Blogging again

November 26th, 2006, 11:00hrs; Indianapolis, Indiana.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve had many complaints that my blog has not been updated for a while. It’s kinda difficult to dispute this (as the facts speak for themselves) so I thought I should put things right by making another entry, but the truth is that I have been extremely busy.

Right now, it’s just past 11am on the 26th of November and I’ve got a flight to catch in about 8hrs. I’m currently in Indianapolis, Indiana, where I have been for the past couple of weeks, but I probably should start with where I left off.

Since I last blogged (which was on my way back from SriLanka during the first week in August), lots of things have happened.

Moving back….

Soon after I got back to Vienna, I was asked (by my boss) if I could move back to Frankfurt for a couple of month, to help out in that office while the recruited and trained up a new guy (which would then make it less likely that I have to shuttle back and fourth between F’furt and Vienna). I didn’t really have any issues with this idea, so a week later, I was in my car making the 7hour drive from Vienna to Frankfurt. It was a pretty nice drive – certainly the furthest distance that I’ve had to drive, so I recruited my little cousin Nathalie and we both drove out to Frankfurt on Sunday the 13th of August. It was a pretty nice drive and we got into the financial capital of the European Union by about 14:00hrs with lots of help from Jasmin (my trusty Navigator).

As you my have already guessed, the next couple of weeks were fairly hectic. I had to catch up with all my work that I had not done while I was on holiday, I had to catch up with everything that was going on in the Frankfurt office and I had to find some where to live (the idea of staying in a hotel for 3 months didn’t really appeal to me, least because of how much it would have cost). I found a nice little apartment in one of the adjoining suburbs to Frankfurt (caller Oberrad) into which I moved on the 22nd of August. The drive to work took 25-30mins which I didn’t mind, because the apartment had it’s own parking space – much preferred to have to commute half an hour every day and have somewhere to park my car than commute 15mins everyday and spend another 15mins looking for parking !


Being in Frankfurt……

Being in Frankfurt was a little bit strange at first, but it was nice to be back. It was good to meet up with some of the friends that I made when I was there before and it was also nice to make new friends (which I seemed to be doing rather well). It was also a good time of the year to be there as we were experiencing an extended summer (who said global warming was a bad thing?)

Once I had settled back in to the swing of things in Frankfurt, the travelling began again. My schedule looked something like this.

14th - 18th September 2006 – Derby, UK
19th – 20th September 2006 – Bristol, UK
21st – 22nd Sept – London
23rd -24th Sept – Salsa Weekend in Bognor Regius, UK
25th-28th Sept – Frankfurt
29th-30th Sept –Oktoberfest in Munich
2nd- 15th October – Derby

After this busy schedule, I spent two short weeks in Frankfurt (with a short trip to Berlin thrown in for good measure) and then packed up all my stuff and drove back to Vienna on the 31st of October.

Return to Vienna
Being back in Vienna we even stranger than being back in Frankfurt. All my stuff in Vienna had collected lot of dust; the washing that I meant to do before I left was still undone (I’m not sure why, but I think I was expecting the washing machine pixies to come out and do their stuff, but this obviously was not a part of their plan). Also, Vienna was a lot colder than when I left it, which made the psychological adjustment more difficult. The difficulty in the psychological adjustment back to the way of life in Vienna was further compounded by another impending business trip (this time to the USA). The work during this trip was scheduled from the 13th of Nov to the 22nd of Nov and I thought I prudent to take a couple of days holiday and spend thanksgiving with some friend in St. Louis, Missouri

Indianapolis, Indiana.

I arrived in Indy rather late in the night of the 11th of Nov. My cousin, Nivanka (who I really met only about 4 or 5 years ago) lives in Indy too, so it’s been great hanging out with her and meeting her friends while I’ve been here. Nivanka will be moving to Austin, Texas in the next couple of weeks, so she had a leaving party on Friday the 17th of Nov. The party was good and it made it more interesting because one of Nivanka’s friends, Christiano, had displayed some of his artwork/paintings at the party and these were for sale along with the blended tea’s that Nivanka was selling !

