The Electric

Yesterday we change hotels to stay downtown at the Hyatt in Birmingham.  This is quite a nice hotel, very fancy with bell hops and floor to ceiling windows in every room.  I got my own personal sweet on the 20th floor looking out of the canals of Bermingham and it is quite a pretty site to see both when the sun is setting and in the middle of the night with the twinkle of city lights.

Last night while looking for interesting things to do in Bermingham I stumbled upon a fun fact that the oldest Cinema in the UK is located in Bermingham, infact it turned out to be a movie theater located less than a mile away call "The Electric".  This was the first cinema built in the UK, built in 1909 it is a very small theater with a cult classic theater feel and a full bar.  It seemed like something that would be fun to see and lucky for me there was a moving playing at 11:00 PM, Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Arc.  After a speed walk of about 15 min we pulled up in front of a non discript section of city street just next to the Bermingham train station with the only distinguishing feature a large unlit building sign that read "The Electric".  We purchased tickets and assended the tight stairway to the second floor and entered theater 2 (of 2 theaters) which consisted of about 25 seats and 3 couches.  It was a wonderful place to be watching an old Indiana film, I felt like I was there at the premier seeing it for the first time and it was great to re-witness the cutting edge (for its time) cinimatography on the big screen.

Work in the UK!

Here I am, sitting on the 20th floor of the down town Bermingham England Hyatt hotel.  When I look out my window I can watch the sun setting and the people partying on the canals, its crazy to think that I am getting to see all of this for work. :)

Boeing sent me to the UK on very short notice, a week ago, to help a supplier here near Bermingham England, and I am so thrilled to be here.  It has been a lot of work, but quite the adventure as well.  I have eatting some great English, and Indian food so far while I have been here along with a nice dark Guennise or two ;).  The weather has also been very accomodating with beautiful blue skys every morning, if only we got done a little earlyer so I could enjoy them for more than an hour, but I guess thats the way a work trip is and I should just be excited that they have sent me here!!

We have also had some time to explore, in between work and sleep.  A few of us toured out into the British country side a few days ago and took a hike down one of the many canals in central England.  Birmingham has more miles of canal than Venice and a large portion of them were manually dug in the late 1700s by thousands of Scottish workers.  The stretch of canal that we walked next to had some 56 locks in it that allowed narrow hulled boats to travel up and down the canals.  These locks were originally installed with the original digging, but have been replaced many times over the years and are still in use today.  While the locks and canals may have originally gone in as a way for transporting goods around Birmingham and the surrounding area, today they are used almost exclusively by tourist or a few eccentrics who live in narrowboats on the water.  The narrowboats are crazy house boats that contain about as much as a average motor home but are less than 7ft wide.  They are required to be that narrow so that they can navigate under the bridges and up and down the locks of the canals, and have a top speed of about 4 MPH when they aren't waiting in a que for the locks.  The designs you see on some of the boats is reminiscent of the circus while others are very modest, it all depends on the owner.

Peace and Flowers!!

This last weekend I had my first Hippie adventure with some friends from work!

Seattle

It has been forever since I've posted on this blog, but I would like to get back into it so I'm going to start out with this nice little post about my first week here living in Seattle. :)

Seattle from the Columbia Tower, Seattle

Instagram photo of cherry blossom tree