Istanbul

I can't believe it. Twenty-eight days have passed, I must say from my perspective it went by pretty fast. We accomplished a lot, but there is still a lot of work to be done and even more follow up over the next few months. I am happy with the time I was able to steal and do a little sight seeing every now and then. The last was Istanbul, after work on Wednesday the Captain and I met up with his old RMC friend who's posted there. We got to visit the Blue Mosque, St Sophia and the grand bazaar. Had it not been raining I might have even gone to the spice bazaar. The mosque was breathtaking inside and out. I have a really neat app on my iPhone that lets me stitch photos together, so I took one inside the mosque and its looks like your standing in it looking at the entire interior. We went by St Sophia, I didn't want to have to pay to get in and prayer time was about to start so we would have been rushed through. The grand bazaar was mind boggling, its a labyrinth. I was looking for a fake Omega to replace mine which broke a year ago and isn't very reliable, the pin keeps breaking. I found a few nice ones but the price they were asking was ridiculous. They were asking about $270 Turkish Lira which is about $150 Canadian, and were about the same quality I would get on Queen St in Toronto. There was a really nice one.. possibly stolen but we wanted $300 Euro..or $400 CAD. He brought it down to 180 but there was no way I was going to pay that.  Afterwards we went to have a bite to eat, I can't say I'm a huge fan of Turkish cuisine, there is something with the meat, a spice or a marinate that reminds me of minced meat or the meat pies I used to get. Not my favorite to say the least. In all this was a great trip with no regrets. I can't wait to be on my last flight of the trip and I will be making a very planned stop at the duty free in a few hours.

Blue mosque

Blue mosque

Baklava anyone?

Entrance to the Grand Bazaar

Officially a tourist for the rest of the trip

Done work and now we are going for a little tour of Istanbul. Going to the blue mosque, Sofia church and the grand bazaar which has 110+ shops. I won't be bringing much back my suitcase was full when I left.

Naples..

My first impression with Naples wasn't the best. The city had gone through a work strike over the summer and I guess things hadn't gotten back to normal. There was a lot of garbage in the streets. Unlike at home there is no garbage pick up I learned. There are garbage drop offs. Once we arrived at the current facility we were given a ride to the new one that's in construction. Sorry not allowed to take pictures. During the ride there I learned that the unemployment rate is incredibly high in Naples. There were some neighborhoods that reminded me of being in Africa they were run down and decrepit. After lunch we got a nice tour from one of the staff members there. She took us quite a ways away and it was worth it, if you look at the Naples flickr set you can see that there are areas of Naples that are quite lovely.

Today we are in Istanbul, I will post a little more after work as my experience here so far is a two hour taxi ride from the airport to the hotel approx 33kms away. Traffic is crazy here and I would go mental if I had to drive here. I can say that the city is enormous and I hope I will have a little bit of time to see the Bazaar and the Blue Mosque.

Naples

Most of you know I'm not the biggest fan of flying. The flight to Naples was less then fun, there were about twelve young men on the plane that were a little loud and annoying. Seeing as the flight was only 80mins the crew didn't do much about it. Upon arriving here it started raining and it only stops for a few minutes from rain to complete downpour. By the time I got my bags and we were in a taxi on our way to the hotel it was already night time and I could see the faint outlines of what I think are sycamore trees. Today will be pretty busy and I'll be pressed for time. This location was quite busy with NATOs involvement in Libya. The hotel here is nice and a little odd. The rooms are not attached to the hotel. Kind of reminds me of an all inclusive resort, without the all inclusive. I went for the table d'hote last night which was a fussili carbonera and balsamic vinegar pork tenderloin followed with a salad. Sorry I forgot my camera in the room so no food pictures of last nights meal. Next is Turkey and we arrive there tomorrow afternoon.

I have just uploaded a boat load of pictures including a couple food ones of our meal in Oberammagau which was delightful. MMmmm The pieces of Schnitzel were the length of my forearm.

