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.