Blog Number 145

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Hola from the American Airlines Admiral's Club in Santiago, Chile.  I am just starting my 4 hour layover here.  I have never been in the Admiral's Club before and I must say this is very nice.  There is a food tray laid out, plenty of cushy seats and plenty to drink as well.  However there are some REAL business men here so I will have to try to blend in.  These guys are all sitting here acting like they belong.  Me, well I have this look on my face like they are going to discover that I am just a normal dude from Allen, TX and kick me out.

Well I said my goodbyes to my team yesterday evening at 6 PM.  It was rather sad as I really like all 10 people that I trained for the last 3 weeks or so.  We promised to keep in touch of course and I am sure we will but I will miss talking with them face to face each day.  Today my coworker and I finally got to play table tennis.  We went down to the game room each day only to discover many kids playing or to find the table empty but not finding any ping pong balls.  I am proud to say that I kicked his butt 5 straight games.

I am ready to be home though.  26 days is a long time to be away from your wife and kids and I am ready to see them.  I still have this 4 hours to wait and then a 10 hour flight and then customs to go but I feel like I am getting very close to seeing them again just by leaving Argentina.  Well I do not have a lot to say really, I am tired and I am going to check out the free food and drink.  I will blog state-side soon.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 144

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Well this week has been rough.  There are many new policies and procedures that appear out of nowhere it seems and at the end of the day this is how I felt...

But tonight was going to be a good night.  We were going to have another after office party at a place called Johnny B. Good's.  Almost all my team and many of my co-worker's team came to hang out and have a good time (and drink).  We talked about everything under the sun and just had a great time overall.  I am going to miss these people when I leave and head home in 2 days.  Our connection in the building is still pretty slow and even though it was supposed to be upgraded today, I found out today that it will be next Thursday before it will be upgraded and even then it is only going to be tripled in speed (but that is better than nothing I guess).

Even though I am averaging probably about 60 hours per week working (maybe more, I have not been keeping track), I will really miss Argentina.  Everyone here at my company is happy of course as they all have nice new jobs so I know that this party feeling will not last forever.  Time will tell if they will truly enjoy their jobs at my company.  Monday I will pass most of the team off to assigned mentors in the US and I emailed each mentor today introducing them to their Argentinian co-workers and sent pictures as well.  Next Monday should be interesting.  I will probably still be tired (and either overjoyed or depressed depending on whether the Colts win the Super Bowl or not).  I hope you have enjoyed reading my blog while I was here.  I am pretty sure I will not have another experience like this one ever again.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 143

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Well, just 4 1/2 more days and I will be home.  Today was a very frustrating day.  The building we are in is pretty new and has a slow network connection for a building its size.  It is going to be upgraded soon, but for now it is slow.  It is getting slower everyday as each new day there are more workers coming to the building sharing the same network connection.  It may not be upgraded until my last day or two so for now we have to grit our teeth and wait.

Yesterday was also a busy day and even after work, my co-worker and I had to log in from the hotel.  This is also frustrating as the hotel has a router that only allows one of us to connect to the VPN at a time.  We can both get to the internet OK, just not VPN into our work's network.  So we have to trade back and forth.  We have several hurdles like this in our day to day work and just have to handle them as best we can.  After working for a few hours we hit the hotel restaurant for dinner.  The menu had so many great choices it was hard to decide and nothing was a simple dish.  For instance, I ended up ordering the deer meat and goat cheese stuffed ravioli and my co-worker had some sort of lasagna with spider crab meat, shrimp and salmon (I think).  He quit after he finished his dish but since this is my last week here I took a look at the desert menu.  I don't know what I had but it was gorgeous.  The plate was a rectangle and there were 2 tear dropped shaped sauces surrounding this brownie like cake topped with some sort of crunchy layer and a dip of what the menu called "bitter" chocolate ice cream.  Wow!  It was good but in the morning I was feeling the effects of eating too big of a meal too late.

Anyway, there is not much exciting going on, just a lot of last minute changes that we are trying to take care of before I leave for good.  I hope my last few days here are exciting, but in a good way. 

Until then....

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 142

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Saturday was Tour de Cow II...

My teammate from Michigan and I were invited to a Bar-B-Que, Argentinian-style at the team leader's house.  He came a picked us up at the hotel and took the long way (through the mountains) to his house.  It was a rainy day but it was still beautiful.  He had been talking about this day most of the week but then on the way to his house he admitted that he was really bad at preparing bar-b-que.  So his friend was going to prepare the bar-b-que for us.  We arrived at his house and just hung around for about an hour and got the full house tour.  Also in attendance was our host's wife and 1 year old son (his birthday is today) and the bar-b-que expert, his wife and 11 year old son.  His friend spoke some English and he was quite a character.

My co-worker had read my blog about the original Tour de Cow so he knew what to expect.  This is a little unfair I think as he knew what he was eating at all times whereas I did not when I was at my first one.  Oh well, a good time was had by all.  Besides tons of meat from all parts of the cow, also served was a salad, bowls full of (what appeared to be) tomatoes and eggs, bread, and French fries (with scrambled eggs on them of course) and wine.  Once again I had to take everyone's word for it that the wine was good as I do not have a sophisticated enough palate for wine tasting.  Anyway, we had a great time and the host's 1 year old son warmed up to us and started doing his various array of cute things by the end of the meal.

