So! I started working for URS on the 25th of September last year. Amazing the way of life and the way companies work in Australia. First of all, the law says you are entitled to 4 weeks of anual leave (I said to myself what the hell, all these years with only 2 weeks back at home). Another funny thing you get is 2 weeks per year of sick time, back home if you are sick and you do not go to work you just wont get paid, period! unless is something very bad that requires hospitalisation and you get doctors certificates, then the government of Costa Rica covers 60% of the wage and the employer the 40%.
Yeah! almost forgot. How crazy is this Darwin Office, every Friday around 4pm we have Friday drinks, so URS pays for all you can drink from the bar fridge and nibbles, good for the alcoholics, too bad for me who does not drink at all.
Anyway, some of the projects I was involved at the beggining were the Compass Resources (Browns Oxide Mine in Batchelor), the Darwin City Waterfront site supervision, the GBS Gold mines (Princess Louise, North Point and Maud Creek pits), Cullen Bay Dredging marine sampling and some road works as well.
Anyway!, enough stuff to keep me busy predicting 100 year flood events for the mines, amount of water flowing through them during the wet season, etc, lots of Hydrologycal modeling at the beggining. One interesting site is Maud Creek, it is so close to Katherine and the Katherine River that predicting the flood is quite out of the ordinary, Katherine River swells every now and then and the entire town goes under water, very impressive if you do a search on it on google.
By October, I was already purchasing my one way return tickets to Australia, as I planned to use my return ticket to Costa Rica to see my family again, so Glenn and I left Darwin at 12 midnight of the 1st of December on a QANTAS flight to Sydney, horrible schedules on flights out of Darwin, leaving Thursday night, Friday early morning almost 5 hrs to Sydney. Gets you into Sydney around 6am and my next flight left towards Los Angeles, California around 1pm. Glenn was on a separate plane so he had to fly to Melbourne and then from Melbourne to Los Angeles, so we met again in LA airport, I got there about 1 hour earlier than him.
After 13 hours flying over the Pacific Ocean we arrived into Los Angeles, still on the 1st of December but around 7 am local time. Typical psicotic americans when you go through immigration, not so much going through customs. Ever since September 11 the americans were overboard with their stupidity.
Glenn showed up around 9 am local time and our flight was leaving around 9:40 so we had to run as we had to check in with America West to fly to Phoenix, AZ we made it, but my Australian Duty Free bottles of Aussie wine did not made it pass security so I gave them to the nice black lady at security, she was all excited thinking I was just as Australian as Glenn, even though I dont think I will never sound Aussie no matter how long I live here. To the americans I sound Australian, to the Australians I sound american or Canadian, and all of them are wrong I am neither of those, LOL!
Off to Phoenix on a very short flight, the jet lag was starting to kick in to both of us, also some signs of starvation. We had about 5 hours spare in Phoenix so we both decided to take a cab into the city, so we went to Arizona Mills Shopping Centre, Jesus 90% of the population there were Mexicans, all I heard was Spanish, so we did some shopping and we ate as well, then back by 3 pm to the airport to catch our 4:30 pm flight, the plane was delayed and delayed and delayed, by 7 pm local time I was about to die, I just wanted to sleep.
We finally board around 7:30 and the 6 hr flight got into Costa Rica around 2 am in the morning of the 2nd of December, my dad was there waiting for me, along with my cousin Marcela and her boyfriend, we made it home and we both slept finally in the confort of my old bed and my room, I have to say that it felt weird to be back at home and part of you still expects to see mom there.
The next day in the morning little Daniel, my nephew came to my bed and woke me up, he said he loved me a lot and inmediately asked me where are my gifts that your brought me from Australia, LOL! amazing what a 3 yr old can say. Glenn and I had to buy stuff, do things, see Cecilia from Voluntarios y Proyectos and also picked up the australian girl that was participating in the project with Glenn.
More to come soon
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Start of the blog
It is Saturday night, actually Sunday morning already (1am) and here I am starting this blog. It's taken me too long to finally start another one, since the last one was about structural engineering. God, it's been such a long time already here in Australia, time sure flies and flies fast as the old concord jets.
