Gettin Down to Business

After 3 weeks of unorganized chaos it was finally time I settled down into a nice routine.  As it stands right now the routine goes a little like this:

Packed Bus From Work

6:45 Rude Alarm Wakeup

7:15 Showered and Dressed

7:43 Breakfast inhaled/lunch packed

8:05 At Bus Station

8:08 Catch Bus 61 from bay 18

8:21 Arrive at bus Stop begin walk to work

8:35 At Work

16:36 Catch Free RR Bus Home

Free Time*

23:15 Kindle Time

23:45 Passed out

*Free time thus far has been a mixture of grocery shopping/dinner/planning my next adventure… this brings me to my next adventure!

… Morocco!!!

Mid May a good friend of mine from back home, Yuri Protzuk, invited me to come down to Morocco for part of the time he would be there. Unfortunately, I had to turn him down because I didn’t think it would be proper to skip out of work after only being there for a week.  Turns out first day of work rolls around and I find out the offices will be closed Monday-Wednesday for the Queen's Jubilee which results in a slow Thur&Fri due to workers extening their Holiday.  I followed in the British footsteps and am booked to be in Morocco June 2^nd-June 10^th.

Yuri’s mother grew up here and his grandparents live in Rabat so I was invited to go stay with them, I will fly into Casablanca and cannot wait to see Africa for my first time!

Back story on my Boss

Before departing the States I was very tentative on how my working conditions would be as I had reached out to my boss multiple times over a 2 month period and heard no response, I figured this was because he perceived me as not worth the time in his busy schedule.  The morning before I left Virginia I received a call from my HR manager explaining there had been a mix up… apparently Darren Smith is a very common name in the UK and I had been given the wrong contact info.  I was delivered the right contact info with the news that my boss would be on holiday till June 8^th, so I still have no idea what my boss will be like but at least I know he wasn't ignoring me on purpose.

First Couple days

Trent 1000, The OGV is a circular ring that straightens
the flow coming from the fan blades

I have been placed into the Fans team for the Trent 700, 800, 900, 1000 series of engines.  Until my boss returns I have been placed under the “Producibility” team lead where I will be assisting in the compilation/presentation of information for a DAR (Design Alteration Request) to make alterations with the OGV (Outlet Guide Vane) on two different engine types.  Yes it is only my third day on the job and I’m already being drowned in a sea of acronyms!  I spent a good deal of Monday reading up on the components that make up the “Fans” section of the jet engine and how this subsystem falls into the rest of the Jet engine, see the diagram for more info.  My teams seems like a really good group of guys, but I can tell I have a large amount of catching up to do if I want to perform at the level they expect out of me.

Roommates & Shopping!

City Center/Shopping Area (Outdoor Part)

So since moving in I have spent the past two days in the shopping center of Derby, which seems to be comprised of a large outdoor area that has shops/café’s lining either side of a wide, brick, pedestrian-only  packed street and an enormous indoor mall.  Since I have no internet at home yet I have been stealing wifi from the McDonalds, a café chain Gregg, and the local Library.  Unfortunately only the library, which I am now officially a member of, has an outlet and their hours are very limited combined with a 35 min battery life has led to minimal internet usage the past few days.  Side note pretty angry I left my Ray-Bans in the library and noticed within 5 minutes after leaving only to return to find them taken. Note to self: Do not take expensive sunglasses to Europe!

I have finally joined the smartphone revolution; unfortunately I joined a very limited pay-as-you go company so I am currently in the process of switching to another provider. I will soon be getting 400 talking mins, 3000 texts, and unlimited data for only 15 pounds per month/top-up… not bad!

Part of my Walk-The Center Cathedral is Close to my Final Destination

With nothing but my two long legs to get me around I find that I am frequently making trips back and forth to the shopping district which is about one mile/15 minutes away because I can only carry so much at a time. Between bedding, food, and sundries I have gone there and back 3 times both days… that’s 6 miles each day walking, no wonder the Europeans are in good shape.

My two roommates Stuart and Becca have joined me and turn out to be really nice/fun people.  They are both rising seniors in mechanical engineering and attend University of Virginia, which even though we are rival schools we have found some way to put aside our differences.  Stuart is from Blacksburg, VA (Virginia Tech’s location) where his dad teaches a mechanical engineering course and Becca is from Chantilly, VA where it turns out we went to the same elementary and middle school, but she was a grade ahead of me. To quote a particular mouse “It’s a small world after all!”

PS: I bought a duvet to use as a mattress pad and 3 pillows (one of which is memory foam) so I am sleeping easier. Then today we all spent a good amount of time scrapping and scrubbing + purchasing some air fresheners so everything is smelling a bit better… finally starting to feel a bit more like home.

First Impressions

Piccadilly Station - Notice the Olympic Rings in the back!