Auf Wiedersehen Deutschland

Its been a busy 2 weeks and with only six days to go I am getting anxious to get home. I leave in a few hours for Naples. With any luck I will make another post later today with more content. The last few locations the internet connections are almost comparable to dial-up. That's the main reason I haven't posted much. Not to mention I have a few hundred pictures I need to filter through..
I have some nice ones of Oberammagau and Munich. I also took a few videos while in the car, because taking pictures in a moving vehicle does work a bit.

More then half done..

The work aspect of the trip is going well. We are wrapping up here in Geilenkirchen and moving onto Spangdahlem tomorrow morning. We are planning on finishing Friday around Oberammagau. This weekend was fantastic. I got a ride to Bruehl and met up with Stefan my exchange student from about 17yrs ago. This train in was a little late so I went to his parents and it was like I was only gone a few months. Stefan and his parents look great, and are in good health. Stefan older brother is running a very nice spot in Bruehl and was packed both Friday and Saturday night. Mathias, Stefan's younger brother took over his dad's architecture company two years ago and is doing well. He just finished building an apartment building with 25 apartments. Stefan and I went out on Friday night and well... we are not 17 anymore. It hurt the next day, Stefan was in worse shape then I and it was quite funny watching his mom laugh at him in the morning. Saturday we went to the Christmas market in Cologne. It was very nice and we met some of Stefan's friends and had Gluewein. That night we took it quite a bit easier and went through pictures from Stefan's south American trip. Sunday we went for a nice Greek lunch before I hopped on the train to go back to Geilenkirchen. The weekend went by way too fast and I hope its not another 20yrs before I get to see them again. I will keep in touch with Stefan more, his birthday is on Friday.

Schloss Augustusberg

Stefan

Kuster Family

Aachen Trainstation

Welcome back to Bruehl

Its been about 17yrs since I spend a wonderful 3mths here. Nothing much has changed, I still remembered how to get to the Kuesters from the train station. Last night we chatted for a bit and I showed Stefan and his parents photos from the last few years. Afterwards we went to his brothers restaurant which is backed on a Friday night. A touch I found especially nice was the dog food bowls around the restaurant as they are also welcome in his establishment. Then we went to a place called "Der Hutte" and didn't leave till 3am. I'm too old to go out that late. Not to mention the beer was inexpensive and went down way too fast. Neither of us go up till about noon. The bar was separated into two sections 40 and above were in the front chatting and drinking and 20feet further was the 20-30 age group dancing and drinking..We stayed a little in between we had a good time but now I need to do more laundry as I smell of smoke. I will be leaving Bruhl tomorrow morning by train to go back to Geilenkirchen.

Belgium

Work has been busy and the with early mornings and recent flights I haven't been able to post as often or as much as I'd have liked to. Yesterday were in Brussels at the world headquarters of NATO, today we were in the European headquarters of NATO. I was in a bunker today, you can see it from google earth but its the seven vault like doors before you even get to pass control that impressed me. Needless to say there are no photos of that, or my last two days for that matter.

I'm a pig
This is by far the best meal we've had throughout the trip. We went to a steak house, but like no other I've ever been before. You choose your cut of meat and they serve it to you raw, on a pipping hot granite slap at a nice 400 degrees. In the photo you will see the steak, salad, scallop potatoes and sauces (top left if Rockfort (blue cheese) and the other is pepper corn). Afterwards we went across the street for Belgian Waffles. Best waffle ever, was light and tasty with a hint of vanilla. I did inhale some of the powered sugar and started coughing.. haha

yum yum yum!!!

Leaving Norway onto Brussels

Norway was ok .. We were not here long enough to do anything and it was expensive to do just about anything fun. I had planned on going here PulPit Rock yesterday, but it was an hour taxi ride ($100) and a four hour hike (2hrs both ways) and then another taxi ride back to the hotel and I seem to think it was $50 to hike it also. Most activities surrounding Stavanger were outdoor, there were pathways just about everywhere, and some great fishing spots.

