Two weeks away with work is a long time. Two weeks in Germany is a long time. Two weeks away with work in Germany is a long time. About three quarters of the way through now and have got a good routine but am quite tired of it.
We have a mock inspection, in preparation of a regulatory agency inspection in three months time.
The first few days we had a lot of snow, and I enjoyed several runs through quite thick snow, which was very comfortable for my knees. Since then the days have got longer (8-8 every day) and the snow thinner and slippier, so I've walked a little, gymed a touch, spa'ed a bit and eaten and drunk loads. There is a very nice wine in the hotel called "Clancy" which we had 17 bottles reserved and an emergency order for more put in. It is very pleasant, and there are about 20 of us staying in the hotel so the more the better.
The hotel claims to be one of the best in Germany, and it certainly has the best spa complex I have ever seen, all comes as part of the deal. 5 different types of steam rooms with buttons to choose which fragrance you would like - camomile, rose, menthol etc etc. Strange feet shaped sitting places, and a cold hot bath, where you walk round in a circle putting your feet in the hot and then the cold - it's supposed to be good for something. I'm not sure what. And then there's the salt steam room, which dumps a sort of steam of salt on you ever few minutes, and a swimming pool and jacuzzi, of course. But the best bit by far is the special shower room - this has four different settins. The best one by far is "Caribbean Storm" - you stand in the shower and get bombarded by hot strong jets from the side, whilst bird song tweets above you and soothing lights change colours. After a couple of minutes of this, there is thunder and lightning and white lights flash above and an icy cold mist descends on your head, at the same time that you continue to be bombarded from the sides by warm jets. Now that is special!
Naturally, there have been some HR issues with this trip. The first being that I still don't have my credit card and so can't pay for the room by any other method than by my English credit card. Nightmare. Second, Italian HR policy dictates that you cannot pay for food for anyone else from the company. So if ten of you go for a meal, the bill has to be divided into ten. Nightmare. And then, both myself and Dawn are here, but HR will not let us get around the payment issue by letting us share a room. So mine is basically a bag room. And then I am going to a wedding in the UK at the weekend. So I wanted to buy a single to Germany and then buy my own tickets to the UK and then back from the UK to Italy. But again, this is against HR policy to buy single tickets, so I have had to buy a return to Frankfurt to London and then fly back from Frankfurt to Italy on Monday afternoon. Rubbish!
It will be good to be home, for the wedding, to see the parents and also find some time for a martial arts course. I realised this morning that I haven't spoken to anyone English for nearly two weeks which is strange for me.
Work is long and hard, but we are constantly bombarded with moans from one of the Germans about us contravening German working hours. This has surprised me a lot!
Alles nich in ordnung!
The office here is slightly strange. We are in a smallish office away from the main site, but there is no canteen. This seems very strange. We have had food brought in for us every day, but the others have to go out and forage. Next door there is an Aussie Bar and we went there once but I doubt if the Germans would go there every day. JAFAs everywhere as ever. There WAS a JAFA bar in Siena, which is now a non-JAFA bar I'm pleased to announce :)
Also opposite the site is a casino - maybe I should pop along there with some euro after the inspection finishes on Thursday and see if I can win my hotel bill?
This weekend should be good fun, have got a wedding and then some martial arts. My next trip to the UK in March I have been invited by a friend to join his band to play a little light guitar. So - anybody near Bolton come along to watch "Band With No Name" (not a Seinfeld reference I believe).
Auf wiedersehen.
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