This morning I am heading up to the co-worker's room for breakfast.  The maid has failed to leave me the form to fill out for breakfast to be delivered to your room so he is ordering enough for 2 people.  After that 2 of my trainees are coming to pick us up to go shopping.  I have exactly in mind what I want to get my wife and kids for presents for when I arrive home.  For some reason, even though they are really missing me, I think I need to have some sort of memento of my visit to give to them.  Wish me luck in finding the perfect gift.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 141

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Since today was Friday and on Monday the team starts doing "real" work, today was a little festive.  Weeks of training are now over and everyone is excited to start working.  One thing that is very popular in Argentina is Mate.  It is basically a tea of sorts but is drank from a hollowed out gourd cup.  You put some yerba in the cup, pour water over it and then stick in your "bombilla" (straw).  The straw has small holes in the bottom that filters out the yerba as you drink the mate.  It is also very typical to pass the cup around to your friends and today (for the first time) the cup was passed to me...

It was about what I expected.  It tasted about like you had went out to your lawn, grabbed some weeds, put them in a cup, poured hot water over them and then drank it.  This is also my last mate I think.

My teammate from Michigan arrived today as well and I met him after work in his hotel room.  He looked about like you should look after spending 20 hours or so in airports and on airplanes but we headed over to the grocery store and I loaded him up on pop, water and snacks.  We came back and talked for about an hour and then ordered a pizza from room service.  Now one thing you must know about he and I.  We have an annual wager when the Pistons and Pacers meet in the playoffs.  In a nutshell the loser has to buy a piece of clothing (hat, shirt, etc.) with the other teams logo on it and pose for a picture and email that to the rest of the team.  Since I am rooting for the Pacers I now own a Pistons hat and t-shirt.  This I proudly wore as we did our shopping.  Anyway, after the pizza was delivered we flipped on the TV and as luck would have it, the Pistons were playing.  So at long last he and I actually watched a Piston's game together.

All it took was both of us to come to Argentina!  Tomorrow we are heading to someone's house for another "Tour de Cow" type bar-b-que.  I will let you know how it goes.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 140

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

One of my trainees took pity on me last night and took me out to dinner.  This means that I whined just enough about being alone this week I guess.  It was a little funny as I was telling my wife that I was going out to dinner.  I told her the name of the guy who was picking my up (the way the name is pronounced makes it sound like it was a woman who was picking me up).  It took a little convincing that it was indeed a guy who I was hanging out with.  I am still not sure she believes me fully.  Trust me dear, it was a dude.

He offered many choices of places to go and I picked the one that sounded the most "Cordoba-ian" since I wanted to taste more of the local food.  As we made the 15 minute drive, he told me some of the history of Argentina and what "really" happened instead of what my history books might have said.  It was all very interesting.  We found the restaurant and ended up having a nice dinner for around $9 US (total for both of us combined - with tip).  He ordered something he had never had before which ended up being a tamale.  Of course I have had tamales so I had to educate him on food (something that I have not had to do for anyone yet).  I don't think he liked them very much.

Then we walked down the city square and saw many of the old buildings and churches there...

The above pic is a little blurry but I am not that accustomed to the camera and its settings for low light pictures.  We walked along the side streets where there were many vendors selling items right on the street...

I was not tempted to buy anything really.  We ended up at a local hot spot and had a seat for 20 minutes or so and discussed chess.  This guy was the same guy I discussed chess with at the "after office" get together we had last Wednesday.  I arrived back at the hotel around 12:15 and went to bed pretty quickly thereafter.

Today the class moves from the classroom we have been in for the last 2 weeks into their actual cubicles (or boxes as they say down here).  While I still had the projector yesterday, I went to the dilbert.com website and told them that in a few weeks these cartoons would be very funny to them.  Today though, everything changes as they gear up to take on actual work next Monday.  I think they are excited and nervous at the same time about this.  I am confident they will do fine once they get their feet wet.  Time will tell however how well of a teacher I have been.

Until next time...

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 139

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Since my coworker has left to come back to the states and my friend from Buenos Aires is also at his home, this has been a boring week so far.  That is OK though since I have used the time alone to catch up on sleep (about 10 hours last night).  Also since I am alone I have not been eating near as much.  Dinner the last 2 nights has been bread, cheese and some chips that I bought from the grocery store on Sunday afternoon.  So 2 meals for less than $6 US.  Not a bad deal for my company that is footing the bill for my food.  Tonight though I am going to order room service and hopefully have a nice meal.  I only have 3 more days alone before another coworker from the states arrives and then I will not be alone any more.  Also a few of my trainees have volunteered to be my guide the next 2 nights while I am alone and to them I am grateful.

Training is still going very well.  The entire team is catching on to the processes that they need to master by the time I leave in 12 days.  Next week we start doing real work and I will be there in a mentor role rather than a trainer role.  This means that I will not be in a training room with a projector but will have to walk around a lot to all of their cubicles so I might try to sneak in my tennis shoes so my feet are not screaming at me by the end of the day.  Since there are 19 more people that are going to be trained by my coworker who is coming on Friday, the team leader / manager of my group has been with that new group all week.  This leaves me alone to run the whole show.  While it is a little scary to have all the responsibility it is also a pat on the back to me (I think) that he feels comfortable to leave me in charge.  Time will tell if this was a good choice I guess.  I am starting to head in about 1 hour early to meet with the manager to give him an overview and some extra training as he is missing out.