Our contact here told us that Norway has many "stories" and one of them was about the separations between rooms. For instance in my hotel room there was a 4 inch step into the bathroom. The reason for this separation was to hinder trolls from entering the room because trolls don't have knees and can't climb. I'm not making this stuff up!! Haha

The photo post it the old fire tower it was perched up on a very steep hill and it would let them see where the fire was located.

Now while I'm writing this I just realized our flight it Stavanger to Oslo and we really didn't need to be here two hours ahead of time...

 Please forgive me for this post. Anne informed me how incoherent it is.. It was written in the morning on very little sleep.

Stavanger Norway

The view across from out Hotel

Sorry for the late post, there was a technical problem with the WiFi last night. The flight from London to Stavanger was uneventful which I like. Other then waiting 45mins on the tarmac because of fog the flight was nice, no turbulence and for a meal we had some kind of egg/tomato hot pocket. Currently the exchange rate in Norway is 1CAD for 5.6 Norwegian Krone. At first glance when I checked the Treasury Board website for our per diems seems a little high to have 470 Krone for supper or $85. Well upon arriving at the hotel I went for a stroll, and discovered in one of the three local 7-11s that it was in fact expensive in here when a bottle of water costs you $5. Hotel beer in my room costs a little over $10. We looked around for food to see what we would have for supper. One restaurant featuring local meals had the head of a veal on a plate, we quickly moved on. We stopped at a place called Dolly Dimples which served Italien food. My coworker and I ordered pizza while the other coworker ordered lasagna. It was a good meal, except for the server. Wow.... looked annoyed when we only spoke English, and slammed our beers on the table and pretty much did the same thing with the lasagna. We also ordered more drinks that never came. First impression of Norway isn't the best but granted its a small town and we arrived on a Sunday where most everything was closed. The place does remind me of my mom's home town mixed in with the steep streets of Quebec City. I will post the rest of the photos to the Flickr site after work today.

So long UK, Norway here I come..

The last two days have been quite something. We finished a little early on Friday so I was able to go downtown and see some sights. I mapped out what I wanted to see and I was off..  I was able to get in Hyde Park, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abby, The Parliament, Trafalgar Square and Piccadilly Circus. There are a lot of pictures I'm uploading so take a peak. Afterwards I met up with the wonderful Labelle's. We talked and talked,  I even made sure with Anne that I asked all the right questions. We even tried going on FaceTime with Anne from the pub. Yeah free WiFi
Today I took it a little easy, repacked the suitcase and set off downtown again. This time to the Borough Market which reminds me of Landsdown Park with all the local vendors. Also saw the tower of London and the London Bridge ..very cool. Love the architecture here, there is something about it and the class that it gives off. I don't know what my internet will be like in Norway or Brussels to bare with me for the next few days I may not be as wired...

Food Post

Here is a quick food post just for Eva because she likes unique food.

Cheddar & Onion and Grilled Steak
The Cheddar ones were not bad. The Grill Steak were beyond foul. After eating them I ate a Kit Kat downed a Guinness and then brushed my teeth. They tasted like they were dipped in Soya Sauce. Reminds me of the marinate we use on flank steak... Eww. Tomorrow is the last day of work in the UK. Afterwards I get to spend the evening with the Labelles and then I will head downtown London to check out more sites and take more pictures.

London Day 4

Day 4

It was productive, we did do a lot of driving. I attempted to take photos from the car of the scenery but it doesn't work very well in a moving vehicle. So today we went to Molesworth. It was interesting to say the least. Here is a little background information on where we were. Molesworth is a de-commissioned Nuclear launch facility. This post took a while to write because I needed to make sure everything on here was public knowledge. If you look at the google map you will see a four humps.. well that's where the missiles would have come out.

Molesworth Wiki

Molesworth Google View 

Any who.. I will take a picture of the breakfast spread we have in the morning.