I can still remember back in 2005 working my ass off with 2 jobs in Costa Rica, weekdays from 7 am to 4 pm as an engineer, then 5 pm to 11 pm in a call centre, also Saturdays from 9 am to 7 pm and the ocassional Sunday from 1 pm to 10 pm, ohh yeah I also forgot how crazy I was to enroll in a masters degree at the same time, a postgraduate degree full time in Urban Planning and Urban Design from the school of architecture, when I think of that year I wonder how I made it through. I suppose that knowing on the 6th of December that I was flying to Australia made me keep going.
Arrived in Australia in Melbourne Airport direct from Los Angeles, what a long flight almost 16 hours non stop, and before that one I had a 5 hours one from Costa Rica to Atlanta and another 5 hours one from Atlanta to Los Angeles. Once in Melbourne the flying ride was not over because as soon as I landed and passed the screenings and filters I took another flight to Sydney, LOL!
Anyway I spent up until Boxing Day on the Central Coast of NSW, then drove with Glenn to Ballarat in Victoria where we spent up until the first week of February in Clunes fixing the house he had left for 2 years with tennants, nice little cottage in country Victoria. Glenn got a job in Alice Springs and I stayed with the Mackenzies in Melbourne for the next 3 weeks. Waited on my visa to New Zealand to get approved and then flew to Christchurch and spent 2 days there with my kiwi friend Andre in his house, what a beautiful and magnificent country is Kiwiland, fascinating place and fascinating people.
Back in Melbourne and 3 more months of stay approved in my passport, next day off to Adelaide on a bus from Melbourne. Once in Adelaide I spent 5 days with Glenn around the city and then we took off on a QANTAS plane to Alice Springs.
I can still remember back in 2005 working my ass off with 2 jobs in Costa Rica, weekdays from 7 am to 4 pm as an engineer, then 5 pm to 11 pm in a call centre, also Saturdays from 9 am to 7 pm and the ocassional Sunday from 1 pm to 10 pm, ohh yeah I also forgot how crazy I was to enroll in a masters degree at the same time, a postgraduate degree full time in Urban Planning and Urban Design from the school of architecture, when I think of that year I wonder how I made it through. I suppose that knowing on the 6th of December that I was flying to Australia made me keep going.
Arrived in Australia in Melbourne Airport direct from Los Angeles, what a long flight almost 16 hours non stop, and before that one I had a 5 hours one from Costa Rica to Atlanta and another 5 hours one from Atlanta to Los Angeles. Once in Melbourne the flying ride was not over because as soon as I landed and passed the screenings and filters I took another flight to Sydney, LOL!
Anyway I spent up until Boxing Day on the Central Coast of NSW, then drove with Glenn to Ballarat in Victoria where we spent up until the first week of February in Clunes fixing the house he had left for 2 years with tennants, nice little cottage in country Victoria. Glenn got a job in Alice Springs and I stayed with the Mackenzies in Melbourne for the next 3 weeks. Waited on my visa to New Zealand to get approved and then flew to Christchurch and spent 2 days there with my kiwi friend Andre in his house, what a beautiful and magnificent country is Kiwiland, fascinating place and fascinating people.Back in Melbourne and 3 more months of stay approved in my passport, next day off to Adelaide on a bus from Melbourne. Once in Adelaide I spent 5 days with Glenn around the city and then we took off on a QANTAS plane to Alice Springs.
Alice Springs, the Red Centre and my God, I fell in love with the landscape as soon as we were landing and spent the most fascinating next 3 months of my life here, Uluru, The Olgas, Rainbow Valley, Simpson Gap, Standley Chasm, Desert Park, Palm Valley, Kings Canyon, Chambers Pillar, Ewaninga Rock Carvings, Emily Gap, Jessie Gap, Trephina Gorge, Ellery Creek, Todd River, East MacDonnell Ranges, West MacDonnell Ranges, you name it. So many places to go and see, the aboriginals of Central Australia, my God what a cultural shock at the beggining. After my 3 months were expired again, I had to do another run to another place out of Australia, so I flew to Darwin and off to Singapore with the friendly QANTAS people who love to rip off people when it comes to flying, they just charge people whatever they feel like charging, and they have the monopoly on the route from Alice to Darwin so pretty much they leave you with no choice and once again they charge whatever they want to because they can. I better not start on this or else I wont finish this post.
Singapore surprised me as an Asian city, so safe, so efficient, so clean and at the same time so artificial, like a little model city, absolutely incredible train transportation system SMRT and cheap taxis. I can still remember that voice in my head: "Please mind the platform gap", "Thank for riding the SMRT", lol! every now and then I repeat that inside my head, even today. The most fascinating part of flying to Singapore was flying during the day on a brand new QANTAS plane that day and looking over the window hundreds of Indonesian Islands most of them consisting of incredible mountains and volcanoes.