I did get the chance to go to a "gas" station today as I am having the manager pick my up at this new hotel as it is close to work.  We needed to get propane (yes, his car and many cars down here run on propane).  I am told it is cleaner, has higher octane and gets better mileage but has about 20% less power than gasoline.  You pull up and they open your gas door on the side of your car and there is a little nozzle there like you would see if you were filling up your car tire (not quite the same, but the same concept).  The service guy sticks the hose in there and then releases the gas and very quickly you are filled.  The tank has to fit in the trunk so it cannot hold that much so you cannot get as far on a tank as you would with a car that holds gas but everyone here mostly drives in the city so this is not an issue.  I think this would be annoying if you had a long commute.

Driving downtown is a little scary too especially on the side streets as there are no STOP or YIELD signs.  You cannot see if anyone is coming the other way or not because the buildings obstruct your view.  This is quite an adventure for me as basically it is one giant game of chicken the whole trip to wherever you are going.  At night you flash your lights to see if someone else is coming, during the day you honk your horn.  But if there are 2 cars coming and each are close to arriving at the intersection at the same time it is a matter of who blinks first.  If you sit in the back seat and pretend that the front windshield is a screen and you are just watching a movie or a video game it makes the ride easier.  Once you remember you are in danger of dying at every intersection then you cannot enjoy the ride as much.

Well it is time for the wife to call.  Hopefully the team can take me to some exciting places and I can spice the blog up a little.  Until then...

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 138

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

So I am at a new hotel now (the Holiday Inn).  I actually had a reservation at the Sheraton until the day I was to leave to come home so it felt a little weird telling the remis (taxi) driver to take us to the Holiday Inn.  He gave us a funny look but I assured him this is where we wanted to go.  The Holiday Inn is probably 20 minutes from the Sheraton and in a much different part of town.  I think it is a better part of town but I really have no way of knowing.  There are a lot more families with children here and there is a game room with a pool table, foosball table and a table tennis table.  When we went down to play though, the room was filled with children.

The staff here speaks even less English than at the other hotel and since my coworker was leaving at 5 PM to come home I was semi-dreading being here alone for the next 6 days.  This is a little cheaper than the Sheraton (but what do I care as my company is picking up the bill?).  Also, they offer (a much needed) laundry service.  It is a little pricey...

• Shirt - 6 Pesos
• T-Shirt - 3 Pesos
• Socks - 2 Pesos
• Underwear - 2 Pesos
• Trousers - 8 Pesos (they do not offer laundry for this, only dry cleaning)

But again, my company is paying for this as laundry is an expendable item.  I will remind you that 3 Pesos = $1 US.  Adding it all up I can estimate my laundry bill to be around 140 Pesos ($47 US).  I guess that is not too bad but it does sound like a lot for laundry.

The mall right next to this hotel is huge but is dominated by many shops selling things that you would see at a Lowe's or Home Depot only they are in individual shops.  There are the standard mall shops as well (clothing, coffee, food court, etc.) but they are scattered between places selling flooring, sinks, hardware, paint, furniture, etc.  I wandered around and found the supermarket (for some reason, there is always one in all the malls) and bought some drinks for the room and also a snack (Oreos with caramel filling – Dulce de Leche).  Carmel is very big down here.  It is probably comparable to our peanut butter since they put it on about everything.  I would not recommend Dulce de Leche Oreos (or the Mandarin 7-Up).  I did like the Pritty Limon (strong lemon flavored "gaseosa" [soft drink]).  I walked through the entire store twice but could not find the water.  I pretty much stayed in the room the rest of the day and caught up on some sleep.  Today I have a lot of work to do and hopefully I can catch the NFL games later.

I know this entry is boring, but hey, so was yesterday.  I am hoping that nothing exciting happens today (except a Colts win!) and since my breakfast has just arrived...

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 137

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Well today I am changing hotels (from the Sheraton to the Holiday Inn).  The Holiday Inn is closer to work and since my coworker is leaving this evening to go home (to 20 degree weather), today is as good a day as any to move.  Plus, another coworker is arriving next Friday and he is staying at the Holiday Inn.  I don't know if I will miss this hotel much really as I spend very little time here but I am not really looking forward to being alone for the next 6 days in the evenings.

I wanted to upload some pics of the "After Office" party so here they are...

I did not get any great shots but as you can tell from the first picture, I still have my great bowling form (just kidding).

Last night was a little sad as someone I have hung out with the last week or so was returning to Buenos Aires and I will not likely ever see him again the rest of my life but we promised to keep in touch via emails and blogs.  He is getting married in early March so I tried to give him a little advice on these matters but who knows if he will take it.

Dinner last night was an amazing buffet at the hotel restaurant and even though for the most part we had no idea what it was that we were putting on our plates, it was very good.  We have given up on guessing what it is that we are eating since we have almost always been wrong.  I am serious, I think we have guessed right maybe once or twice, other than that it is a surprise to our mouths.  Since everything here has been so good, I just dive in without fear.  What we think is fish is chicken, what we think is a meat turns out to be a vegetable, what we think will be hot is cold, what we think is crunchy ends up melting in our mouths.  A great example is desert last night.  There was a large cake shaped thing that we thought was cheesecake.  It was surrounded by sauces and toppings and to the American mind it seemed you would slice off a piece, shower it with toppings and be happy.  Once I cut a piece I knew I was wrong.  This cut like a hot knife through butter.  So I was thinking maybe it was some sort of whipped cream thing at this point in time.  I (of course) was wrong again.  This whole thing (probably 4 inches tall and 12 inches by 12 inches in size) was all meringue!  The whole thing!  It had this incredibly sweet sugary kind of sauce on it and it was great.  I have never tasted anything like it.  Next we took a small pie that was individually sized and shared it.  We thought that it would be apple pie.  Wrong!  We discussed what we thought it might be (after we finished the whole thing) but we still have no idea.  There was this lingering flavor in your mouth that we could not quite place (mint maybe but not as refreshing).  Who knows, it was good.  Our hosts (when they are eating with us) do not speak "food" very well (see the Tour de Cow blog for a great example) so even with their help, we seldom know what it is we are putting in our mouths.  But again, I have yet to be disappointed so I have no reservations.  As much as I want to be back home with my wife and kids, I will never have food like this again in my life probably.

