since they're like pawing at your tires.  Crazy italian dogs.