Glad you asked blog. I'm doing pretty good.
It's hard to believe, but I've already been a Hotlanta resident for a week and a half. It's definitely hot. And humid. The weather in July will not be any fun.
I actually haven't had much opportunity to explore the city much yet. So far I've just sort of come home after work and just done my own thing... go for a run in the evening, watch some shows, play some vids etc... And I was out of town this weekend (I'll get to that), so so far I've really only become acquainted with about a 3 mile radius from my house and the highway between here and the airport.
Speaking of driving, there are some differences I've noticed in what it's like getting around by automobile down here compared to what I'm familiar with. For one thing, stoplights suck. You can literally sit at a red light for 5 minutes down here. They need to fix the timing of these things. Also, people drive in a little bit more aggressive fashion. The speed limit on my drive to work is 55. I often drive 70. And get passed a lot. And people honk for no perceivable reason sometimes.
Work is going well. I sit with a pretty cool group. Two of the guys have extensive backgrounds as mechanics and the 4 engineers in the engine condition monitoring/analysis subgroup I sit in are some of the coolest and most experienced engineers in the whole propulsion engineering group. Now that I've finally got a computer and a couple monitors and access to most of the stuff I need, I can actually stay fairly busy, which is kinda nice. It's also pretty cool being at Delta's maintenance center. I've had the opportunity to head over to the hangars/shops to check out airplanes/engines up close, which provides a nice sense of understanding and reality to the paperwork type stuff one does on a daily basis. I also finally got to see the GE90 turbofan engine which is the largest commercial jet engine in the world. The diameter is 128 inches. I could kneel on the fan case, and my head wouldn't come above the top of the center hub.
My housemates are nice, but kind of frustrating at times. While they all speak English fairly well, they are all foreign. The minor differences in vernacular, in combination with having nothing in common leads to only a few short, awkward conversations with each per day. It's a good thing I have the internet, and am starting to make friends with some of my fellow Delta cooperative education students (co-ops).
Which leads me to this past weekend's funventures. In fairly spontaneous fashion, two other co-ops and myself decided to head to Amsterdam after work on Friday. After a whirlwind adventure that involved me misplacing my keys and sprinting half a mile to our gate, literally making it a couple seconds before they would have given my seat to the next person on the standby list, I made it onto the flight to Boston. From there, we flew first class (my first time) to Amsterdam. Not to rub it into your faces, but I'm a pretty lucky SOB. Seriously. Who gets first class treatment for free. Airline employees, that's who. Sometimes I love standby flying.
Since our flight got in at about 5 a.m. local time, we kind of zombied our way to a hotel, where we crashed for most of the morning. Amsterdam is definitely a unique city. The weather was awesome (apparently it usually rains a lot), which made walking the city a treat. The streets in the city can be very chaotic, with narrow automobile lanes, sidewalks, bike lanes, and train tracks crowding each other out and often intersecting in bizarre fashion. Also, locals on bikes and scooters do not slow down if you happen to be crossing their path. They just honk/ring their bell and hope you get the fuck out of their way. One of my buddies managed to get hit by a bike twice. Apparently he doesn't learn very quickly.
You probably want to know about Amsterdam's more risque side. What about coffeeshops and the red light district? Well, I didn't really get the full experience. When we were at the Heineken brewery, we met a nice couple who told us about how a couple drinks and splitting a space cake (hash brownie) knocked them both on their asses (and the dude was a pretty big, muscular guy). With their guidance, and knowing that we had already had a lot of beer in us (Heineken ended up cutting us off. One server bitch didn't like how many free beers we got), we split a brownie three ways, hoping it would be just right. Honestly, I didn't feel a thing, but one of my pals ended up being pretty out of it. Based on this anecdotal evidence, I have to say that coffeeshops are very inconsistent in their baked goods. Maybe we should've smoked. Oh well. As for the red light district, it was about what you would expect, but can never really comprehend until you've seen it, and even then it's still fairly surreal. Amsterdam's liberal, tolerant nature is obviously a big point that draws in tourists. The district at night is definitely something to be seen. Most of the people wandering the streets are just tourists satisfying their curiosity, but at the same time, it's just bizarre to realize that the women in the windows (who were, for the most part, very hot) are indeed actually selling sex. It's kind of weird for a fairly sheltered American boy to be beckoned and propositioned by prostitutes. There are also a couple strip clubs and theatres with live sex shows (what the fuck is a banana show?).
All in all, Amsterdam is a pretty fun place, I wouldn't plan a trip just to see it, but if you're in France, Belgium, or Germany, it's definitely worth a day trip. You can see all the sites (the Anne Frank house, the Heineken brewery, the canals, some museums) in a day and enjoy some clubbing or other debauchery at night if you so choose.
If you've made it this far with me, thanks for reading, I'm doing good. It turns out I locked my keys in my car. Thank goodness I brought a spare set here.
I'll see you next time.
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