Part II

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