London, UK and An Interesting Story

So there I am today walking down the street minding my own when a douche Dutch bike cop comes up and screeches his tires in front of me. Yeah, as if that didn't piss me off enough.

Then, two other cops come from behind and on the side surrounding me so I can't pass. The head douche rambles something in Dutch where I interrupt and respond 'Sorry can you speak in English?' He says 'Can I see some identification? And empty your pockets.' I comply with 'Ok, What is the problem?' With no answer, he then starts talking on his walkie talkie to another cop in Dutch... probably giving them my description or whatever. At this point I was somewhere between 'wtf' and 'What is the deal?' Then I asked him again, 'What is the trouble?' Finally he answers by saying that they had a pickpocket in the area and I matched the description with what I was wearing. As filler, the cop behind me starts asking me where I'm from and what I do. I obligingly answer, with really just wanting to say, 'What does it matter to you, doucheface?'

Then they started to searched me. Oh joy. I'd always wanted hot women to take notice of me on the street, but definitely not in this manner. I estimated around 100-150 people with a blank stare on their faces contemplating the same thing I was. So then the original douche then took down my information and ends with a 'Thank you for your cooperation.' In the back of my mind I say 'Yeah, thanks dickhead, go find a murderer or rapist and stop wasting your time on me.' Honestly, I think it was just "Screw The Foreigner Day because after they left me, they stopped an honest looking asian man a few minutes later. Talk about profiling. Oh how I love this place.

In other news, I went to London again this past weekend to see family and my niece. Europeans take days off for Good Friday and the Monday after...Not bad for me since I really don't know the significance of Easter and got some time off for it. There weren't too many pics from either time I went to London, but here are the links.

London-March '09
London-April '09

Next stop: Barcelona and Madrid, Spain. I'll update when the shenanigans cease. ¡Vamonos!

Out.

Belgium... again

So during the first weekend of April, I decided to meet up with Novotny once again in Brussels. This was a good call. I got there Friday night and it was directly out for dinner and a well-known American bar in Brussels called 'Delirium'. They have over 400 kinds of European beer. Nuff said. The next day it was off to Antwerp to meet up a few friends of his at a nightclub. Even better call. European women are ridiculously gorgeous.. too bad my French, Dutch, and German are pretty non-existent. Oh yeah, and these places make trance and electronic house music so much fun to jive to. Got back to Brussels in time for the sun to rise. Baller status:check.

Mayhem

Spreekt U het Engels?

It's been a while since I last posted and alot has happened since. I got the chance to fly a plane in St. Croix prior to leaving there. It's pretty thrilling to be in control of a plane. I didn't pee in my pants nor crash.

Flying a Plane is baller

In mid-January, I came to Rotterdam, Netherlands (Holland), for another assignment. Talk about a drastic change in climate. After leaving St. Croix and a brief stop in the states, it was time for my own EuroTrip. This post will be a bit lengthy as I have been to alot of places. The cities visited are in order:

Rotterdam, Netherlands
I got here at the end of January in the middle of winter. Not the greatest temperature change. So for my first weekend in Europe, I toured the city. There isn't that much to see in this town and the city center is overrun by fairly young people, ample shopping areas, a few museums, and "coffee" houses. It does make home to one of the classiest bridges in the world called 'Erasmusbrug.'

It's very diverse, and people from as far as Suriname and Australia live here. The drinking age here is 16+ but you don't see teenagers out wasted on the streets. The people of the city ride bicycles... ALOT, even when its freezing cold, rainy, and windy outside (which is almost everyday). The bike lanes next to the roads are almost the size of a road lane itself. Alas, you need to watch out for pedestrians and bikes equally when you drive here... believe me, I almost hit someone on several occasions. Oh yeah, and did I mention the weather isn't the greatest?

The same weekend I went to this town called Kinderdijk (Kinder-dike) in Holland. Literal translation: Child dike. Ha. It is a windmill far from back in the day where people still live. The land lies below sea-level and they needed the windmills then and even now apparently.

Rotterdam Pics
Kinderdijk Pics

It was a really cold weekend. Really. Effing. Cold.

