Adventures of the Affluent Homeless

Irish SMS messages

2006-01-15T17:50:56Z

I have no idea when I last updated but I have been working in Ireland since the end of the summer. When asked about what I think of Ireland my two comments are usually "expensive" and "the road system and drivers are horrific". I work 43km from my hotel and I spend nearly 30km driving on the main road from the west coast to Dublin. Here are a few SMS messages that I sent on the drive home on Friday night. C is my girlfriend in Spain, I currently work with Mike and I worked with Thad in Italy.

(To C.)...I hope you enjoyed your day. Mine was calm and productive until I got on the road home. The drivers here are so frustrating.

(To Mike) Am I the only one that thinks the Irish can't drive to save their life? I'm stuck about 12th in a line of 30 cars doing 70km/h. I could scream.

(To Thad) Have the Irish produced any great drivers? I can't think of any and after driving here I can understand why not. They suck. I'm stuck in a long queue doing 75km/h in a 100km/h zone.

(From Mike) I'm number 30! This morning I saw the worst. The first car was going 50 and no one would pass! Finally a tractor trailer which was 4th began to pass. I was 9th and tucked in behind the truck, but no one else followed they were all happy to drive 50. I never thought I would see the day where a truck would make a 3 car pass.

(From Thad) Paddy Driver comes to mind but only because of the name. I'm pretty sure he sucked.

Sevilla, Spain

2005-10-23T22:14:54Z

I have not been updating anywhere near as often as I would like. As I think I have mentioned I am currently working in Co. Galway, Ireland. This summer I met an English girl in Italy and we hit it off well. This year C is living and working outside of Seville, Spain. I've gone to see her on two different weekends, last weekend being the most recent.

Seville is in the Andalucia region and is a little inland from Malaga and the Costa del Sol that attracts great numbers of British tourists. When I first flew into Seville I was surprised to see just how dry and desert like the region is. It is easy to understand why I have read about concerns over water shortages in the region.

One regular problem that C and I have is dealing with the airport bus to the city centre. Three long stories short it seems to see both it's schedule and designated bus stops as little more than suggestions. The alternate to the €2.30 bus fare is a €18 taxi.

Last weekend C and I were wandering around Seville and found the Plaza de España. Here's a picture and a link to a few more.

The rest are here.

Blame the French

2005-10-04T17:47:20Z

On Monday at 15h30 I get a call from my boss. I'm on site in Ireland. I'm told to get to a site in Kent, England ASAP. I make travel arrangements and I get a flight out of Shannon at to Gatwick that about 5 hours later. I get to site early this morning to find out that the problem had be solved over the phone late last night, either while I was in transit or was checking into my hotel. The trip turned out to largely be a waste. I waited around until after lunch when I did a tiny bit of investigation with the customer, wrote my report and left site to catch a flight this evening back to the Emerald Island.

I arrive at LGW with plenty of time to spare only to find out that my flight has been canceled. I wondered how they can cancel the flight when they only sold me the ticket a little before lunch. I asked and I found out why.

A while ago tamaraland referred to September and/or August as strike month in France. If you had just taken off all of August how keen are you to return to your challenging 35 hour work week in September? tamaraland's comment was that the French strike at this time every year.

Well it turns out that I am one of the victims of their strike. I guess they have wreaked havoc on flights all over The Continent. EasyJet decided that my flight to Shannon was a good one to cancel. They booked me on a flight to Cork instead, about 100km from Shannon. I just looked at the schedule to find out it is delayed over a half hour. I still have not decided whether I will try to make it back to my hotel in Galway or not. While it would be nice to sleep in my own bed tonight, Irish roads are not fun to drive at the best of time. late at night after a long day is not a good time.

Blame the French.

Which way do I go?

2005-09-21T22:10:30Z


Which way do I go? Imagine this, you have had a really long day where little has gone right. You find a hotel and are given the key to room 226. You take the elevator up to the second floor and see this sign. Which way do you go. What's wrong with this sign? PS no the left and the right don't loop back and connect.

Berlin

2005-09-21T21:19:59Z

I've been absent for a while. I had two weeks of fun that took me to Edinburgh, Prague, Berlin and Brussels. Here are a couple pictures to pay close attention to these from Berlin.