On that trip to Singapore I did not make that many friends, after all it was a 3 day run to Asia, once again to come back and get 3 more months on my tourist visa. The day I left for Singapore I had a phone call from Rio Tinto, just before boarding the plane at the Darwin International Terminal and I told them that I'll call them back when back in Oz in 3 days.
On the way back to Oz I made it back to Alice Springs and a week later Glenn and I drove to Darwin, Glenn was promoted to NT manager for CVA and we did it in 3 days because we stopped in different places along the way. Once in Darwin, I had my interview with Rio Tinto (known as Energy Resourses of Australia or the Ranger Uranium Mine in Kakadu National Park). Kirsty was the Civil Engineer in charge of the mine and desperately had been looking for another engineer to help her for more than 6 months, so she was real happy when I showed up on the map.
The next 3 months would only become a nightmare dealing with DIMIA to get me sponsored to work in Australia. Rio Tinto gave up and ended up refering me to URS, an engineering firm they contract with to do jobs for them. Andrew, the senior civil engineer for URS Darwin contacted me and then I had an interview with him. Another 2 engineering firms would contact me as well and at the end I had 3 different ones desperate to sponsor me. I decided for URS as I was very keen on working for the Ranger Mine in Jabiru on a fly in and fly out basis for 6 months.
URS paid for me to go to Sydney and do a HAZWOPER course, and meet with the Immigration Firm they use for their sponsored employees, so I took advantage of the free ride and arrived there a week earlier and spent some more time in the Central Coast with Glenn's Mum and Dad which included a real good trip in Sydney and I did all the touristy things in Sydney. Unfortunately because of my tourist visa, I was prevented from applying for any other visa while in Australia, so even though the Immigration Firm tried to apply for a waiver on my case at the end, I had to leave Australia and go to Singapore and wait there until my visa was approved.
Anyway, back in Darwin from Sydney and waiting for DIMIA to answer me on the waiver and visa application, Glenn and I did another trip to Alice Springs to drop a troop carrier with which something went wrong and we ended up spending my 30th birthday in Tennant Creek. It was a birthday to never forget. The day we finally made it to Alice and had a great dinner at the Lasseters Casino and catch up with some people in Alice. Then back to Darwin on a QANTAS flight and the bad news that I had to leave again.
My Mum was very ill by this days and I think the last time I was able to speak to her on the phone was around my birthday, the day I flew to Singapore with Tiger Airways (2nd of September). I tried calling home and my brother told me Mum was very very bad and in bed, in a sort of comatose state.
The next 3 weeks I spent in Little India at the Prince of Wales Backpacker (POW) with some amazing people that I met in my dorm room. At one stage we were all boys, all of them from the UK except for me, great times and great friends. What a blast we had going to the pubs and after not getting drunk ever in more than 10 years, one night it seemed like the purpose of the UK people was to get Pablo Eski Bar drunk and they achieved it. I must have been so hilarious because up to this day they still laugh and talk about it.
My friends were gone after 1 week in Singapura and I was left with a very good friend called Leanne from Wales. Thank God she was there because that night the boys were gone and my Dad called me at 3 am on my mobile phone to tell me that my Mum had died. For the next 3 days I couldn't sleep at all, not even a minute. Leanne spent heaps of time with me and supported me at such a hard time. Glenn flew over to be with me for a couple of days and his parents phoned me in Singapore. As well, his sister, my friend Susana from Uni in Costa Rica called and I received more than a hundred emails from friends in the next few days. I answered each and every one of them which took lots of internet cafe hours to do and millions of tears.
Because URS has an office in Singapore, the manager (Marylin Lauria back then) decided that I should get out of the POW and move to her beautiful and fancy apartment in Chinatown. It was very nice of her although she had to travel and leave me at home with a set of keys. Glenn arrived and stayed with me at Marylin's place for 3 days and then 4 days after he left, my visa was approved. The next day the visa was stamped in my passport at the Australian High Commision and then I flew the following day to Darwin.
Started working for URS Darwin on the 25th of September of 2006.
