For work, I had to travel to our site in Vero Beach, Florida last week. I flew out on Wednesday December 9th on a 6am flight, and got home on Wednesday December 15th. All my planes got really screwed up. When I got to SFO on Wednesday morning, I discovered that the plane had suffered a mechanical failure and was delayed an hour. Then it was delayed another hour. Then I had no chance of making my layover. The airport people were quite kind and they rescheduled me on a different flight. So I had to be sleepy and tired at SFO for quite a few hours before I even got to take off. Then I landed in Charlotte...and my next plane was stuck somewhere in the northeast storms. So I got to sit around in airports quite a bit that day. It wasn't as terrible as I thought because I had a good book to read, the airports all had free internet (thanks Google!) and I basically slept the entire plane rides. When I finally landed in Orlando, it was almost 10p and I still had to drive 2-3 hours to Vero! I was so tired when I arrived and I passed out on the bed. The return flights home were also delayed...but at least I got home!
Work was really tiring. We worked dawn to dusk, almost every day. I did get a nice break on Sunday though when the guy I was working with declared that he wanted to spend the day with his children. I couldn't do the work alone, so I went to my hotel and did some analytical work instead. After a while I felt that I deserved a little break too. So I went for a walk, and stumbled upon a little arts fair!
I wandered in, and the first thing my eyes saw was not art, but a DOG. A fuzzy, pleased looking rottweiler. I had been missing Navi something awful, so I went over and asked his owner if I could pet the dog. The owner was fine with it, and I must have hugged and kissed and played with the dog for 10 or 15 minutes. The owner asked if I was traveling and missing my own puppy, and I almost cried when I exlaimed, 'yes!' He was an older man sitting on a bench, so we had a nice conversation while I pet his dog. We talked about planes, mechanical engineering, foreign languages, Germany, art, dogs, and everything in between. It was a very nice conversation, and after a while I set off to wander around the art fair. I didn't really like many of the paintings, but I found this one pottery stall where everything was as bright as metal. It was called Raku. What you do is you make a pottery bowl or plate or anything. You glaze it with a compound that has metal in it. Then you fire that in a kiln and get it to 1800 degrees F. You remove it from the kiln, put it in a metal bucket full of newspaper or another combustible. The heat of the pottery lights the newspaper on fire, and you cover it with a lid. This creates a thick noxious smoke which brings out the luster in the metal. So the end result is a piece of pottery that shines like metal. I fell in love with a swirled bowl that shone like copper. Then I bought it.
I wandered off and found another pottery stall. This was more standard pottery, but it was nicely done. The older man was really proud of his work. As I wandered through his stall he would proudly declare, "I made that!" every time I picked something up. I felt terrible when I considered leaving without buying something. I found a mug I liked...so I bought it. Then he threw in a free toothpick holder! I actually hadn't noticed the toothpick holder and it's cute. It's got a lot of pizazz, and it's not perfect, so I love it even more.
After that, I wandered back to the hotel. I visited an ice cream store on the way. Then I went back to the beach. A boy accidentally skimboarded into me. While he was apologizing, I asked if he'd teach me to skimboard. So I got to learn to skimboard, and I had a few funny falls!
While I was in Vero, I found this little cafe called the Red Onion. It is fabulous. They had this grilled asparagus sandwich that put me in a permanent state of delight. It was on 8-grain bread with parmesan cheese, tomatos, grilled asparagus, grilled onions...and a honey key lime sauce. It was absolutely phenomenal. Later in the week I also had their bruschetta sandwich, which was almost as amazing. It is nice that I have finally found a place to enjoy the food while travelling for work to Vero.
Vero ended up being a pretty good success. I got what I needed done in the time I had. It was the first time I had been sent to Vero without being micromanaged, and it was the first trip that didn't end up in absolute catastrophe. A pat on the back for me!!!
Work was really tiring. We worked dawn to dusk, almost every day. I did get a nice break on Sunday though when the guy I was working with declared that he wanted to spend the day with his children. I couldn't do the work alone, so I went to my hotel and did some analytical work instead. After a while I felt that I deserved a little break too. So I went for a walk, and stumbled upon a little arts fair!
I wandered in, and the first thing my eyes saw was not art, but a DOG. A fuzzy, pleased looking rottweiler. I had been missing Navi something awful, so I went over and asked his owner if I could pet the dog. The owner was fine with it, and I must have hugged and kissed and played with the dog for 10 or 15 minutes. The owner asked if I was traveling and missing my own puppy, and I almost cried when I exlaimed, 'yes!' He was an older man sitting on a bench, so we had a nice conversation while I pet his dog. We talked about planes, mechanical engineering, foreign languages, Germany, art, dogs, and everything in between. It was a very nice conversation, and after a while I set off to wander around the art fair. I didn't really like many of the paintings, but I found this one pottery stall where everything was as bright as metal. It was called Raku. What you do is you make a pottery bowl or plate or anything. You glaze it with a compound that has metal in it. Then you fire that in a kiln and get it to 1800 degrees F. You remove it from the kiln, put it in a metal bucket full of newspaper or another combustible. The heat of the pottery lights the newspaper on fire, and you cover it with a lid. This creates a thick noxious smoke which brings out the luster in the metal. So the end result is a piece of pottery that shines like metal. I fell in love with a swirled bowl that shone like copper. Then I bought it.
I wandered off and found another pottery stall. This was more standard pottery, but it was nicely done. The older man was really proud of his work. As I wandered through his stall he would proudly declare, "I made that!" every time I picked something up. I felt terrible when I considered leaving without buying something. I found a mug I liked...so I bought it. Then he threw in a free toothpick holder! I actually hadn't noticed the toothpick holder and it's cute. It's got a lot of pizazz, and it's not perfect, so I love it even more.
After that, I wandered back to the hotel. I visited an ice cream store on the way. Then I went back to the beach. A boy accidentally skimboarded into me. While he was apologizing, I asked if he'd teach me to skimboard. So I got to learn to skimboard, and I had a few funny falls!
While I was in Vero, I found this little cafe called the Red Onion. It is fabulous. They had this grilled asparagus sandwich that put me in a permanent state of delight. It was on 8-grain bread with parmesan cheese, tomatos, grilled asparagus, grilled onions...and a honey key lime sauce. It was absolutely phenomenal. Later in the week I also had their bruschetta sandwich, which was almost as amazing. It is nice that I have finally found a place to enjoy the food while travelling for work to Vero.
Vero ended up being a pretty good success. I got what I needed done in the time I had. It was the first time I had been sent to Vero without being micromanaged, and it was the first trip that didn't end up in absolute catastrophe. A pat on the back for me!!!
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