	Czech Point Charlie
	The French Embassy. Who says the French aren't interested in Starbucks.

Where am I now?

2005-06-12T21:15:42Z

My last update I said that I was headed on short notice to Northern Ireland. I managed to find an Alitalia flight from Milano to Heathrow. This was actually a real challenge as last weekend was a holiday long weekend in Italy. I think the Thursday was officially a day off so everyone took Friday too. This made for really full flights to the UK, I ended up with a full fare business class ticket. I arrived at Linate with minimal time to spare. One thing that I learned that was a real surprise is that Alitalia does not have any electronic check in kiosks nor special lines for premium class travelers. There is just one long line. I got to a desk only about 30 minutes before my flight. Officially the minimum allowed is 40 minutes for an international flight. Somehow the kind woman found me a seat in economy and got me checked in. I made it to LHR and boarded my flight to Belfast City airport.

I somehow managed to make it but my bags did not.

Prior to leaving the office in Lodi I did book a hotel room but I forgot to get full directions on how to find it. It took me an hour of driving around Belfast and I finally found the hotel with the help of a kind stranger. The next morning I went back to the airport to see if my bags showed up on the first flight. They had not. So not only was I wearing nasty smelly clothes but my steel toes and hard hard were not with me either. I drove onto (London)Derry where the job site was. At about 3pm my bags were delivered to my hotel in Derry. Derry is about 70+ miles from Belfast. Even though these are two major cities, most of the journey is secondary roads instead of motorway/autostrada/highway and I think it took me around 1.5 hours to make the trip.

By late Friday night things were working again at site. Saturday was my birthday, a big one at that. I went to the site in the morning to write my report and I was out of there by 2pm. I then met up with some colleagues for what was meant to be a few pints but turned into several. I had intended to get a haircut and explore Derry. Oops. At 7pm I went back to my room and passed out. Next thing I knew it was nearly 1am. So much for wanting to have a nice dinner and explore Derry. Happy Birthday!

I was told that the site in Civitavecchia near Rome was to restart first thing Monday and I needed to be there so Sunday I traveled from Derry to Belfast to London to Rome to Civitavecchia. I found a gas station to fill up my rental car (the first time I ever drove a Seat) before returning it and got to the terminal. I knew I was pressed for time but what I did not realize is my flight was at 11h05 not 11h25 like I thought. Thank goodness this was a small airport because anywhere else I would have missed the flight.

Even though I have gone to the UK practically every year since I was a baby, this is the first time that I ever drove there. This was my second time driving on the left side of the road and the first time driving stick on the left. It was a slightly odd experience for my muscles but I did manage to survive without any incidents. Real roundabouts at high speed are fun. I was shocked at the price of diesel however. I think I drove about 200mi and it cost 27 pound sterling, around $50. OUCH. Thankfully it is not my money.

For the record, I didn't think the Guinness tasted any different. Maybe it was because I was in Northern Ireland and not the Republic. I guess I will just have to go back and test (drink) more.

I love my job - Ireland on short notice

2005-06-01T07:13:33Z

Yesterday I got an email from Rob, the boss in Italy asking if I had any advice or could offer a solution for something that blew up at a site in Ireland. I helped out as best I could. It seems my solution is a winner. This morning Rob pings me on IM and says that they need someone on that site ASAP, how busy am I? I told him that I could be on a plane in a couple of hours and that I was up for it.

So now I am just waiting for confirmation but there is a good chance that I will be drinking my first "local" pint of Guinness tonight. I keep hearing that the Guinness in Ireland tastes better. Maybe I will find out sooner than I originally thought.

View of the Plant - my job for the last 1.5 years.

2005-05-30T16:35:30Z

Today I received a picture of the plant from the customer. The older part of the plant has two large concrete smokestacks that are around 225m tall. This photo was taken from one of the smokestacks looking down on the new gas turbines that we installed over the last year. The new triple smokestack is over 100m tall. The picture was taken just a few weeks ago and shows little more than the new part of the plant. The water you see is taken off of the Muzza Canal and is used by the plant for cooling and proceeds to supply nearby fields before what is left drains into the Adda river.