The morning after the party, I was on the road to Chicago to see another on of my cousins, Dilhara (also known as Nangi!). The majority of the drive was rather boring - straight roads with the cruise control set to 85. However, the approach to downtown Chicago just as the sun was setting was quite cool and it added a bit of spice to what was otherwise a wasteful way of spending 4hours of my life.


Seeing Nangi in Chicago was lovely. We went down to the pier (which was a bit on the chilly side), we went out for Sushi and we also went for a house warming where some of the rather drunk college-student type blokes were trying to get me involved in a drinking game called “flippy-cup”. I didn’t really get it and I thought it to be rather pointless, but they seemed to be having a good time so we left them to it !

The next morning (Sunday) was a lazy one – I didn’t really do much in the morning which was probably a good thing ‘cos I think I needed the sleep more than I was prepared to admit. I met up with Shane and one of his friends (Udara) for lunch at a rather strange Chinese-Indian-Pakistani restaurant – I could swear that the waiter that served us was either drunk or had been smoking something that was illegal, but the food was good !!!

After lunch, Shane and I went to see Suresh and Emma. Suresh was someone I knew a RI back in SriLanka and it was good to see him again – It’s always interesting to find out what people from your past have been upto but it wasn’t a surprise that Suresh is still very much into his motorbikes !

I drove back in Indy on Sunday night and was pretty exhausted by the time I got back. Monday and Tuesday at work was a blur of meeting people and being told what they do and how their role (and ultimately mine) fits in to the bigger picture. I found this rather interesting and I think I’ve picked up on a couple of things that I definitely have to work harder at. I’ve also made a few useful contacts in Indy (which is always a good thing).


St. Louis, Missouri

Late on Wednesday morning, I set off on the 4-5 hour drive to St. Louis. Chethaka (a buddy of mine from Aberdeen) moved to St. Louis a couple of months ago with Mirna and they’ve bought a lovely little house about 20mins away from the city. I spent the thanksgiving weekend with them and Mirna (along with her Mum) did the traditional “Turkey and pumpkin pie” thing – I too did the traditional thing by over indulging in the Turkey !

Hanging out with Chethaka & Mirna and M’s Mum was a lot of fun. We didn’t really do much in the way of sightseeing (the only sightseeing thing I did was go to the St. Louis Arch, which was closed !!!!). However, a nice chilled out couple of days was exactly what I needed to recharge my batteries in preparation for the next few weeks. I returned to Indy about 20:30hrs on Saturday the 25th and went straight to the Cosy – the hottest Latin party in Indianapolis!. We partied there until about 3am and brought the after party back to Taz’s. It wasn’t the kind of after party that I was expecting – it was more like a “after-party-chillout” where we had a couple of drinks and hung out in the pool/hot tub until about 7am.

So now, I find my self sat on the floor at Taz’s apartment, wide awake after only about 3hours sleep, with the sound of someone snoring quite heavily on the sofa. My flight back to Europe leaves in a few hours and I’ve got a busy couple of weeks ahead of me. My schedule for the next couple of weeks goes something like this

26th Nov – Leave the USA
27th Nov – arrive in Frankfurt for team meeting
28th Nov – Catch the last flight back to Vienna (‘cos I’m meeting Punam and Nalin for an early dinner in Frankfurt – I think we’re going out for Sushi !)
1st Dec – 3rd Dec – Lawrence (my boss in Indy) will be in Vienna
4th Dec – Tech review meeting in Saarbrucken (Germany)
5th Dec – Meeting in Lugano, Switzerland
6th –7th Dec – Breman, Germany
11th-16th Dec – Derby (I think)
17th Dec until end of the year – somewhere in the UK (probably London)
It is also possible that I will have to go out to Romania before the end of the year as well … and then there is that thing called Christmas where the fat guy in the red suit goes round giving presents – There’s no rest for the Wicked !


I think that’s about it for the moment – I’ve got so much to do between now and the end of the year – I think I will need next year off !

Will write again some time soon. Until then, as they say here in the mid west “Take Care Y’all!”