London FAQs

So in the past few days here I've learned some lessons, some valuable some more trivial. In England when you see a sign that says "Take Away" means take out and "To Let" means to rent. Interesting fact houses here are ridiculously expensive. Check this out: 3 bedrooms, 1300 sq feet, and available 80yr mortgage!!!! you pass on the mortgage to your kids...

Last fun fact of the day, when crossing the street look to your right because that's where the cars are coming from.
Oh and before I forget fish and chips .. the pieces of fish are enormous and the skin is still on the fish when battered and fried.

London - Day 3

Today went a lot better. Not sick in fact I had an amazing steak at the hotel next door with a brandy peppercorn sauce MMMmmm. The alarm clock worked this morning but the snooze feature is set to 59 seconds so thats not so good. We went to the Canadian High Commission today, then to the old War House. Sadly I couldn't take pictures of these places but the workmanship was breathtaking. Tonight for supper our driver and his wife joined us for Indian food. Needless to say I'm stuff and the expanding Naan break isn't helping I did Get to try a very nice beer called Gurkha, from India. So the pictures for today are what a bunch of homes look like near the hotel and the label of the beer.

Tomorrow I am off to Molesworth

Day 2, the reason why I'm here....

The second day did not start off very well. I was up all night sick as a dog, which according to my colleagues that are here is quite normal. Still with very little sleep and an alarm clock that didn't snooze my day started a little late and very rushed. I forgot my USB keys at the hotel which I needed to run the inspection program. Never the less I have multiple backup plans.. like the CD with the software ..only to realize it was the wrong CD..also in my room. I finally logged into the network and downloaded a copy, and put it on a USB stick that was lent to me by someone posted here. It had a virus so every machine I ran it on got flagged and they wanted to disable the accounts. Luckily the person joining me on this entire trip is the only one that could make a phone call and ensure this didn't happen. I felt a little icky all day and when we stopped for lunch we were treated to a very nice secluded pub. An authentic one no less, its about the only photo I took all day that I would be allowed to post. Cajun chicken balsamic sandwich in a focaccia bun (homemade no less). The place is called the Green Dragon Inn. There were hotel rooms I didn't know till I just looked up the site: http://www.green-dragon-inn.co.uk Cute place with a cozy fire on just behind us. Tonight will be a early to bed night with multiple alarms in the morning. USB keys and CD are already in my backpack. P.S. Sorry for the photo I'm trying a photostich app on the Iphone. Sometimes it works others not so much.

Arrived in London

The flight was ok i wasn't able to sleep much or at all. The weather in London is nice and sunny. The early check in we requested processes so we need to wait about an hr for our room. The taxi driver who got us here was brutal .. He should have just given me the gps to enter the address instead of us spending 10mins trying to decipher each others accents. Once the room
is ready I'll prob shower and head out to tour London central. There is wifi in the hotel at 10pounds a day or free at the restaurant..
Well see how that goes...

Pretty much all packed and ready to go!!

Just having a nice relaxing evening with Anne and Riley, we are dog sitting so Charlie is taking refuge in the basement. Just have to pack up all the work stuff that I need to bring with me and put it in a nice and organized way.. seeing as I will have to unpack it as I go through security tomorrow night. This is going to be a long trip but I'm hoping that blogging all this stuff will help kill the time and make it pass by faster. I'm hoping to take pictures of the sights and some of the food (yes I will be thinking of you Eva!!) no promises but I will try and post once a day.

It starts here

I've never been the best writer. I've attempted to blog about life, beer and my "new" fitness kick of running. Those attempts failed miserably. I'm hopping this will be different. Why? well a few reasons... in the past I wrote about beer and running for a few weeks and well.. realized I enjoyed the activity more then writing about it. This will be different in a few ways. For one I am writing this to "document" my work trip and kind of write a diary of my experiences over a finite period of time, so when the trip is done so is the blog. Secondly I think it will help make the trip seem to pass a little faster.

So... welcome. Enjoy the forthcoming photos.