I always have a hard time conveying the scale of the equipment I work with. Each of these gas turbines is rated for approximately 250 megawatts. They consume fuel at an incredible rate. You might be familiar with the little white 20 pound propane tanks that many people in N. America supply their BBQ with. They cost roughly $10 and last all summer. Each of these gas turbines burn one of those in less than a second at full load.

You also hear a lot of discussion about wind energy. My personal thought is that it has a time and a place but it will never be a dominant source of electricity. This picture shows that in the space of a couple football fields there is 750MW of electricity produced. Most new wind turbines are in the 1-3MW size range so it would take roughly 250-500 wind turbines to produce the same amount of power. Imagine how much real estate that many wind turbines would take up?

Superbowl - European Version

2005-05-25T22:14:57Z

First off, buzzedangel where are you? This post is dedicated to you.

I just got home after watching the UEFA Champions League final match. As best I can tell this is equivalent to the Superbowl. Many of the European nations have their own football (soccer) leagues. The top teams participate in the Champions League culminating in the European finals, this is an annual event. Tonight was the final match. AC Milan versus Liverpool.

A couple weeks ago I was asked to attend a quarter final match of Liverpool at Juventus. Juventus is out of Torino, an hour west of Milan where the next Olympics are to be held. AC Milan is owned by the Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi. Juventus and AC Milan are arch-rivals. (Think Red Sox vs. Yankees.) In Torino I saw Liverpool eliminate Juventus in the Champions League quarter finals. Liverpool made it through the semi-finals and faced AC Milan. Of note is that even though AC Milan advanced further in Champions League play, Juventus beat out AC Milan for the Italian league championship. The championship match was being held in Istanbul, Turkey

One thing better than watching football/soccer/calcio is watching Italians watch calcio. One of the bars we frequent here in Lodi is owned by a rabid Juventus supporter. Tonight he was a rabid Liverpool supporter. He was very entertaining to say the least.

At half time Juventus was ahead 3 nil. Early in the second half, Liverpool scored three times in 6 minutes to tie the match. After 90+ minutes of regulation time the match was still tied at three. 30 minutes of additional time produced no goals. It was down to penalty shots. Liverpool with their Polish goalie, "Dudek", came out on top edging out Juventus, to be the top football team in Europe.

I am not a huge sports fan but given how important Football is to many of the European nations, it was definitely enjoyable to watch the match. Hopefully I will still be in Europe come World Cup time next year. It really is a lot of fun to watch Italians watch football.

Conversation between Colin and me tonight around half-time:
R: I bet there will be a lot of drunk Englishmen going for a kebab when this match is over.
C: Turkey is a long way to go to watch your team lose three - nil.
R: Unlike here (Lodi) or Turkey it is not summer in Liverpool yet.
C: It's never summer in Liverpool.

Needless to say it was a fun night.

Weekend Getaways

2005-04-19T16:43:56Z

It has been a little while since I have given anything resembling a quality update to this journal. I have been exceptionally busy with work and have hardly had a chance to breathe. I think I have been averaging 70 to 80 hours per week since January. In my last decent post I wrote that I was going to London for 48 hours. That was a great trip and I accomplished what I wanted: a haircut, Indian food for dinner and just a general breather. I also got to visit my uncle and his family and I took in a show on the Saturday night.

I flew Ryanair for the first time and was quite pleased, though I must say that Stansted is a heck of a long ways outside of London. The train service from Stansted is nice and frequent but not cheap. I seem to remember 15 pounds round trip if you bought your ticket on board the flight. Gatwick and Heathrow are not exactly close to the city centre but at least with Heathrow you can take the tube into the city for less than 5 quid.

On the Saturday night I decided I wanted to take in a show. I ended up going to see National Anthems at the Old Vic starring Kevin Spacey and Mary Stuart Masterson. The first act was slow and I struggled to stay awake but the second act was a little more interesting. It was a little odd, it was almost like my mother was sitting beside me. Since she was a young woman my mother has had these 6-10 gold bracelets that my grandfather gave her. When she moves her arm you hear the bracelets jangle. My grandfather got them when he was working in the Middle East. The woman sitting next to me had very similar bracelets.

