Please note that part 2 is below... I put them in order for easy reading...
I've been busy/lazy... whichever. I've visited the log and seen some info, but have not had time to type much or post more pictures. I'm very sorry!!
I've been busy/lazy... whichever. I've visited the log and seen some info, but have not had time to type much or post more pictures. I'm very sorry!!
I guess two full weekends have passed since my last post and I've seen a good number of things.
Current counts:
The weekend of Feb 12-13 was spent wandering the countryside. I spent Saturday walking around Newcastle and looked at a bunch of shops. The original plan had been to visit York, but my coworker (Sara) was as punctual as usual... around noon she was having coffee and wanted to work out before leaving... that mean, not going to York :) Anyway, it worked out that I got some shopping done and it was a nice day in Newcastle. On Sunday, the weather turned colder and there were some snow flurries in Newcastle. Sara and I departed by train at about 11:00a for York. It was about an hour ride down on the "local" train. It made about 5 stops along the way but was not very crowded. We got to York around noon and walked from the station towards our goal, York Minster. York Minster has a very interesting history. In the 1960's, it was found that the foundation was sinking and the cathedral was starting to fall apart. If left to it's own weight it would soon crash into pieces. Many people donated millions of pounds to save the York Minster. When the foundation was excavated, they found the remains of an older Norman church... the Normans ruled the north of England about a thousand years ago... give or take a century. Anyway, they kept digging and soon found that the Norman church had been built on top of an old Roman fort that had been built almost 2000 years ago. The drainage system that the Romans had put in was (and is) still functioning. It actually still drains excess water from the site and takes it all the way to the nearby river (about 1/2 mile). The Minster now has an underground tour that shows you the history of the site as well as allows you to see how they fixed the sinking foundation, which is also amazing. Unfortunately, you can't take any pictures down there. I have attached two pictures of the Minster, one outside and one inside. There are lots more at http://www.yorkminster.org/
Last week was pretty busy... I spent a lot of time in meetings and sorting through loads of documents. In truth, this is the most true engineering work I've done in the past four years and it is REALLY refreshing. I've asked Russ to ship me some of my engineering books since I really need them over here. On Friday we visited one of our first sites... it was all the way across town!! It took us about 15 minutes to get there :-) We met our Mike Meyer's impersonator on our site visit.
This past weekend was all kinds of fun. I had originally planned on taking a trip out of the country this past weekend, but there has been some confusion about immigration laws possibly changing in the UK. I have mentioned that in order to get my work visa officially activated, I must leave the UK and re-enter. Well, a couple of weeks ago another coworker (Art) left the country for a meeting. Upon returning, he was told that he could not re-enter with his work visa. He was told that the rules state that once your work visa is activated, leaving the country will void the work visa. This is obviously news to everyone since everyone here has been traveling around Europe for work and pleasure for the past 6 months without any issues. Anyway, the issue is still being investigated so I didn't want to risk anything and go anywhere just yet. It looks like I will be activating my work visa when I return from my trip to the US in a couple of weeks. The whole issue is just really confusing... it really doesn't make sense that if you activate your visa your aren't allowed to leave during the 5 months it is active. Hopefully we will get an answer back soon.
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