I am exhausted… I left Washington Dulles at 6:40 PM to arrive at London Heathrow at 7:05 AM, however between the time change/meals/plane sizes I was only able to get about 3 hours of sleep. On the plus side the flight was only about 60% full and the seat next to me was unoccupied, a much unexpected treat!  After arriving at Heathrow and clearing customs I took the underground to Kings Cross Station (about an hour ride), crossed the street to Piccadilly station, and purchased the next available train ticket for Derby.  It surprised me how disorganized the train station seemed to be; the train departure platform isn’t announced till about 7 minutes before the train departs and is shown on a frequently changing old school mechanical tracker board.  The train was delayed about 20 minutes, but luckily I had built in plenty of traveling time so I didn’t need to worry, however I will definitely remember the reliability in the future.

I dosed for about half of the 2 hour train ride, but soaked in the English country side while I was awake.  It is just like I had expected vast rolling fields of green with a spattering of thatched roofed cottages in the country and faded brick skinny row-homes with black mold/moss that only shows the age of houses in the cities.

After arriving at the Derby train station I had about an hour to kill so I grabbed a delicious mozzarella and ham on baguette at a baguette specialty cafe then killed the rest of my time reading my kindle before grabbing a taxi to the reality office where I arrived just on time only to find that my check-in meeting was pushed back an hour.  I am definitely finding that time is handled in a much more relaxed manner then it is back in the States, I haven’t decided whether I like the change or not. Regardless, my recent kindle purchase has already saved me many a time from having to twiddle my thumbs when my schedule is changed by external forces.

Arriving at my rental property I am a little disappointed at the living conditions. It is a very old 3 story with 6 individually rentable rooms, row house.  The whole house has a sort of musty smell with walls that appear to have been painted over multiple times without sanding down the previous coat which gives the house a very old feel.  My “mattress” is more like “A-cluster-of-springs-with-no-padding” and I have already found it very difficult to sleep on.  Good news is that after some air fresheners, a mattress pad… or two, and some elbow grease I should be able to greatly improve my current situation.

Last note, I am writing this blog now after being rudely awaken by the next door neighbors who were loudly playing their outdoor radio (its 11 PM). However, since I started writing they have moved to a single acoustic guitar and are taking turns singing occepella all sorts of genres from Katie Perry’s Firework to Sweet Child of Mine.  Their singing/laughter is loud, but their singing voices are amazing and their cheerfulness reassures me this will be a good experience. That being said earplugs are definitely being added to the long shopping list for tomorrow!

The Beginning

At Dulles about to leave US

I am sitting at my flight terminal about to kick-off what will be a true six months of interesting experiences, this blog is my way to share some of my travels with my friends and family.

Basic Itinerary:

May 24^th-August 17^th: Interning for Rolls-Royce in Derby England

August 18^th-September 3^rd: Euro Trip

September 5^th-January???: Chinese University of Hong Kong Study Abroad

Background on the Internship:

Back before thanksgiving break I received a mass email from the Assistant Dean of Engineering requesting applications for a unique international internship with Rolls-Royce, where a student will have the opportunity to spend 12 weeks working outside of the United States.  For those of you who don’t know I interned for Rolls-Royce last summer in southern Virginia in a brand new Fan Disk manufacturing plant, so I figured I would fill out the application and throw my resume into the pool and see what would happen.  Before proceeding I want to mention that I will be receiving no free car/discount on a car/test drive of a car, Rolls-Royce cars are produced by BMW and are a separate venture from the Rolls-Royce Jet/Ship/Nuclear that I will be interning with.

Of course I was told I would hear back after a week or two…. 6 weeks later, after thinking I had been passed over, I receive a call they want me to come in for an interview.  I guess I said something right because here I sit about to start work on Monday the 28^th.

Background on Euro Trip:

Blake and Me Summer '10

My good friend from home Blake Alexander and I had talked last summer about the possibility of doing a Euro Trip for summer 2012, when this internship came through plans started to become reality.  Right now the only things that have been 100% finalized are the starting location and date (Brussels, Belgium August 18th) and that I will end September 3rd, while he continues for another 2 weeks or so.

Right now our tentative cities are:

Brussels, Belgium
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Berlin, Germany
Prague, Czech Republic

Budapest, Hungary

Barcelona, Spain

Ibiza, Spain

It is quite a bit for 2 weeks so we may have to cut out a city or two... we will see. I will keep updates as they come.

                     
                                                                View EuroTrip 2012 in a larger map

Background on Study Abroad:

Coming into college with quite a few AP credits has allowed me to accelerate my studies so that I have completed my first 5 semesters in only two years. Virginia Tech stops offering required courses both semesters which has placed me with an opening for Fall of 2012 where if I stayed at tech I would have like one applicable course so last fall I decided that I would fill it with a "Life Broadening Experience".  This meant that I either wanted to find a Co-Op (Basically interning during the school year) or Study Abroad.  Since I will have already interned for two summers I chose the study abroad option but this is where the challenging decision came into play... choosing a location.  Because I would be in Europe this summer I wanted to go outside of Europe to either Australia or China... Australia's school start dates conflicted with my internship dates so China it was!  Within China Virginia Tech has exchange programs with multiple locations, but Hong Kong seemed the best because of the strong English and big city mix.

Chinese University of Hong Kong

I was put forth as the Virginia Tech exchange student with the Chinese University of Hong Kong, which means that its like a 99% chance that I will be going, but the official paper work does not come through until mid June.

First Post More to Come!!