The Holiday Inn will have internet access in the room so I should be able to keep up on the blogs better the rest of my trip.  Until next time...

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 136

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

After Office

One thing that they do down here on occasion is called an "After Office" (I am sure there is a Spanish phrase for it that makes more sense).  Right after work (around 6 or 7) the office people head to a local pub of gathering place to let off steam, hang out, etc., and then around 9 or so they head home for dinner.  This is what I did last night with 7 or 8 of my class that I am training.  My coworker had some last minute work he had to get done so he could not join us.  At any rate, we piled in the cars and headed to the place where the After Office was going to happen.  I really had no idea what to expect and I had initial thoughts of turning down their invitation but they were really wanting me to join them so I came (plus if I did not go, there was the danger of helping my coworker with whatever he had to do).  The place we arrived at must have had about 50 pool tables, a small bar, a juke box that played music on very large speakers throughout the entire place and a 6 lane bowling alley.  I had a feeling we would end up bowling as the team knew that I used to be a professional bowler.  We sat down in a small area that has some couches and the team ordered many large bottles of beers and began to pour them into tall skinny glasses.  Now, I am 37 years old and I have never once in my life ever even tasted beer.  They could not grasp this concept, that a man in any country could go his whole life without drinking beer even once.  After a considerable amount of peer pressure, I let them pour me about 1/3 of a glass (the glasses were quite small).  We must have sat there talking and joking for about an hour (this is how long it took me to finish my beer as well - this my be my first and LAST beer!).  I talked with several different people including a person who was the national chess champion of the 16 and under division when he was 16.  We must have talked about chess for about 20 minutes.  Then we decided to bowl one game.  It was 4 Pesos to bowl a game and you did not get any bowling shoes like you do in the US.  Also, the pins were on strings so that they could not bounce around much when you knocked them down.  There were about 10 of us bowling altogether and more beer was ordered (I had had enough at this time still with my 1/3 of a glass).  The game took over an hour and I am proud to say that I did win (but not by much).  I was also giving some coaching to a few of the people.  A coworker that was from Buenos Aires who is staying at my hotel accepted a ride back to the hotel and ended up eating in the hotel restaurant.  Not much to report on the food really but the whole night was great.  If you had told me 6 months ago that I would be drinking beer, discussing chess, and giving bowling lessons in Argentina, I would not have believed you.

Tour De Cow

Tonight we went to another restaurant that is famous for bar-b-que.  I really have given up on what to expect when I go out with the local people here.  We arrived at the restaurant a little early for dinner (8:30) but we had some wine (just one glass for me thanks) and some appetizers.  We were told that they would basically keep bringing us meat from the open wood grill until we begged the waiters to stop.  We started with some kind of salami and also French fries with scrambled eggs (very common down here).  There was some bread of course and then started a myriad of meat portions.  I must stop and tell you that although the people I am training speak very good English, they do not speak "food" very well so even as they attempt to explain what we are about to eat, it is often still unclear.  Tonight was no different as they tried to explain where each piece of meat was on the cow.  We started off with some sausages.  They decided to make us try everything first before they would tell us what it is we were actually eating.  This was a good idea as you will find out in a moment.  There was a small wood cutting board like plate in the middle of the table that you shared with the person sitting across from you and the waiter would bring a few small pieces of meat at a time and deposit it on the wood plate.  I ate so many kinds of meat I cannot possibly remember them all but I will try.  Anyway, there were two kinds of sausages and one looked very different than any sausage I had ever seen.  It had a softer texture and (after we tasted it) we were told that it was blood sausage.  It was not too bad but I do not think I would ever order it (on purpose anyway).  Next came some ribs (I think, again the were pretty much pointing at their bodies and we had to imagine what part of the cow would be the equivalent.  A piece or two later we ate what was "the part of the cow that makes the spit."  This was a very strange taste and texture but it appeared to be one of their favorite pieces of meat.  Later we ate "the part of the cow that is where the urine is kept."  They said that this part is very difficult to make as it must be soaked and washed many times to get the taste of what was in it before out.  After all this I was ready for anything.  The next piece of meat was the highlight of the meal, but not for the taste.  I tried a bite and it was very chewy.  Then they tried to explain what it was.  My host started out by making a hand motion like he was going to tell me something very important.  He then started with, "In the human body..."  I stopped him right there.  This guy was looking in the air like he was attempting to speak the words in the most elegant way possible.  I said to him, "wait, if this piece of meat can only be described by you with this type of build up, then I do not want to know."  He pressed on, "In the human body, you have the stomach and you have your rear end.  This is the part between."  You might have had to have been there but as I was attempting to mimic him in his very poetic description to me, we laughed until we cried.  After that, it was a running joke to say the part of the cow in the most poetic way possible.  After we waved the white flag for mercy we asked the waiter where a good ice cream shop was.  Now I was dying with all this meat in me but ice cream did sound good.  We stayed at the table for quite a while discussing our favorite movies and our favorite quotes from movies.  We eventually left and found the ice cream place and sat and talked for a while there as well and then headed back to the hotel at around midnight.