Antwerp (Antwerpen), Belgium
Antwerpen is a nice little town in Belgium with alot of history in it... so I decided to go, and walk...alot. If you're not into alot of historic museum-going (like me) there are only a few things to come to Belgium for: waffles, chocolate, beer, fries, and mussels (wouldn't know about the last one). Belgian beers are some of the best in the world. De Koninck, Duvel, Westmalle, Chimay.. to name a few. Get one, try one, but watch out. These bad boys have up to 9-10% alcohol.

Antwerp Pics

Brussels, Belgium
Cool city and probably double the size of Antwerp. Again, lots of walking, Lots of little bars and shops to go into and alot of the same story with the waffles, chocolate, beer, etc.

That is the city hall, in the Grand Plaza of Brussels. The story is that the guy who built it way back when killed himself right after. Apparently, he built it wrong. Can you notice what he did?
There is this statue of a mannequin taking a leak, appropriately called Mannekin Pis. Apparently the legend is that he peed on a bomb during WWII to defuse it. They dress it up most times when the city is busy. Somehow, it became a tourist attraction in Brussels. His sister is in another part of the town and her name is 'Jannekin Pis.' Yes of course, statues of baby girls peeing is totally normal.


On this trip, I met up with Andrew Novotny, one of my UOP co-workers. Cool guy, good fun, another story.

To the states for a bit...
The next weekend I came back to the states for a week to attend two weddings. Typical indian wedding mayhem and good to see friends and family. Back to the road.

Bruges (Brugge), Belgium
Neat, clean little city that is a staple and popular attraction in Belgium. Good chocolate, beer, and waffles once again. I visited the De Halve Maan Brewery while I was there and did a lot of walking. One of the beer rooms of Belgian beers is below. This was a good call.

Brugge

I wish I would have stayed here for another day because there was a chocolate museum and diamond factory that I didn't get to tour. That would have been cool. What is a nice Belgian city like this without canalways?

London, UK
The following weekend I went to hang out with family in the UK. It's always fun coming here, even though I was just here in October ('08). I got see my niece, Sienna, and hang out with my cousins Rahoul and Parus. Good food, good times.... that you don't really recall. I plan on going back sometime very soon.

Stuttgart/Boeblingen, Germany
The next weekend's agenda was to take Germany by storm. Mission accomplished. This has been one of the brightest spots so far of my European tour. I went to see my old roomate, friend, and excellent beer drinker, Sebastian.

Southern Germany is very clean, and very generally very posh. I got to drive on the world famous German Autobahn. I hit some pretty high speeds, and topped my little car out. It was by far the greatest driving experience I have had in my life. I just had to get a picture of the glory:


I got to visit the Porsche Museum which is headquartered in Stuttgart. By night, the debauchery started and unfortunately ended. Let's just say that the stories told of Germans, their parties, and drinking capabilities are very true. Alas, I will go back hopefully soon. There is a BeerFest coming up in April :)

More of Stuttgart

That is all for now. I am not sure how much longer I will be on this assignment, but hey... I don't mind. Future trips will hopefully be somewhere in Belgium again, the UK, France, and Germany if I get time. I will try and keep the updates coming more regularly.

Happy Holidays from St. Croix

Notables:
~ The movement of the island is at a numbingly slow pace. Fast food takes about 30 minutes to get, grocery shopping lines alone...~45 minutes. To top it all off, I went to the hospital to get checked out for some pain that I was having only to be there for almost 10 hours. Only the basic tests were administered.
~ I get 23 channels of TV, 6 of which are a version of HBO.
~Barracudas are attracted to shiny things. Don't worry, everything on me is still intact.
~Based on several surveyed comments, african-american men on the island are very insatiated, horny creatures...even more so than anywhere else I have seen.
~ Georgia Tech beat U[sic]GA in our football rivalry this year. I was beginning to wonder why people were looking at me funny when I was running up-and-down the street like a madman.... screaming with joy. A new era has begun, my friends. Relive the glory!

So it has been almost 2 months now. The paradise-like atmosphere is nice, but there are only a handful of things to do here. I spent Thanksgiving weekend watching alot of football and resting. Below are pictures from 'Jump Up,' which is one big block party in Christiansted where people go crazy while singing and dancing in the street. The guys on stilts are called Moko Jumbies, who are dressed to ward off evil spirits.