For a variety of reasons I ended up working agreeing to work two assignments: Candela & the third unit at Tavazzano. One was supposed to follow the other but things got pretty desperate around the Easter as we hit major milestones down south and I still needed to get some stuff done up north. The following list of flights best shows how crazy things were:
03/10/05 AZ1634 BRI MXP
03/14/05 AZ1635 MXP BRI
03/26/05 AZ1636 BRI MXP
03/31/05 AZ1631 LIN BRI
04/04/05 AZ1634 BRI MXP
04/05/05 AZ1631 LIN BRI
04/07/05 AZ1632 BRI LIN
BRI - Bari is an hour south of Candela, MXP - Malpensa and LIN - Linate are the two main Milano airports. Even taking Easter Monday off think I still worked 80 hours in a one week period. Needless to say the weekend of the 9th I absolutely crashed. I had wanted to go away somewhere on Easter weekend but I think we ended up running through Easter Sunday. So much for getting away for the weekend.

One of the things that I learned from the circus following the pope's death was how much he meant to the citizens of Poland and how much credit he was given for helping to bring an end to communism. It was amazing how much the funeral wreaked havoc with Italy. I even got SMS messages on my Civil Protection folks telling me to use public transport if I was going to Rome to pay homage to the pope. Be ready for long traffic jams, hot during the day and cool at night. How considerate of them. What they neglected to tell me is that people were renting cars in Milano to drive south. On the 7th I arrived at Linate and I had not had time to make a reservation with Hertz for a car. I arrived just after breakfast and when I said I did not have a reservation I was told I was out of luck. I could not believe it. I took public transit into the main train station to Hertz there, still no cars. I asked them to call Malpensa to see if they had cars, during this time they told me that they had a small car for me. I thought they said Smart Car (as in Smart fortwo) but it turns out it was a Ford Ka. (The car must have been named following a misunderstanding with someone from Boston.) The Ka is not so bad, I can get it up to 140 without trouble but you really do not want to go over 160 as it starts to get scary. (For reference the Smart fortwo that I had was electronically governed to 140 km/h.)

This Sunday my friend Amy is getting married. Last night I bought a ticket to go home for the weekend. US$575. Not bad for 3 days notice if you ask me. I regularly read ljtravel and often you get people posting looking for cheap tickets. The trouble is people never define cheap. For me the ticket I bought is a bargain but I bet others would call it too expensive. Timing is everything and this is not high season. I am looking forward to a couple days back in Toronto, I fly out Thursday afternoon and fly back Sunday night. I must be insane.

Oh and the best news of all is that this summer I am scheduled for an assignment in Galway, Ireland. I can't wait.

Driving in Italy (episode 360)

2005-03-30T16:50:29Z

The other day Colin was washing his car at one of the self-wash car washes in Lodi. As he was finishing up he hears a very loud and distinctive engine drive up. Into the next was bay arrives a Ferrari 360 Modena.

It was very dusty. When was the last time you saw a Ferrari that was anything but clean?

Colin started chatting with the guy, he mentioned that he just drove up from Napoli. A four hour journey to get to Lodi from Napoli. That is over a 750 km journey. That means the guys sustained speed while driving averaged nearly 200km/h. Even though the car holds nearly 100 litres of fuel I assume the fuel economy is not all that great and so increase his average speed a little if you account for needing to gas up at least once along the way.

Of course he had a very beautiful women with him too.

Driving in Italy (episode 393)

2005-03-24T16:48:01Z

Even though I have my dumb Ford Focus C-Max rental car, on my way to and from the job site I often find myself blowing past Lamborghinis. Who would have thought it would be so easy.

New A380 Layout

2005-03-21T06:51:38Z

A380 Layout

The press loves to report how spacious and roomy the new Airbus 380 is going to be. Personally I think it is all hype and that they will pack the new plane as tightly as they pack planes currently. This picture came my way and it gave me a good laugh.

Safety - Lock Out Tag Out

2005-03-04T07:29:03Z

One of the major things I have to worry about with my job is safety. In industry there is what is called Lock Out Tag Out or LOTO (say lotto) for short. Before working on a system you apply padlocks and tags to prevent you from getting energized when working on the system. This energy could be electricity, moving machinery, or air and gasses under pressure in a pipe. You isolate it then lock it off and identify it as being locked out. This has been drilled into my head since my first week of work. ryuneko and I have had several discussions on this topic.