The last two nights have been incredible.  Training is going well too.  My US coworker is leaving Saturday night so I will be alone for a few days.  Maybe then I can catch up on my sleep as these late nights are killing me.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 135

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Sorry for not posting anything yesterday, I will try my best to catch everyone up. Monday morning my coworker and I ventured down to the hotel restaurant for breakfast. They simply ask you for your room number and you are seated. There is fresh fruit (honeydew, kiwi, oranges, pears, etc.), breads, croissants, sweet breads, scrambled eggs (though they were a little runny looking for my taste), small pancakes, some cold cereal and many types of yogurt. There is also a few kinds of juice including orange juice and of course coffee (the whole point of breakfast!).

We got to work around 8:45 and I spent part of the morning training the class and all of the afternoon (probably about 6 hours total). My class is very inquisitive so I am fielding many questions. The types of questions that they ask though are proof that they are paying attention and understanding what is being taught. Lunch was some sort of thin, breaded piece of meat and smashed potatoes with a side dish that I could not quite make out. Our coworkers here do not speak food that well so many times they cannot explain to us what we are eating. No matter, I have yet to find anything that I do not like (except maybe the pate last week). We left work around 6:30 and arrived at the hotel and agreed to meet in the lobby at 8:15 to decide what to do for dinner.

A coworker that lives nearby had recommended and Italian restaurant (I think it was called Oh Mamma!) so we asked for a “remis” (a kind of taxi) and headed out. We ordered some more Argentinean wine and made quick work of the blue cheese spread and the bread provided. I decided on some sort of ravioli that had ham, cheese and peanuts in it. This was very good (of course). I don’t know what I had for desert but it was served in a tall thin glass and had vanilla ice cream in it and the top 2/3 of it was filled with a frothy / creamy very sweet sauce. The sauce was like a over sweetened frothy custard, that is the best explanation that I can give you. My part of the bill came to about $12.50 US. The food here is so incredible and so inexpensive! We then headed back to the hotel and arrived around 11:00.

Tuesday started with the same breakfast at the hotel and once we arrived at work we jumped right into training. My American coworker had written a small quiz and the class did very well. They were excited to stop being lectured to and to start using the toolsets that we were training them on. Lunch was, well I do not know exactly what I ate for lunch. There was a 2x2x1 stack of very thin boiled potatoes with some egg like mixture holding everything together. Also, there was some sort of small crusted vegetable dish that I had 2 of. My policy for lunch is to point to the plate of the person in front of me and same “same.” This has worked well thus far. The afternoon was more training and again we arrived at the hotel agreeing to meet back in the lobby for dinner at 8:15.

My wife calls each evening around 7:40 or so (5:40 eastern time in Indiana where she is staying) so once I hung up I headed downstairs. We had asked the cab driver on the way home for a nice pizza place and he recommended one called “Italio” so we headed out in search of this restaurant. This was more informal and had almost 50 types of pizzas to choose from. They brought us a small plat with pizza bread on it, some cured ham and olives. There was also some warn, spicy mushrooms and everything was very good (even though I did not try the olives as I am not a big fan). We decided to order a pizza that had this same ham and mushrooms on it. When the pizza arrived it was covered with mushrooms. This would be enough mushrooms for 10 pizzas in the US. The 3 slices of pizzas that I ate accounted for more mushrooms than I have eaten in my entire life (and I am not exaggerating). This was incredible and I even ate some of the whole olives (that still had the pits in them). I think I am getting very brave in my eating habits while I am hear. Desert was some vanilla-like ice cream that was covered with hard chocolate (this was like an Eskimo pie maybe back in the US) and of course there was some caramel sauce on the side. My part of the bill with tip came to about $7 US. Once I got back to the hotel I had about an hour’s worth of work to do so it was a late night.

Today is more training so we will see how it goes. My coworker is leaving me on Saturday to head home so I will be alone for a few days until another coworker arrives. Also, I am moving hotels to the Holiday Inn since it is closer to the EDS building and has high speed internet in the room (this will be great). Until next time…

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 134

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

I did something not so intelligent yesterday, I did not drink any coffee or have any breakfast.  By the time I was finished talking on the phone with the wife and we were ready to head downtown for some sightseeing I was not in good shape.  My head hurt and I was a little dizzy.  But I am stupid sometimes and pressed on.

We had decided to head to the town center to sight see on Sunday as this would be the last weekend the coworker would be here.  He heads home next Saturday and given that we get home so late in the evening from work, this was our last shot.  We discussed whether or not to walk vs. taking a taxi and once we realized it was only about 1/2 mile to where we wanted to go, we decided to walk.  When you are walking the streets of Cordoba you see these things along the roads...

They are actually trash receptacles of a sort (I think anyway as that is all I ever saw put in them).  My coworker suggested it was to keep the animals out of the trash (good idea!).  We walked about 14 blocks and arrived in good time enjoying the great weather (although I do have a little sunburn this morning from the walk).  There are many shops downtown but most were closed due to the day being a Sunday.  I made a mental note to come in 2 weeks when another coworker will be here.  There is talk of switching hotels at that time so we will definitely need a taxi then.
We arrived at the town center and took a few touristy photos...