I later found out that these 'stilt men' are actually young boys aging from about 10-18 yrs or so. These boys have some mad dancing skills...all while on stilts, which is pretty impressive. The band that was playing during the festival is apparently playing for part of President Obama's inauguration in January '09. Quite the honor, if you ask me.

For those of you in dying in subzero windchill Chicago temperatures right now, below is a picture of Point Udall, which marks the easternmost point of the United States. The day was about 83F in the middle of December; don't hate me because I'm warm.


More Pictures

I am unsure of when I am leaving the island, but I will keep you posted. Until then, I wish you and your family a very Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year.

A bit of fever...island fever that is.

So I didn't end up going to Portugal. Apparently my vacation to London got in the way of that assignment.....poo on UOP.

Loooon-don Toon, mate

In recap of the last month of my life.... I went to London for my cousin's wedding which was pretty sweet. The whole thing was a three-weekend long extravaganza, but I only went to the actually wedding parts of it (aren't long indian weddings the darndest?) I got to see family that I hadn't seen in the amount of time it takes someone to forget who you are. I also got a bit of sightseeing in (a nice little town outside of London). I was mostly busy with the wedding so it wasn't all THAT much fun. The wedding was at the site of the 2012 Olympic Games just SouthEast of Central London which was pretty amazing in itself. I did manage to sneak away from the madness and enjoy some refreshing Carling, the UK's smoothest , best tasting lager (in my opinion).

Pictures from the week-long trip (sign up for a snapfish account to look at these pics: 1) London and Wedding and 2) More Wedding/ Family

If you really want to know who people in my family are or any other details of what I did, just ask. You can also 'just ask' if you are just plain bored because you have nothing better to do while working in the American Express Fraud or Collections Departments or are sitting behind a motel desk pretending like you're working (ha!).

Christiansted, St. Croix, US Virgin Islands....mon

After heading back to Chicago for a bit, I came down to St. Croix in the Virgin Islands for my first assignment at the Hovensa Refinery. For those of you who don't know where St. Croix is, or don't really know what it looks like, see below... I've included Miami, Florida, for reference--courtesy of google maps.


I have been here for almost two weeks and have managed to accomplish the following things:
1) Driving on the left-hand side of the road efficiently. It's actually a lot of fun.
2) Take a wave head-on and launch myself 7-8 feet into the air on a waverunner.
3) Then effectively trying to be a badass, cutting a wave so aggressively that it catapulted me into the air doing a backflip into the water at ~35 mph. Hilarity ensued.
4) Getting my rental car stuck in a ditch at about a 30-40 degree angle from the surface. Hilarity does not ensue.
5) Being told I have nice arms by a 50 (or 60) year old man and his wife at the local gym.
6) Learning to say my 't's' as 'd's', replacing things ending in 'r' with things ending in 'a', saying 'mon' and 'ya', and my personal favorite, saying 'everything airy?'
7) Making small talk with locals only to be looked at with the 'what the hell race are you?' look thereafter.
8) Witnessing a flash flood during a tropical rain storm where the road that flooded is back to normal after 30 minutes of the rain stopping.
9) A bottle of Hypnotiq being cheaper than a case of water.

....theres more to come. I will post pictures when I get the chance.

Prepping for the beginning of the rest of my life

This week, I have officially began being what the folks at work call 'fashionably homeless.' How I got to this point? its the long story of what we call my life. So just inquire

I have countlessly attempted to explain what it is that I do for a living, so here goes again. I am an engineer, chemical to be exact. More specifically, my title is My title is an Field Operating Services (FOS) Advisor. I work on contract with various petroleum refineries all over the globe and work with UOP specialists, contractors, and other resources to start-up, commission, checkout, reload, and troubleshoot certain petroleum refinery units.

All the boring things aside... I live out of suitcases, in hotels/company housing, and do not drive my own car. Everyone I know that is close to me I never see or I see very briefly nowadays. Right now, I am in Rosemont, IL at the
Courtyard-Residence Inn awaiting a week-long vacation to London, England for my first cousin's wedding. It's London and its my vacation, so yes, I am going to make sure to enjoy myself.

Thereafter, I am going on a job to Sines, Portugal . Oh yeah, and I'm excited.

Through my travels I will attempt to keep this updated and inform all of my family and friends of my whereabouts.