More to come soon
Singapore surprised me as an Asian city, so safe, so efficient, so clean and at the same time so artificial, like a little model city, absolutely incredible train transportation system SMRT and cheap taxis. I can still remember that voice in my head: "Please mind the platform gap", "Thank for riding the SMRT", lol! every now and then I repeat that inside my head, even today. The most fascinating part of flying to Singapore was flying during the day on a brand new QANTAS plane that day and looking over the window hundreds of Indonesian Islands most of them consisting of incredible mountains and volcanoes.
On that trip to Singapore I did not make that many friends, after all it was a 3 day run to Asia, once again to come back and get 3 more months on my tourist visa. The day I left for Singapore I had a phone call from Rio Tinto, just before boarding the plane at the Darwin International Terminal and I told them that I'll call them back when back in Oz in 3 days.
On the way back to Oz I made it back to Alice Springs and a week later Glenn and I drove to Darwin, Glenn was promoted to NT manager for CVA and we did it in 3 days because we stopped in different places along the way. Once in Darwin, I had my interview with Rio Tinto (known as Energy Resourses of Australia or the Ranger Uranium Mine in Kakadu National Park). Kirsty was the Civil Engineer in charge of the mine and desperately had been looking for another engineer to help her for more than 6 months, so she was real happy when I showed up on the map.
The next 3 months would only become a nightmare dealing with DIMIA to get me sponsored to work in Australia. Rio Tinto gave up and ended up refering me to URS, an engineering firm they contract with to do jobs for them. Andrew, the senior civil engineer for URS Darwin contacted me and then I had an interview with him. Another 2 engineering firms would contact me as well and at the end I had 3 different ones desperate to sponsor me. I decided for URS as I was very keen on working for the Ranger Mine in Jabiru on a fly in and fly out basis for 6 months.
URS paid for me to go to Sydney and do a HAZWOPER course, and meet with the Immigration Firm they use for their sponsored employees, so I took advantage of the free ride and arrived there a week earlier and spent some more time in the Central Coast with Glenn's Mum and Dad which included a real good trip in Sydney and I did all the touristy things in Sydney. Unfortunately because of my tourist visa, I was prevented from applying for any other visa while in Australia, so even though the Immigration Firm tried to apply for a waiver on my case at the end, I had to leave Australia and go to Singapore and wait there until my visa was approved.
Anyway, back in Darwin from Sydney and waiting for DIMIA to answer me on the waiver and visa application, Glenn and I did another trip to Alice Springs to drop a troop carrier with which something went wrong and we ended up spending my 30th birthday in Tennant Creek. It was a birthday to never forget. The day we finally made it to Alice and had a great dinner at the Lasseters Casino and catch up with some people in Alice. Then back to Darwin on a QANTAS flight and the bad news that I had to leave again.
My Mum was very ill by this days and I think the last time I was able to speak to her on the phone was around my birthday, the day I flew to Singapore with Tiger Airways (2nd of September). I tried calling home and my brother told me Mum was very very bad and in bed, in a sort of comatose state.
The next 3 weeks I spent in Little India at the Prince of Wales Backpacker (POW) with some amazing people that I met in my dorm room. At one stage we were all boys, all of them from the UK except for me, great times and great friends. What a blast we had going to the pubs and after not getting drunk ever in more than 10 years, one night it seemed like the purpose of the UK people was to get Pablo Eski Bar drunk and they achieved it. I must have been so hilarious because up to this day they still laugh and talk about it.
My friends were gone after 1 week in Singapura and I was left with a very good friend called Leanne from Wales. Thank God she was there because that night the boys were gone and my Dad called me at 3 am on my mobile phone to tell me that my Mum had died. For the next 3 days I couldn't sleep at all, not even a minute. Leanne spent heaps of time with me and supported me at such a hard time. Glenn flew over to be with me for a couple of days and his parents phoned me in Singapore. As well, his sister, my friend Susana from Uni in Costa Rica called and I received more than a hundred emails from friends in the next few days. I answered each and every one of them which took lots of internet cafe hours to do and millions of tears.
Because URS has an office in Singapore, the manager (Marylin Lauria back then) decided that I should get out of the POW and move to her beautiful and fancy apartment in Chinatown. It was very nice of her although she had to travel and leave me at home with a set of keys. Glenn arrived and stayed with me at Marylin's place for 3 days and then 4 days after he left, my visa was approved. The next day the visa was stamped in my passport at the Australian High Commision and then I flew the following day to Darwin.
Started working for URS Darwin on the 25th of September of 2006.
More to come soon
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