This monument has a plaque that reads, "Jeronimo Luis De Cabrera - Fundadot De Cordoba - Julio 6 De 1573."  We wandered around for a little while longer and by the time we got back to the hotel, 2 hours had passed since we left.  We opted for lunch in the lobby bar but I only ate about 1/2 of my sandwich and hardly any fries and headed to the room and took a 3 hour nap.  I ended up laying in bed a little longer and watched the last 1/2 of "The American President" on TV and then I saw that the Chargers / Patriots game was actually being broadcast.  Once it was halftime I decided to head over to the grocery store in the mall for some snacks to enjoy the second half with.  I met up with my coworker who was doing some work in the lobby bar as that is the only place to get an internet connection.  We headed over and I purchased some snacks...

The MegaTubes were like Bugles back home and the cookies were your standard el cheapo cookies (one was on sale for US 17 cents).  Once we got back we went to my room and enjoyed the Patriots win which sets up a dream AFC Championship game with the Colts at Indianapolis.  I will be arriving back in the states the same day as the Super Bowl so maybe, just maybe, the Colts will be in it against either the Bears or the Saints.  Go Colts!

The game was over around 10 or 11 as I recall and I went to bed.  I am off now to find some breakfast and coffee so I don't repeat yesterday's mistakes.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 133

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Well yesterday (Saturday) was not really exciting.  I had a lot of work to catch up on so I spent about 6 hours sitting in the lobby bar and working.  I found a power outlet and plugged in hoping no one would mind.  There are many many outlets all around and they seemed to have no other purpose than to be for the guests.  My coworker joined me after about 2 hours and we eventually ordered lunch (a club sandwich for me, the "Sheraton" burger for him) along with some aqua.  A word about the water.  It seems water with "gas" (carbonated) is very popular here and I have taken a liking to it.  So I order my water "con gas" and my coworker just shakes his head.

I headed back to the room for a small nap as I wanted to be back down in the lobby area to "watch" the Colts game on the internet.  This really entails logging on to NFL.com and watching the live game stats as they update the plays.  There is no video.  I almost opted for the $10 charge (per month) to listen to the games but it was in Real Audio and my machine does not do Real Audio real well and I was afraid that after I had paid my money, that it would not work.  Anyway, the Colts prevailed 15 - 6 in the first playoff game in like 25 years not to feature at least one touchdown.

Once the game was over (about 9:30 PM local time) we headed down to the hotel restaurant for dinner.  It is still difficult to get seated and order your food when you do not speak the language but we got along OK.  There was what appeared to be a set up for live music and eventually (half way through my linguini with shrimp) a man playing the keyboard and a young woman playing the saxophone took the stage.  Later a vocalist joined in and belted out (in English) "As Time Goes By" and then he left and the saxophone lady pulled of a decent rendition of "Hello Dolly" (which I thought was supposed to be on the trumpet - not knowing the word for trumpet, I opted not to mention this to her).

We made it back to the room close to 11 PM and I searched for some sports show that would show Colts highlights but my search was fruitless.  I looked around the room for my breakfast form but they did not leave one for me today.  Every other day when I come back to the room for the evening, there is a breakfast form that you can check off what you would like delivered to your room.  I do not know why they only do it every other day but I wish they would leave me one every day.  Oh well, it is they who are not getting my money.

I do not have any plans for today but I am caught up on my work so we may get bold and wander around the city (note to self: get a map).  Until later...

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 132

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Sorry I missed blogging last night but I was just too tired.  My body is still not used to getting up a 3 AM central.  I know I will have the exact opposite problem when I return in 3 weeks but somehow I don't think sleeping LATER will be as hard as getting up earlier.

Starting with Thursday evening at dinner up until dinner last night was one great 24 hour period!  Thursday evening we went out to a nice restaurant with the Argentinian team.  I do not remember the restaurant name (I should bring a pad and paper with me for these things).  Anyway, we arrived at about 9:30 which is about the right time to eat dinner here I am told.  We ordered some Argentinian wine and the waiter brought us some bread.  I think I mentioned previously that I do not have the palate to tell good wine from bad.  This is probably a blessing since I can be equally happy with good wine or bad.  Either way, I am told that this wine was good so I will take their word for it.  I only had 1/2 of a glass anyway.  The bread had a spread in a bowl next to it that the Argentine people were spreading so I jumped in.  This, ladies and gentlemen, was my introduction to pate.  I had never had it before and will not likely eat it again but I did finish all of my bread at least.  The appetizer was calamari.  This, ladies and gentlemen, was my first time eating this stuff as well.  It was not too bad I guess.  At this point in time I am ready for anything.  They had English versions of the menu so at leat I could tell what I was ordering.  I had some big hunk of beef and French fries.  The beef down here has some sort of unique taste.  I think it is because everything is field / grass fed as opposed to American beef.  I do not know how to describe except it tastes a little gamey (like deer meat maybe).  It is still very good and but the piece was too big so I could not finish mine.  Everyone was drinking water and the waiter would just keep bringing water in glass bottles and filling our glasses.  Here it is popular to drink carbonated water (aka with gas) but I ordered mine "sin gas" (without gas).  Desert was tiramisu and it was great as well.  We left around 11:45 and there were still people coming in to be seated for dinner!  We arrived back at the hotel around midnight and I collapsed on my bed.

I did not order breakfast for Friday morning since I was still full from dinner and we all arrived at work around 9AM.  There was some frustration on the Argentinian coworkers part as they could not get the projector for the training room until 10.  My coworker and I are not scheduled to begin training until next Monday so we were not effected.  We were taken to a bank to exchange our US dollars to pesos (3.05 peso = 1 dollar).  This took some time as the banks here are only open four about 5 hours per day and since it was Friday, the line was very long.  I walked out of the bank with about 320 pesos (and 25 centavos) and felt better knowing I could now go anywhere and at least be able to pay my own way.