So my friend in China sends me this message this morning detailing a discussion between him and the customer's electrical supervisor:
JB: "I want to have locks on these [400V] breakers, for safety."
CE: "Oh, Mr. [J], we have no locks... our LOTO system is not yet resolv-ed."
JB: "So, you have a man working on the lube oil motor--but no lock on it?"
CE: "Yes. But for power on motor, you need to fill out form to turn on motor."
JB (begins racking in breaker)
CE: "What you doing?!?"
JB: "I don't know... Do I have to know what I'm doing to kill someone?"
CE: "We follow Chinese law for safety... you can not power without the form."
JB: "I suppose the way you guys reproduce, you can afford to operate that way."
CE: "Ha ha ha... what? Can you talk slower?"
JB: "YEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSS."

My response is that the Chinese need to learn that the only way paper will keep you safe is if many sheets are between the electrical contacts, not just sitting on a desk. Electrons don't care about paperwork. That is one of the things that drives me nuts at some sites. The safety dude and management is paranoid about the paperwork. The paperwork has some importance, it keeps things systematic and keeps the lawyers happy but what is going to safe my ass is my padlock with the key in my pocket. Some safety dudes forget that fact.

The old Polish guy in Rome

2005-03-02T06:38:40Z

Does anyone want to make any predictions about how long the mourning period will be when His Holiness finally kicks the bucket? I could really use some time off. My gut says this country will come to a screaching halt.

I'm not the only one that does not want to be in Foggia

2005-02-28T06:53:10Z

The other day I found out that Mr. Cicolella who owns the only 4 star hotel in town as well as two cinemas (Cinema Cicolella and Altrocinema Cicollela) and probably more - does not even live in Foggia. What does that tell you about the place when a prominent local businessman won't live locally?

Drawing the short straw

2005-02-25T20:04:09Z

We had a couple messages go around between me and some of my colleagues last week. A couple of them seemed to get the short straw and have wound of in China.

J writes:
And so it begins... I arrived yesterday in Zhangjiagang China for [electrical] commissioning [not construction]. Oh, the [equipment] is not in place yet? That's alright, I'll start from the ground up, get the MCC's going and start powering a few things up. Ohh, the MCC's haven't arrived... Hm. Well... it's cold outside anyway...

Then W writes:
Wow it's amazing how dejavu can happen. The only difference is that my [control building] is finally set in place and I am in Shanghai. So, when a contractor comes to you and says "I never work on power plant before can you tell me what to do...."
Should I:
A. happily oblige and do their job for them.
B. ignore them and blame it on the language barrier.
C. fake a serious illness and call SOS to get the h*ll out of here!
The jury is still out on that decision!!

The strange thing is that their stories of China also apply to many other jobsites in the world, including BFN, Italy. But I am much happier to be in Western Europe than in China. Is any of this familiar to you ryuneko?

Giro d'Italia

2005-02-19T07:29:11Z

I have neglected this journal for a long time. Here is the Cole's notes version of what I have done lately. From September through mid-January I spent no more than two consecutive weeks in any given location.

Sunday September 13th pack up and leave Lodi, my home since January, 2004
Arrive in Civitavecchia, near Rome for a week. A beautiful site on the sea.
Monday September 20th, arrive in Candela, Foggia for a week.
I got notified of a high profile job in Ticino, the Italian part of Switzerland. Wednesday I am in Foggia (a 3rd world area I sometimes think) drive up to Lodi and spend the night and then Thursday morning I drive into Switzerland. It is quite a contrast to go from Foggia to Lodi to the Ticino in 24hrs. It's all Italian but it is all so different.
I have a wonderful 10 days in CH land and then I am back in Lodi mid October for a few days
I take 2 weeks off and go to Colorado to see my grandmother and help my friend harvest corn. I had a fantastic relaxing time.
On the return trip I was supposed to spend the weekend in London with my mum's husband however I get assigned to a job in Zagreb, Croatia and I have just one night in London with Laurie. Too Bad.
Zagreb was amazing. A short trip but I would happily spend more time there. The power plant is in the city limits, the people were really friendly, the city was very beautiful. This was my first trip into former communist Europe
Between a couple bad decisions and some bad luck my return trip from Zagreb to Milano was a disaster. I decided to take a train from Zagreb, through Slovenia into Venice. But it didn't work that way. Instead of arriving in Venice mid-afternoon I ended up in Austria late in the evening. I ended up renting a car there and driving to Milano, spending the night in Bolzano. I did go over the Brenner pass but missed the beauty of it because it was night and I was fighting to stay awake
I spend another two weeks wrapping up loose ends in Lodi before traveling back to Salzburg to return the rental car. I took the train to Innsbruck and spent a night there. I found a bar to have dinner in and by chance ended up beside an Irishman and spent the evening chatting with him. It was a great bar, lots of attractive people of all ages and social groups, a rare find.
From Innsbruck I take a train to Foggia. This time the Brenner pass was spectacular.
After 10 days in Foggia I head back north, I spent time at a variety of sites fixing problems on both a planned and unplanned basis. I made a small fortune over US Thanksgiving weekend. ka-ching.
I was supposed to go to Castajon, Spain for 10 days but that was canceled at the last minute so I went to Edinburgh to see my Gran instead. I met up with Colin in Glasgow staying with him at his flat after having a great (and expensive) night out in Glasgow.
On a Monday night in December, I was back in Lodi. I learned that the plant in Zagreb could not get online and make power. First thing Tuesday I drove to Zagreb from Lodi. The highways in Slovenia were new and empty. I was in Zagreb just after lunch and I had them back online making power by the evening. It was a quite a rush. The pressure is always on as when a plant is forced offline. It is a wonderful feeling to find the problem and fix it.
I spent about a week at Ostiglia in central northern Italy and stayed at the Hotel California where I think I met the nicest old couple in Italy.
I flew to Toronto on December 18th for two weeks of holiday at my dad's.
Just before New Year's I drove to my apartment in NY. I had not been there since the summer.
I had an amazing New Year's eve with Brittany and her friends a little outside of Boston. It was somewhat saddening to actually have a life for a few days and no that I was going to have to return to Foggia.
I got back to Foggia at the start of January and I have been there since then.

I finally am escaping Foggia, if only for 24 hrs. I am about to catch a Ryanair flight from Bari to Stansted so I get to go to London and have something different for dinner. I am back in Foggia on Monday.

Cheap Last Minute Flights across the Atlantic

2005-01-11T07:01:32Z

Last week I remember responding to a post from someone wanting cheap last minute fares across the Atlantic. I mentioned that sometimes United comes up with a good deal. Today is one of those days. United is offering e-Fares across the Atlantic for as low as $208 roundtrip. Depart between Jan 17th and 20th and return Jan 24th to 27th. Look for efares or something on United's website.

Lodi - Emilia Plains

2004-11-07T17:01:35Z

I am overdue on an update but I happened to see a post in another journal and I want to share it here. All this year I have been living in community of Lodi. Lodi is also the capital of Lodi province. There are 80+ provinces in Italy. As I think I have mentioned before this area is the top of what are known as the Emilia plains - an important agricultural area. The power plant is at kilometer 303 on Via Emilia. Via Emilia can be traced back as a Roman road.

lauazuredoor also lives in Lodi province, about 30km away I think. In this recent post of her's she has a number of pictures of the area. Her pictures are quite representative of what is around me.

HH Sheikh Zayed

2004-11-02T19:01:02Z

As some of you are aware, my mother has lived in the United Arab Emirates for many years now. The official ruler, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan of Abu Dhabi died today at age 86.
The BBC report is here and so is the obituary. I hope the official transfer of power will be a peaceful process, I fully expect it to be.

Airport Security Revisited

2004-10-17T13:15:17Z

Seeing as I am in the airport lounge at Heathrow and have just gone through airport security twice in the last three hours it is time for me to bitch about airport security again.

Women: When you are going on an airplane, it is not the proper time to wear your belt with the buckle that would make a Texan proud, nor is it the time to wear a belt with 20 industrial grade grommets. Any good impression you might make with your fashion sense is completely wiped away by the frustration of having to wait in line behind you. Large gaudy pieces of metal jewelry are probably bad too.
Men: Remove your heavy metal watch before you attempt to go through the magnetometer.

I still feel there needs to be a better queuing system for getting through airport security. This idea would probably not work but I would love to have a queue specifically for people who are confident they can go through without beeping. If you beep you have to pay an on the spot $£€10 penalty. If I can go through 95% of the time without beeping then others can do it too. It is not rocket science people.

Otherwise, it is off to Denver I go.

Smart Cars

2004-10-13T18:03:38Z

Since I am going on vacation I am turning my Volvo over to another colleague. I need to rent a car until I fly out. I just discovered that Hertz is apparently starting to rent Smart Cars in Europe. They list both the original fortwo and the newer forfour. Unfortunately they do not seem to have either one at Milan - Linate but this is definitely something to look out for. I have wanted to test drive these things for a while. I can't wait.

Small European Countries

2004-10-11T12:33:02Z

I have been mentioning for a while about my tours of small European countries. It turns out I had the list slightly wrong. I thought Andorra was one of the four smallest but I think it is the fifth. Courtesy of the CIA World Factbook here is the list:
Holy See / Vatican City with an area of 0.44 sq km.
Monaco with an area of 1.95 sq km.
San Marino with an area of 61.2 sq km.
Liechtenstein with an area of 160 sq km.
Andorra with an area of 468 sq km.

I am still to write up my trip to the Vatican, nor have I been to Andorra but here are my writings for Monaco, San Marino and Liechtenstein.

Liechtenstein

2004-10-11T12:14:50Z

Instead of waking up on Sunday hungover and in Bilbao I woke up without a headache in Bellinzona to a great deal of rain. Had it not been raining I would have wandered around Bellinzona and taken a look at the castles in town. Instead I decided to go for a drive. I had always thought that Liechtenstein was a small country wedged between Germany and Austria. I was wrong and on several other things too. Microsoft AutoRoute told me that Liechtenstein was about a two hour drive from Bellinzona so off I went.

I followed the E43/A13 from Bellinzona up into the mountains and over San Bernardino pass. Once again a mountain separates the Italian and German speaking parts of Switzerland although the cantons are not setup in the same way. Graubünden covers most of the valley including both the Italian and German speaking halves. Even though it was raining all day the scenery never stopped impressing me.

As I was passing near Chur I noticed a car with FL sticker (that is material for another rant in itself). I mistakenly thought that FL was Finland and this car was a long way from home. It turns out the full local name is Fuerstentum Liechtenstein, hence the FL. I made my way into Liechtenstein during the late afternoon. I was surprised to find out that besides a shield as I crossed a bridge into Verduz, there was no obvious border between Switzerland and Liechtenstein. I drove from the Verduz exit north and I eventually crossed into Feldkirch Austria where there was a formal border with customs and border guards. I drove aimlessly around Austria for a little while before returning to Liechtenstein where the Swiss border guard was stopping vehicles crossing from Austria into Liechtenstein.

All this border stuff made sense once I looked at the CIA Factbook entry for Liechtenstein. Liechtenstein has a customs union with Switzerland, uses the Swiss Franc as its currency and relies on Switzerland for Defense. It does have its own telephone country code: 423.

I drove around Liechtenstein for an hour and like many European towns it is very quiet on a Sunday afternoon. I saw a sign for a ski museum so I went to check it out but it is only open four hours each afternoon, Monday to Friday. Liechtenstein has a total land mass of 160 sq km. Think 8km wide by 20km tall. The western edge is low and flat as the border is very close to the Rhine river. The eastern part climbs high up into the Alps. Instead the ski museum I started driving up the mountain as far as I could. I passed a beautiful castle that made it very clear that tourists were not welcome. I think I got up to 1500m before the road ended in the ski town of Malbun. The Lonely Planet's commentary sums it up well enough.

On the way back to Bellinzona I took a detour and found my way to Davos where the world's major leaders held their summit last winter. The drive up the valley was spectacular as always although one unusual thing was the railway that paralleled the highway all the way up. The railway was not operated by Swiss Federal Railways but by some smaller, presumably private operation. Passing through all the little ski towns on the way to Davos it was the Swiss Alps just as you would imagine. Reaching Davos it quickly became obvious how much of a playground it was for the rich. In a country full of family run hotels I came across a Sheraton. Unfortunately I saw a McDonald's too.

By this time it was getting dark and although I wanted to swing through St. Moritz, I just headed home. I did notice however that I was on the Swiss side of the Splugen pass that I visited last winter.

Maybe not as exciting as a weekend in Bilbao with rdg and tamaraland but not a bad day in the end.