For lunch we went to the same cafeteria like place that we went on Thursday for lunch and I did the same thing I did on Thursday, namely pointed at the person in front of me and said "same" so I did not have to pronounce what I wanted.  I thought I was getting fish but it was chicken along with some vegetables and some sort of thing made with pumpkin and spinach (in a triangular cake slice type shape).  That along with a Fanta orange was only 8 pesos ($2.75).  Food is very inexpensive down here.

In the afternoon, they asked us to sit in on an overview presentation of our process and invited us to jump in and answer questions.  There were 10 people training and 4 people running the training (not including us Americans).  My coworker jumped in and explained a few things.  He and some other trainers had to go to a meeting so I stayed in the training room with the 2 remaining trainers and within about 10 minutes, I was leading the class.  This was going to be the most scary part I thought.  The point that I dreaded the whole time leading up to the trip.  How well will these folks understand English, will my sense of humor come through, etc.  Everything went great!!!  It was like I had been doing this sort of thing for years even though I have very little experience in this sort of thing.  I must have spoke off and on for about 2 hours and during a break time, I was speaking to about 1/2 the class about America and other things.  We finished up around 6 PM and since all the other trainers were heading back to Buenos Aires for the weekend, my coworker and I were left all alone.

We got a taxi (actually a "remis") bask to the hotel (12 pesos) and then killed some time in the room until about 8 PM (we did not want to go to dinner too "early").  We wanted to go over to the mall close to us and buy some water (the water in the room in the fridge is a little pricey - about $1.25 per bottle - not bad for America but really high for sown here) and we thought we would take a chance and go to the food court at the mall for dinner.  We found a medium size grocery store inside the mall.  This must be normal thing (having groceries in a mall) as a bank we visited earlier in the day was also in a mall and there was a grocery store there as well.  We roamed around the grocery for about 30 minutes.  It was neat to see all the different things that they had for sale and to see what brands that they had in common with us too.  We decided to eat first and then come back for our water.  The food court was very typical and had normal choices (pizza, Chinese, burgers, ice cream, etc.).  We settled on the pizza place and I ordered first.  I attempted to pronounce everything correctly and between that and pointing at the pictures on the wall I was able to order my pizza, empanada and coke (total - 7 pesos - $2.40 US).  My coworker ordered a calzone and a beer (every place sold beer).  The food was OK (typical of food court food).  We went to the grocery and picked up some bottled water with no problem and then retired for the night.

I conquered a lot of fears in those 24 hours (eating pate was one of them!).  I was able to get pesos, speak in front of the training class in English, order food, and purchase water.  All in one 24 hour period.  Needless to say, I am feeling great today.  I will try to post about my day sometime tonight to catch up and maybe post some more pictures.  Talk to you soon.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 131

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

This morning started great.  Right at 6 AM, there was a knock at my door and a man wheeled in breakfast.  I had ordered this the night before so I was up and ready for it.

This was about $5 US and the fruit on my plate was very nicely presented.  Some of the fruit I could not quite make out but it was good.  The coffee was good and the basket contained many different pastries and breads.  Also there was some jam and 3 small bottles that were labeled "caramel" so I am not sure what was in them really as caramel seems an odd thing to spread on your toast.

The view from my 5th floor hotel is nice as well.

I am in the center of the city it seems.  A co-worker from near here met us in the lobby at around 8 and we were off to work.  After about a 30 minute drive we arrived at the building which is newly renovated.  For now there are only about 15 people in the building but it will hold about 800 eventually.  We got connected to the network very quickly and were able to do some catch up on email that had been piling up.  There were several other co-workers flying in from Buenos Aires but the airline went on strike this morning so they had to find another flight with a different company.  This was good timing for us as just yesterday we flew with this same airline and we would have been stuck in Chile!

Lunch was next door at a place that just opened yesterday.  I do not quite know how to explain the setup but it was sort of like a cafeteria.  I trusted a co-worker and just ordered what he had.  Basically I had 3 different kinds of empanadas and they were very good.  We were still not able to get to a bank to exchange our money for pesos so we had to rely on them to pay with a promise to repay them.  We worked until about 6:30 and then headed back to the hotel.  Evidently the custom here is to eat dinner around 9 PM so we are meeting in the lobby in about 20 minutes to head out for dinner.  I will have to get used to this as I am ready for a quick bite and then to bed since I got up at 3 AM central time this morning.

Everyone is very nice and apologized for their English but they speak it very well.  I feel bad for not even knowing more than a few phrases in Spanish.  I will try to watch some more Argentina TV tonight and see if I can catch a few phrases.  Until tomorrow.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 130

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Well I am in Cordoba, Argentina.  It is about 11:30 local time as I start this blog as they are 3 hours ahead of central time (2 hours ahead of eastern).  What a day!  I am very tired but felt compelled to blog this evening (can you feel the love?).

The wife dropped me off at the Dallas airport last night around 7:20.  The flight was not until 9:20 but they say you should be there 2 hours early.  So I got to my terminal at 7:25 and sat there for almost 90 minutes before the plane was boarding.  A co-worker (from now on I will use CW for co-worker) was coming from Indianapolis and hooking up with me for the long flight.  We boarded the plane and took our seats in business class.  Now I have never flown business class and for those of you who also have never flown business class let me tell you that it is the only way to go.  There were only 6 rows of 6 seats in that section and there was about 3 foot of leg room from row to row.  Also, the seats reclined to about 60 degrees and the leg rest tilts out as well.  There was a nice pillow and blanket laying on my seat waiting for me as well as a flight attendant (from now on I will use FA for flight attendant) offering me champagne as I was getting situated.  I took the champagne but only because I thought it was apple juice.

After we were seated, another FA asked us what we wanted to eat and rattled off our choices (essentially beef, chicken or pasta).  The FA noted that there was only one beef left so I opted for the pasta and CW took the last beef.  We were offered some wine but I opted for a coke instead.  We were then asked if we wanted a personal DVD player (CW took one, I declined since I had my laptop).  The DVD player arrived and it was about a 5 inch screen with about 20 movies to choose from in a little case.

After take off, another FA (there were like 4 or 5 of them just for business class) brought us some peanuts.  These were not the same you get in the back of the plane.  These were in a little ceramic bowl and they had been warmed!  Also, there were cashews and several other kinds of nuts, not just peanuts.  Once those were gone, we were brought an appetizer consisting of 2 chilled shrimp and some smoked salmon (which I had never tried before - it is a delicacy I suppose but all I ended up thinking was that someone had succeeded in making salmon taste like ham). I did not finish this before they delivered the salad and they must have been on some sort of schedule since they just took what was left of my salmon / ham away.  The salad consisted of long strips of shaved carrots, asparagus, some sort of spicy tomato, along with lettuce and some kind of mushroom.  I did not get to finish my salad (only got through a third of it really) before that plate was taken away and replaced by the main course.  It was risotto and had various diced vegetables in it along with some spinach.  This was very good and I was able to actually finish this before desert was offered.  I did take a small glass of Chilean wine just because it was offered and I thought, "Hey, when will I ever get to drink wine from Chile?"  It was not that impressive but I get the feeling that I do not have a palate for differentiating between good wine and the $4 stuff you can get a Wal*Mart.  I opted for ice cream with hot fudge, whipped cream and nuts for desert.  Since we were in row 6 of 6 it appears the FW just gave me the balance of the chopped nuts that was left.  All in all, probably one of the top 10 meals I have ever had.  And this was airplane food!  I reclined my seat almost fully and was able to catch about 5 hours of sleep.  When we woke up the next morning, my CW noted that it looked like some sort of sleepover gone wrong.  People sleeping all over the place and stuff all over the floor.  My daughter is not old enough to have had a sleepover but his daughter is so I took his word for it.  Business class was about 90% men and most appeared to be mid 40's to mid 50's.
Since 5 AM is when I am used to getting up, that is when I got up.  I have no idea where we were at in the air but it was probably 8 AM local time where ever we were at as someone pulled open the window shade and light flooded the plane in our section.  Breakfast came shortly thereafter and I chose cereal over the omelet but it did come with yogurt, croissant and fruit along with coffee and orange juice.  Oh they also came around with hot towels for wiping off your hands when you were done (they did this for dinner as well, forget to mention that).

We arrived in Santiago, Chile on time and it took us about 20 minutes to find our terminal where our next flight was departing from in about 2 hours.  The Chile airport was a little boring other than some great views of the mountains and appeared to be playing Duran Duran's greatest hits over the intercom.  There was a Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts and a Ruby Tuesday along with all kinds of shops.  Mostly we sat at the terminal and read books / listened to our headsets.  The next flight only took about 75 minutes and there was no business class (boo hoo, I was really spoiled by that first flight).  They did serve lunch (a chicken salad sandwich and a cookie) and the in flight TV screens popped down and showed an episode of The Simpsons.  This was in English and there were no subtitles.  I found this strange as of the 100 or so people on the flight, I doubt if many were American or even spoke English.

We arrived in Cordoba and got through customs pretty quickly.  They are not as stringent here I think as they are in the US.  They barely asked me any questions and only scanned my luggage.  Outside there was a guy holding a sign up with our last names on it and we were then driven through a ton of city streets to the hotel.  I can see why the folks that we know down here recommended that we NOT get a car.  Many intersections did not have stop signs or even yield signs.  From what I could tell, you simply gaged if you were going to be the first to arrive at an intersection and either stopped or did not stop accordingly.  We got checked in at our hotel (a Sheraton) and took a nap and then headed down for dinner.  The restaurant was empty at 6:15 so dinner must happen at a later time down here.  I had some sort of beef steak and French fries that also contained scrambled eggs (weird, eh?).  It was very good but I was still tired more so than hungry.  Right next door to the hotel is a large mall so we roamed around it for a while.  This was your typical mall and I was familiar with a few of the store names.  We found a bank there that would exchange our money to Argentina pesos but they had closed for the day.  The exchange rate is about 3 pesos to 1 US dollar and things are a little cheaper down here from what I could tell (the music store had newer CDs for about $12 US).  The mall had a food court so I think I will opt to eat there instead of the hotel restaurant if I am given a choice.

Well that is about it for today's post.  I tried to make note of the highlights but am sure I am missing some things.  There are a few of the 60 or so channels that I get in the hotel room that are in English with subtitles and before I headed down to the lobby to post this blog, I was watching the Spurs play the Nuggets in NBA basketball.  I know I will value this eventually as no one else that I have ran unto speaks much English.  I will try to post again soon but I have no idea what my schedule will be like tomorrow.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon